Tracking down gifted students’ creative thinking in solving mathematics problems

Abstract

Gifted students have unique and diverse traits. Most of them are easily identified when they do things differentlyand enjoy solving problems.The uniqueness of ideas they propose is essential to be explored. Particularly in Mathematics, gifted students usually come up with novel ideas in accomplishing problems. Therefore, this study is aimed to know the gifted students creative thinking in solving Relation and Function problem.This qualitative research conducted in one of private schools in Makassar, South Sulawesi, Indonesia by taking the gifted studentsfrom the eighth grade.There were two gifted students chosen to participate in this study. The research was carried out using several stages. First, the researchersestablished an instrument in a test form and gave it to the teacher in the school who wanted to test the gifted students. Problems in the test were in accordance with the indicator of creative thinking which consisted of fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration.Furthermore, students solved the problems and wrote it in the students work paper. Teacher would do a brief interview with the participants related to the answers in the work paper. After that, the researchers executed the data and analyzed it. Lastly, the results of analyzing data were presented in the form of writing description. As a result, four problems were solved by the gifted students. Although solutions of two problems were more likely similar, the remaining solution problems were vary. Overall, both of students are able to solve all the questions which means that the gifted students meet all the indicators of creative thinking in solving problems.They are creative in using multifaceted ways in delivering answer.