Creative Thinking in Mathematics in Israeli High School Students

Abstract

The authors distinguished both theoretically and empirically between academic and creative abilities in mathematics. The former was postulated as intelligence applied to mathematics and the latter as creative thinking, operationally defined as ideational fluency, applied to mathematics. The findings of a large-scale study of 10th and 11th grade students (N = 1,090) conducted in Israel indicated that creative thinking constitutes a necessary but not sufficient component in creative thinking in mathematics. The practical implications of these findings are that it would be worthwhile to add reliable measures of both general creative thinking and domain-specific creative ability in mathematics, such as the ones developed in the current study, to IQ scores and school grades in order to identify pupils with such abilities and to help them realize their mathematical talent.