Procedural fluency is one of the essential capabilities that students need to possess in mathematics. To put it simply, procedural fluency is the knowledge of how to conduct a mathematical procedure. Repetitive practice or drill are usually employed to improve students’ procedural knowledge. On the other hand, many others say that mathematics learning should set a higher goal, rather than just ‘knowing how to do’. Instead of drilling, open-ended tasks are said to be the best match and to improve problem solving skills and creativity. Mathematical etude offers both of them. This study aimed to help students develop deeper insights of rich-tasks like Mathematical Etude. A total of 28 middle school students were administered the Mathematical Etude task sheet and were interviewed about their obstacles in solving the task. The data obtained were qualitatively analysed. The results showed that most students found the Mathematical Etude was challenging because they have not got used to such tasks. More findings and suggestions were elaborated in the text.
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