ENHANCING PRIMARY FIVE PUPILS' CREATIVE PERFORMANCE IN MATHEMATICS THROUGH NON-TRADITIONAL TEACHING METHODS

Abstract

The focus of this study is to investigate the possibility of enhancing the creative performance in mathematics of Standard 5 pupils, and the effectiveness of non-traditional teaching methods, such as brainstorming, analogy, computer and imagination imagery. This study also explores whether the enhancement of creative performance in mathematics of pupils will also enhance their general creativity and their mathematical achievement. The enhancement of creative performance of pupils with different gender, learning styles and mental abilities were also considered. Five research questions were formulated and data ware analysed to answer these questions. Only four strategies were studied. The reasons for this selection are that most literature reviews have shown that each of these strategies when studied individually is effective In the enhancement of creative performance of American pupils in mathematics. However, local studies on these four strategies comparing their effectiveness in the enhancement of creative performance in mathematics are lacking. The data were collected by a number of instruments administered to a sample of 1212 pupils comprising 637 boys and 575 girls from six National Type Primary Chinese Schools in the urban areas of the District of Segamat. All the pupils were in their fifth year of primary school. The instruments used were Your Style of Learning and Thinking (SOLAT), Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking Figural Form A and Verbal Form A (TTCT) to measure general creativity and five self-constructed instruments. They are the General Mathematical Creativity Test (GMCT) and the Mathematical Creativity Unit Tests (MCUT1, MCUT2, MCUT3 and MCUT4). A number of statistical analyses was used to analyse the data. They included t-tests, Pearson product-moment correlations, one-way analyses of variance, multivariate analyses of variance and covariance and factor analyses under varimax rotations. The findings obtained are as follows: 1. Creative performance in mathematics as measured by the General Mathematical Creativity Test (GMCT) was significantly enhanced by non-traditional teaching methods. 2. Scores on the components of the GMCT, i.e. mathematical originality, fluency and flexibility were increased after having bee:, taught by non-traditional teaching methods. 3. Creative performance in mathematics for pupils taught by non-traditional teaching methods improved significantly irrespective of whether they were from the high, medium or low mental ability groups. 4. Mathematical, creativity of the experimental group was enhanced regardless of pupils’ hemisphericity in learning styles (I.e. left, right or integrated). 5. Mathematical creativity as measured by the mathematical creativity tests (GMCT and MCUT1 to MCUT4) was enhanced In both boys and girls. 6. General Creativity and its components, verbal creativity and figural creativity as measured by the Torrance Tests of Creativity (TTCT) were significantly enhanced after having been taught by non-traditional teaching methods. 7. General creativity and mathematical achievement for both sexes were augmented after the training session. 8. As for the effectiveness of each teaching strategy in the enhancement of creative performance in mathematics as measured by the Mathematical Creativity Unit Tests (MCUT), patterns of performance in decreasing order for each strategy are as follows: (a). As for unit one and three, imagery is a better strategy than computer in the enhancement of creative performance of mathematics. Computer strategy is more effective than analogy. However, brainstorming is the least effective. (b). As for the enhancement of unit two and four, computer strategy is the best and brainstorming is the least effective. 9. Mathematical achievement as measured by the four unit tests (SCORE1, SCORE2, SCORE3 and SCORE4) was significantly improved when pupils were taught by the non-traditional teaching methods. Effectiveness of the different teaching strategies in the enhancement of mathematical achievement scores is shown below: (a). For unit one and two, computer strategy was most effective and brainstorming was the least effective. Also, pupils taught by imagery strategy had higher scores in mathematical achievement than those taught by analogy (b). For unit three and four, Imagery strategy is the most effective and again brainstorming is the least effective. However, teaching with computer is better than using analogy in boosting the pupils’ academic score in mathematics. This study has demonstrated that non-traditional teaching methods have effectively helped enhance creativity. Teachers therefore should be encouraged to use and try out Innovative methods such as those used in this study if they wish to develop pupils' creative performance.