Exploration of Mathematics Problem Solving Processes of Junior High School Students with Different Levels of Logical Thinking Ability

Problem solving is one of the most important skills for students. Meanwhile, logical thinking is the ability to solve problems by relying on mental abilities. The purpose of this research is to describe the problem solving process of students with different levels of logical thinking. This research is an exploratory qualitative research involving eighth grade students of SMP N 5 Tuban who have different levels of logical thinking as research subjects. The subjects who were interviewed were 4 students. Instruments to measure the level of logical thinking used The Group Assessment of Logical Thinking (GALT) while exploring the process of solving problems using the stages of entry, attack, and review. The results of the analysis show that students with high logical thinking skills meet the entry, attack, and review stage. Students with low logical thinking skills meet the entry stage in ‘know’ and ‘want’ aspects only, at the attack stage they only meet the try and possible aspects, and do not meet the review stage at all. Thus, it can be concluded that students with different levels of logical thinking ability have different mathematical problem solving abilities

LEVELING STUDENTS' CREATIVE THINKING IN SOLVING AND POSING MATHEMATICAL PROBLEM

Many researchers assume that people are creative, but their degree of creativity is different. The notion of creative thinking level has been discussed by experts. The perspective of mathematics creative thinking refers to a combination of logical and divergent thinking which is based on intuition but has a conscious aim. The divergent thinking is focused on flexibility, fluency, and novelty in mathematical problem solving and problem posing. As students have various backgrounds and different abilities, they possess different potential in thinking patterns, imagination, fantasy and performance; therefore, students have different levels of creative thinking. A research study was conducted in order to develop a framework for students' levels of creative thinking in mathematics. This research used a qualitative approach to describe the characteristics of the levels of creative thinking. Task-based interviews were conducted to collect data with ten 8thgrade junior secondary school students. The results distinguished five levels of creative thinking, namely level 0 to level 4 with different characteristics in each level. These differences are based on fluency, flexibility, and novelty in mathematical problem solving and problem posing

Assigning and scheduling hierarchical task graphs to heterogeneous resources

Task Scheduling is an important problem having many practical applications. More often than not, precedence constraints exist between tasks, and a common way to capture them is through Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs). A DAG might contain a great number of tasks representing complex real life scenarios. It might be the case that logical groupings of tasks exist giving a hierarchical nature to the graph. Such Hierarchical Task Graphs (HTGs) have nodes that are further analyzed to DAGs or to other HTGs. In this paper a method of solving an HTG problem is presented based on the idea of gradually solving the problem by replacing subgraphs with virtual nodes. Integer Programming is used to generate virtual nodes that replace a subgraph, results from solving the subgraph problem using. So a series of subproblems are solved and starting from the deeper levels of the HTG a solution to the full problem emerges

Critical Thinking Concept Reconstructed

This paper explores the proposition that teaching of critical thinking (CT) should include:  (1) identifying and addressing the many environmental variables acting as barriers to our human thinking, i.e., an open system approach, and (2) utilizing the interrelatedness of the CT building blocks, i.e., creative thinking techniques, levels of learning, hierarchy of human needs, classic problem solving processes, and classic logical reasoning

The students' problem solving through STEM activities, walking monsters

Problem-solving is a complex process and a necessary process in our daily life. It is also a crucial skill in the 21st century for students. This research aims to study students' problem-solving skills in the Walking Monster activity, which is a STEM activity applying the center of mass concept to create a toy, a walking monster. The activity was implemented based on the Blended Learning Classroom strategy. The students were provided on-demand VDO for them to solve the problem following the basic guide of constructing the walking monster before class. During the classroom, which is a face-to-face classroom, the students were further encouraged to integrate Science, Technology Engineering Design, and Mathematical concepts to apply to solve the problem. Thai students who studied in grade 10 were the participants. The students’ learning during the activity was recorded by VDO recording and a student worksheet. The rubric score was used to identify problem-solving processes consisting of four levels: Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor. There are five dimensions of problem-solving processes: Useful Description, Physics Approach, Specific Application of Physics, Mathematical Procedures, and Logical Progression. The results found that students’ problem-solving processes are excellent in Useful Description, fair in Physics Approach, poor in Specific Application of Physics, good in Mathematical Procedures, and good in Logical Progression. Therefore, in solving problems students need the guide tool to apply the physics approach and specific physics concepts to solve problems. REFERENCES Docktor J., Dornfeld J., Frodermann E., Heller K., Hsu L., Jackson K., Mason A., Ryan Q., & Yang J. (2016). Assessing student written problem solutions: A problem-solving rubric with application to introductory physics. Physical Review Physics Education Research, 12(1), 010130. Jung, E. (2021). STEAM Convergence Class Lesson Plan Through Making Walking Monster and Playing Racing Gam. UNESCO UNITWIN Online Content. Korea: Industry-Academic Cooperation Foundation in the Korea National University of Education

Reasoning skills, problem solving ability and academic ability: implications for study programme and career choice in the context of higher education in Thailand.

This thesis examines reasoning skills, problem solving ability, and academic ability from a cohort of final year university students. The purpose of the study was to investigate the influences of academic ability on reasoning skills, and problem solving ability, and vice versa, and to examine whether students from different programmes displayed significant different levels of reasoning skills and problem solving skills. In order to choose which academic programmes to use for the study Holland’s theory of ‘career personality’ was used. This research used primarily quantitative data with an additional qualitative to provide an element of a mixed methods design. The data has been collected from 333 final year students in one university in Thailand with participants following seven programmes related to Holland’s theory. The reasoning skills test was adopted from Jittachaun’s test, and the problem solving ability test was adopted from real life problems and logical problems. The content validity, construct validity, and discriminant validity were reported, and reliability, Cronbach’s Alpha, was .633. The academic ability was taken from the students’ grade point average. The most important finding is reasoning skills, and problem solving ability have some influences on each other approximately 30 percent; however, academic ability did not show much influence on the reasoning skills, and problem solving ability. This shows that academic achievement in university students in Thailand is not a good predictor of high levels of reasoning and problem solving ability. The other findings confirm the differences in those skills between students from different programmes and strengthen the case for using admission tests in Thailand for university admission. The thesis findings also reinforce the view that teaching and assessment in the Thai education system should be more involved with increasing/testing reasoning skills, and problem solving ability. In addition, the new admission system which requires different skills for different programmes is supported by this research result that different categories of programme and career need different skills

Developing and Applying Online Basic Programming Tools to School Students in a Developing Country

Programming helps school students develop problem-solving, critical thinking, and logical reasoning skills. It also helps students develop skills at multiple levels of Bloom's taxonomy, including remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. Several programming tools have been developed to teach coding concepts to school students of different age groups. However, these tools are not well integrated into the Palestinian curriculum due to the inefficient teaching methods in programming. Programming activities focus only on remembering and understanding basic concepts. Therefore, this research focused on studying the importance of applying online programming tools on school students' application and analytical levels, and examining students' perception towards integrating online programming tools in the educational curriculum. A pre/ post experimental design was carried out on 84 children aged 14 years old in four schools in Palestine. The results revealed that 41.16% of students had an increase in their application and analytical levels. The results also revealed that students agreed on integrating online programming tools in schools and that programming helped them improve their problem-solving skills

The Effect of Dyad Interaction and Marital Adjustment on Cognitive Performance in Everyday Logical Problem Solving

The theory of formal operations as a final stage of adult development has come under criticism for various reasons, primarily the overemphasis on logical thought processes which are based on invariant and absolute rules within a closed system. Everyday problems, in contrast, are typically open-ended and are defined by the context in which they are embedded. The purpose of this study was to investigate cognitive behaviors that occurred between two individuals as they cooperatively worked together to solve logical problems. Of interest were the effects of marital adjustment on cognitive performance, the relation between social behaviors, marital adjustment, and cognition, and the influence of familiar versus a stranger dyadic problem-solving setting on cognitive behaviors. It was hypothesized that well adjusted married and stranger dyads would not only demonstrate mastery of problem-solving tasks at the formal operational level, but would also demonstrate more relativistic and/or dialectical problem solving, and more facilitative social behaviors, than poorly adjusted married and stranger dyads. Forty couples between the ages of 35 and 50, who had been married between five and thirty years, were prescreened for verbal intelligence and marital adjustment. They were then randomly assigned to participate in one of four dyadic settings, that is, maritally well versus poorly adjusted couples solving problems in either married or unmarried/stranger dyads. Dyads were administered five formal operational problems. Two of the five were formal logical, or mathematical in nature, while three problems contained both mathematical and interpersonal, or social elements. Each dyad was videotaped during the problem-solving process, beginning with the instructions. Participant averaged about 1 hour and 15 minutes to complete five problems. Analyses of variance were performed on marital adjustment and dyadic setting as related to formal and relativistic cognitions. There were no marital adjustment or dyadic setting differences in overall ability to use formal operations. However, maritally well adjusted stranger and married dyads evidenced significantly more relativistic cognitions, particularly on problems involving a social/everyday element, than poorly adjusted married and stranger dyads. These differences also held constant across each of three increasingly complex levels of relativistic behaviors. Multivariate analyses were performed on four separate social behavior scales as related to formal and relativistic cognitions, as well as marital adjustment and dyadic setting groups. Again, formal operations did not distinguish between the differing social behaviors; however, the social behavior scales, particularly avoidant versus cooperative behaviors, were strongly related to marital adjustment and relativistic thinking