Fostering mathematical creativity with problem posing activities: An action research with gifted students

Abstract

The aim of this research was to foster the skills of problem posing and mathematical creativity of the gifted student having difficulties with posing problems. The participants consisted of six 7th grade students. With this purpose, a 30-h action plan consisting of 18 problem posing activities based on the model of Stoyanova (1997) was prepared. The Problem Posing Test was used as the pre-test and post-test to measure the skills of problem posing and mathematical creativity. At the first step of data analysis, posed problems was analyzed by the Problem Posing Assessment Rubric in order to calculate the pre-test and post-test problem posing scores. Then the problems were analyzed based on two components of creativity, fluency and flexibility, and the composite creativity scores were calculated. The findings showed that the gifted students had significantly higher post-test scores on both measures. Therefore, it can be said that the action plan improved the problem posing and mathematical creativity skills of the gifted students.