Abstract
<p style='text-indent:20px;'>This study set out to evaluate an intervention that introduced a period of non-routine problem-solving into tertiary STEM lectures at four tertiary institutions in New Zealand for 683 students. The aim was twofold: to attempt to increase student engagement and to introduce them to the kind of domain-free abstract reasoning that involves critical, creative, and innovative thinking. This study was conducted using a mixed-methods approach, utilizing different types of instruments to gather data: comprehensive student pre- and post-test questionnaires, a content validation survey for the questionnaires, focus group interviews (student participants), open-ended questionnaire (lecturer participants), and naturalistic class observations. The main findings are as follows. Students' behavioural engagement was significantly greater during the intervention. Perceptions of the utility value of the activity improved at the end of the semester for all students. There were no significant changes in students' convergent thinking (problem-solving), intuition, or creativity (originality, fluency, and elaboration traits of the divergent thinking) during the course, probably due to the relatively short timescale of the intervention. However, overall, the results of the investigation suggest that with a relatively small effort, teachers can improve STEM student engagement by devoting a few minutes per lecture on non-routine problem-solving. This is something that can be easily implemented, even by those who primarily teach in a traditional lecturing style.</p>
Highlights
In 2012, the New Zealand Government identified, as a priority, the need to address the undersupply of students studying STEM subjects for delivering its Business Growth Agenda1
The project sought to answer four research questions: RQ1: Was use of the lecture-based intervention activity of non-routine problem-solving associated with an increase in engagement? RQ2: Does the integration of non-routine problem-solving in lectures affect participants’ ability to inhibit erroneous intuitive thinking and exhibit creative thinking? research question 3 (RQ3): Are any observed effects moderated by individual differences such as demographic characteristics or prior achievement? RQ4: What were students’ perceptions of the use of non-routine problem-solving as part of their lectures?
Other research [25] has proposed that non-routine questions, or tasks where the approach is not immediately obvious, such as those employed in our study, will encourage deeper student engagement
Summary
This inability to be flexible and creative is a manifestation of the problem of transfer that has not been well understood in the context of mathematics at a high level This prompted the researchers to zoom in on the issue through a novel construct in an attempt to conceptualise the specificity of students’ confidence in regard to applying creativity to solving non-routine problems. A research-informed way to enhance lateral thinking self-efficacy is to incorporate non-routine problem-solving into tertiary education. It is not clear in what format and dosage (type/number of problems, spacing interval, and duration of treatment) this should be done.
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