Creative Problem Posing: Analysis of the Problems Posed Towards Different Strategies by Prospective Mathematics Teachers

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze problems posed by prospective elementary mathematics teachers of towards different strategies in scope of creativity. Participants of the study are 36 prospective teachers, who take the course of “Problem Solving Strategies”. In this course they study problem-solving strategies. At the end of the course, they were asked to pose three problems suitable for the strategies. Each participant posed a total of 27 problems with three problems for each 9 problem-solving strategies. Problems posed by participants were analyzed in terms of the indicators of fluency, flexibility and originality and chi-square independence test was applied so as to determine whether the creativity of problem posing depends on the strategies. It was seen that fluency had the highest average among all strategies excluding the conscious guessing and control strategy. It was seen that the drawing strategy had the highest average among the strategies in scope of flexibility and the conscious guess and control strategy had the highest average among the strategies in scope of originality. Also it as seen that participants’ creativity levels for various strategies are usually high, and in some cases in the higher echelons of the medium category. This small variation is found to be statistically significant.