Logical reasoning in life situations and in mathematics

Abstract

Having a certain amount of knowledge from the area of Propositional Logic can refine logical reasoning in life situations and in mathematics. Judgment is an important activity where we obtain logical consequences arising from the assumptions made. The article provides examples of correct and incorrect judgments. It draws attention to the mistakes that students make in determining the correctness of their judgments. By using appropriate methods, the mentioned inaccuracies can be eliminated and thus the teaching process will be improved, and the students’ level of knowledge increased. We analyzed the knowledge of students at the Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra in the years 2018 to 2019 from the area of propositional logic. The tasks in the tests were aimed at on the basic knowledge of propositional logic. The main hypothesis was that by introducing statements of logic into teaching we can improve logical reasoning not only in mathematics, but also in everyday life situations. In determining the main hypothesis of our research, we relied on mathematical knowledge related to definitions and sentences and teaching experience. We performed a pedagogical experiment in two different groups. After evaluating the test results, differences in knowledge were found between the two tested groups.