Mathematical Creativity and Its Subdomain-Specificity. Investigating the Appropriateness of Solutions in Multiple Solution Tasks

Abstract

In mathematics education, researchers often talk about mathematical creativity. However, we see a lack of research on the question of whether such an ability exists for mathematics in general; or whether mathematical creativity should rather be viewed subdomain-specifically; for instance, in the contexts of geometry, algebra, or arithmetic separately. In this paper, we present results of an empirical study investigating upper secondary school students’ performances in Multiple Solution Tasks (MSTs). First, we elaborate on the notion of appropriateness and its influence on the investigation of creativity; and illustrate implications based on the given data. Second, we give an insight into students’ performances along three different MSTs from different mathematical domains and point out correlations between students’ performances in two domains: geometry and algebra. Our results do not support the construct of domain-specific or subdomain-specific creativity, but indicate that mathematical creativity should be considered task-specifically.