Students’ creative thinking in solving geometry problems

Abstract

Students' creative thinking needs to be developed to help them construct new ideas in solving mathematical problems. One of the obstacles that hinder the advancement of creative thinking processes is the incompatibility of the learning approach and cognitive styles. This study aims to describe the students' creative thinking processes in solving geometry problems based on field-dependent (FD) and field-independent (FI) models of cognitive style. Two students of Mathematics Education Study Program of Widya Mandira Catholic University Kupang participated in this study. Each participant represents different cognitive styles of the field-dependent and field-independent models. The results showed that the participant with the FI cognitive style was able to perform creative thinking processes better than the FD cognitive style participant. This can be observed at all stages. In the preparation stage, the FI cognitive style participant was more capable of expressing important ideas from the given problems; at the incubation stage, she was able to arrange ideas to solve mathematical problems by writing its detailed procedure; at the stage of illumination, she was able to express her ideas verbally; and at the verification stage, re-checking the results of her work.