Understanding young students’ mathematical creative thinking processes through eye-tracking-stimulated recall interview

摘要

Abstract Most research has focused solely on understanding high school or college students’ mathematical creative thinking abilities while understanding younger students’ creative thinking in mathematics was ignored. These studies of older students have focused mainly on students’ creative products rather than creative processes. The authors of the present study investigated four young elementary school students’ creative processes through eye-tracking (ET) and stimulated recall interview (SRI) techniques while they engaged in multiple representations (MRs) of mathematical problems. Our qualitative case study revealed what phases four elementary school students’ creative processes in MRs involve and how they achieve original ideas. The results revealed that neither Wallas’ (1926) creative process of mathematicians nor Schindler and Lilienthal’s (2020) creative process of a high school student could fully explain the creative processes of four young elementary school students in the present study. The findings from the present study emphasize that four young students’ creative processes are difficult to predict as it is non-linear compared to professional mathematicians’ creative process, but young students’ creative processes can be demystified through ET and SRI techniques. The present study also emphasizes the importance of external factors (e.g., teachers, peers, environment) for the four elementary school students to get different perspectives to achieve creative ideas in mathematics.