Effects of organizing mathematics learning activities emphasizing heuristics thinking on mathematical creativity and problem posing and solving ability of seventh grade students
Abstract:
The purposes of this research were 1) to study mathematical creativity of seventh grade students which were taught by organizing mathematics learning activities emphasizing heuristics thinking 2) to compare mathematical creativity of seventh grade students between groups which were taught by organizing mathematics learning activities emphasizing heuristics thinking and group which were taught by organizing conventional mathematics learning activities 3) to study mathematics problem posing and solving ability of seventh grade students which were taught by organizing mathematics learning activities emphasizing heuristics thinking. 4) to compare mathematics problem posing and solving ability of seventh grade students between group which were taught by organizing mathematics learning activities emphasizing heuristics thinking and group which were taught by organizing conventional mathematics learning activities. The populations of this research were seventh grade students in Rayong Education service area office 1, Office of The Basic Education Commission, Ministry of Education. The subjects were 100 seventh grade students in academic year 2009 in Watpapradoo School. They were divided into two groups, one experimental group with 50 students and one controlled group with 50 students. Students in experimental group were organized mathematics learning activities emphasizing heuristics thinking and those in control group were organized conventional mathematics learning activities. The research instruments were the mathematical creativity test and the mathematics problem posing and solving ability test. The experimental materials were lesson plans for organized mathematics learning activities emphasizing heuristics thinking and the conventional lesson plans. The data were analyzed by means of arithmetic mean, means of percentage, standard deviation, and t-test. The results of the study revealed that: 1) Mathematical creativities of students who were organized mathematics learning activities emphasizing heuristics thinking were higher than 60% of the total scores. 2) Mathematical creativities of these students were higher than those of students who were organized conventional mathematics learning activities at the .05 level of significance. 3) Mathematical problem posing and solving abilities of students who were organized mathematics learning activities emphasizing heuristics thinking were higher than 60% of the total scores. 4) Mathematical problem posing and solving abilities of these students were higher than those of students who were organized conventional mathematics learning activities at the .05 level of significance.