Students' feedback on teaching mathematics through the calculational method

This paper describes a study conducted at the University of Nottingham, whose goal was to assess whether the students registered on the first-year module ¿Mathematics for Computer Scientists¿ appreciate the calculational method. The study consisted of two parts: ¿Proof Reading¿ and ¿Problem Solving¿. The goal of ¿Proof Reading¿ was to determine what the students think of calculational proofs, compared with more conventional ones, and which are easier to verify; we also assessed how their opinions changed during the term. The purpose of ¿Problem Solving¿ was to determine if the methods taught have influenced the students' problem-solving skills. Frequent criticisms of our approach are that we are too formal and that the emphasis on syntactic manipulation hinders students' understanding. Nevertheless, the results show that most students prefer or understand better the calculational proofs. On the other hand, regarding the problem-solving questions, we observed that, in general, the students maintained their original solutions.