Secondary School Students’ Abilities Through Problem Posing Activities

Creativity in problem posing activities can be measured or assessed via students’ abilities through problem posing activities. In this study, the researchers considered secondary school students’ abilities in problem posing activities can be measured via two main stages, namely “Uno problem” stage and “Due problem” stage. “Uno problem” stage requires students to add extra conditions from the original textbook problem and create a new demand. On the other hand, “Due problem” stage requires students to remove one or two conditions from the original textbook problem and create a new demand. This paper reports the study that examined secondary school students’ abilities through problem posing activities. The purpose of the study was threefold. First, to investigate secondary school students’ abilities in the problem posing activities, second, to identify secondary school students’ performances in the problem posing activities, and third to evaluate the proposed teaching-learning material, which consisting of problem posing activities. The study involved the use of exploratory, quantitative and qualitative approaches as its study design. Sixty students involved in the test and interview sessions, and ten mathematics teachers involved in answering the questionnaire sessions. The results of the study revealed that more than three quarter of the students were “more able” in generating “Uno problem” correctly if compared to “Due problem”. In other words, the students were “more able” to add extra conditions from the original textbook problem and create a new demand. On the other hand, it was found that more than half of the students were able to perform four out of five questions correctly. So this means that students’ problem posing performances can be nurtured. In addition, the proposed teaching-learning material consisting of problem posing activities, which is appropriate to students’ different abilities and performances can be used to enhance teaching and learning mathematics. Keywords: structured problem posing activities, uno problem, due problem, problem posing framewor