A Development of a Learning Model of Mathematical Proofs for Abilities in Writing Proofs

Abstract

ABSTRACT

   The purposes of this research were to 1) design and develop a Learning model of mathematical proofs to improve the ability in writing proofs, and 2) study writing proofs abilities of bachelor student mathematics major on number system. The research was divided into three stages; stage 1: design the model by synthesizing theories, related research and analyze the teaching experience of the experts, stage 2: develop the model to the high level of appropriateness in order to check the accuracy and appropriateness of the model by 3 experts, and stage 3: implement the model, the sample were 30 bachelor students who are in mathematics program. The research instruments were 4 lesson plans for 12 hours and data collected by writing proof ability test, both of pre- and post-tests. Data was analyzed with statistic methods to find the percentage, mean, standard deviation and t-test.

This result of this study revealed that;

    1. There are 4 steps in learning mathematical proofs: a) understand the proving statement to, b) translate the statement to logical statement, c) choose how to prove and d) write proofs.

    2. The writing proof abilities of the mathematics students who had learn number system by the learning mathematical proofs model had pre- and post-tests average score of 8.43 (33.73%) and 16.27 (65.07%). The writing proofs abilities score had post-test higher than pre-test at the .05 level of statistical significance and post-test score higher than 60% criteria at the .05 level.