Advances in the characterization of university students’ visual thinking through inspection heuristics and representation

Technological advances and the invasion of images impose new educational challenges where it is necessary to use pedagogy of and with images to strengthen the teaching and learning of mathematics and to promote problem-solving strategies. The objective of this article is to present some inspection heuristics and representations used by university students when solving non-routine problems in the context of a mathematical problem-solving course. The methodology was qualitative, with the selection of participants, application of problems and analysis of data for heuristic evidence and representations. The results are part of a broader research that seeks to advance in the characterization of visual thinking in the teaching and learning process of mathematics at the university level. First-year students from three campuses of the Antonio Nariño University in Colombia participated in the qualitative study. This article provides a definition of visual thinking and an analysis of what we call inspection heuristics. Among the inspection heuristics used by students in visual thinking processes, object decomposition, coloring, demarcation with pictograms, comparison/contrast, symbolic demarcation, and others were identified, which are explained in the article. Each heuristic used by students has a purpose in problems-solving.