CHALLENGING TASKS – 13 YEARS ZINGY-MATHEMATICS-OLYMPIAD

Abstract

The Zingy-Math-Olympiad [ZMO] was held over 13 years with a total of 2102 third graders (~49.43% girls) in the context of university seminars on mathematical giftedness. The almost achieved gender parity is ensured by the requirement that one girl and one boy per participating class should be sent to the ZMO as their mathematics representatives. The tasks, which vary in their degree of difficulty, are divided into 7 rubrics: R1 simple arithmetical introductory tasks, R2 & R3 more demanding arithmetical skills tasks, R4 combinatorically solvable tasks, R5 word problems, R6 pattern and geometric figure tasks, R7 final tasks. The students’ performance in the seminar consists in developing task sets and the evaluation with final scoring of the task completions, all based on research and discussions on relevant literature. In accordance with previous research, there is a tendency for the participating boys to be (slightly) superior to the participating girls, especially in the peak performance. In addition to an analysis of the tasks and their processing, a key question for the future is which cognitive abilities are influencing factors for successful mathematical problem solving in order to be able to address them specifically in mathematics lessons in a further step. So far, there are only meager approaches to this.*) Keywords: functional-/predicative-logical thinking, gender differences, mathematical giftedness, primary school, problem solving