Creative reasoning more beneficial for cognitively weaker students

International audienceIn a study with 91 upper-secondary students the efficiency of two different types of mathematical practice tasks, procedural based algorithmic tasks and creative reasoning tasks, were studied. It was found that although the algorithmic group outperformed the creative group during practice the latter performed significantly better on a follow-up test. Closer inspection revealed that the difference in test performance was, contrary to common beliefs, driven by the cognitively weaker students