Investigating the Effects of Problem-Posing on High School Students’ Mathematical Learning

Problem-posing activities have received more attention in mathematics education in recent decades. Problem-posing activities’ effects on improving students’ mathematical learning have been studied by extant studies. This study implemented an explanatory sequential mixed-method research design to investigate the impact of problem-posing activities in the walkSTEM program on high school students’ mathematical outcomes. The researcher analyzed students’ problem-posing work and compared the content complexity levels of student-generated problems in different activities. The result suggested that students posed the more complex problems in the Final Walk project and they also posed more complex problems in the post-survey compared to the pre-survey. Students’ responses in the pre- and post-survey were investigated along with the post-intervention interviews. There was no statistically significant difference between students’ mathematical interest in the pre- and post-survey. The qualitative analyses revealed that students started to think more, think deeper, ask more questions, and connect topics and content they learned about at school to everyday objects and real-life scenarios. The researcher also explored the relations among students’ problem-posing skills, problem-solving skills, mathematical dispositions, conceptual understanding, and procedural fluency. According to the findings, problem-posing performance was positively correlated to students’ mathematical interest and problem-solving skills, and conceptual understanding was a significant predictor for students’ problem-posing performance. The online meeting recordings were analyzed qualitatively to identify instructors’ scaffold strategies to support students’ problem-posing. Scaffold strategies identified from the recordings were: modeling problem-posing, providing feedback to student-generated problems, and utilizing education technology to enhance students’ participation level. In conclusion, this study validated problem-posing’s positive effects in improving problem-posing skills and mathematical dispositions, and helping students connect school mathematics to real-world applications. The study also compared students’ performance and preferences in different types of problem-posing tasks and future research could investigate how to better incorporate and scaffold these tasks in problem-posing programs