Abstract
Game-theoretical interpretation of logical semantics has been first suggested in 1950s. Although it is well know among professionals, it is often excluded from introductory courses in logic. In this paper we examine whether and to what extent would including game semantics in the syllabus of an introductory course of predicate and propositional logic prove to be beneficial to students’ understanding of the subject. To that purpose, we have exposed two groups of undergraduate students of computer science to game semantics as part of recitations for the course Propositional and Predicate Logic. We focus mainly on how this affects students’ mastery of two particular topics – alternating quantification and restricted quantification. Observations were made during the recitations to evaluate any changes in students’ approach to solving relevant problems in classroom. Moreover, before the final test of the recitations one of the groups was given a brief review of game semantics and the other was not. We have measured the difference in performance of these two groups and the results support the hypothesis that game semantics helps students master certain topics of predicate logic. We reference some of the later research in psychology and pedagogy to help us explain this effect.
Highlights
The paper is based on the authors experience as a teaching assistant for the course Propositional and Predicate Logic
We focus on the two particular topics of our interest, alternating quantification and restricted quantification, in more detail, describing how students respond to certain model examples in classroom and measuring how an in-class review of game semantics affects students’ results in a final test
While the percentage of students who got the whole problem wrong was almost the same in both groups, the percentage of those who got the whole problem right was dramatically higher in group A, the group that reviewed game semantics before the test
Summary
The paper is based on the authors experience as a teaching assistant for the course Propositional and Predicate Logic. It is an one-semester introductory course of logic taught to students in the second year of bachelor programme in computer science. As part of the course, students are introduced to semantics of classical first order predicate logic – the usual Tarski definition, as in [8], Definition 1.1.6., is used for that purpose. The author has decided to present a restricted version of game semantics to two groups of students during recitations. We try to explain, why and how using game semantics in the teaching of predicate logic might be beneficial to students
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