An empirical study of mathematical creativity and students’ opinions on multiple solution tasks

Abstract

Creativity and problem solving are considered to be twenty-first-century competencies, therefore promoting mathematical creativity should be an important part of school mathematics. The study presented in this paper is inspired by the notion of mathematical creativity and the utilization of multiple solution tasks (MSTs) to investigate students’ creativity. Multiple solution tasks are mathematical tasks with an explicit requirement to be solved with different methods. For the purpose of the study, we used a textbook question which allows multiple solution pathways as our research instrument. This MST was administered to first-year mathematics students (18–20 years) along with additional questions related to their experience in school mathematics. The results of the study showed that students had difficulties complying with the demands of the task, but generally have a positive disposition toward MSTs. Moreover, the results underline the necessity of incorporating MSTs in mathematics classroom teaching to create a more coherent corpus of mathematical knowledge. The study also provides an example of how a regular textbook task can be used as an MST.