Mathematical induction as an educational issue: snapshots from the literature

Abstract Mathematical Induction (MI) plays a central role in mathematics, both for its theoretical and foundational implications and for the variety of its applications as a proving or defining scheme. Over the last decades, research in Mathematics Education has investigated MI from a didactic perspective, producing numerous studies with different foci of analysis. This paper presents a review of this body of research. Relevant studies have been firstly searched on the online database SCOPUS and then snowballing was applied to include other not yet found papers. This process resulted in a corpus of 30 studies, whose analysis is presented in this paper. Three main directions of discussion are identified: logical-epistemological aspects involved in MI, students’ difficulties with MI, and effective teaching experiences for the learning of MI. Overall, this review underscores the multifaceted complexity of MI as an educational issue, spanning logical-epistemological and didactic dimensions. Hopefully the presented discussion can provide a useful starting point for educators and researchers looking to delve into this theme.