LEARNING GEOMETRY IN KINDERGARTEN STUDENTS: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY INVESTIGATING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MATHEMATICAL ABILITY AND MATHEMATICAL CREATIVITY

One of the most important goals of contemporary education is the liberation of thinking and the development of students’ creativity. The cultivation of creative thinking should begin at a very early age during the teaching process. The aim of the present study is to examine how the mathematical ability and mathematical creative thinking (fluency, flexibility, originality) of kindergarten students change following a three-month intervention program that focuses on the development of students’ spatial reasoning, their ways of perceiving geometric shapes and to develop the ability to identify different solution strategies for a given problem. Data were collected from 14 students in a kindergarten classroom, who were assessed before, during, and after the intervention program. The analysis of the results reveals interesting associations among the variables of the study. Article visualizations: