The student's claim is incorrect because in beta-minus decay, the atomic number of the nucleus actually increases by one. In the given equation, carbon-10 (^10C) decays into boron-10 (^10B) and an electron with an anti-neutrino. Since the atomic number of boron is 5 (one more than carbon, which has an atomic number of 6), this is consistent with beta-minus decay where a neutron in the nucleus is converted into a proton, thereby increasing the atomic number by one.
