Neuroscience study: Gender and mathematical creative thinking skills in vocational high school students

Abstract

The main idea in this article is looking at the creative thinking patterns in mathematics learning viewed from gender on vocational high school students. Creative thinking skills are cognitive processes, and cognitive processes are inseparable from how the brain processes work. To see the ability to think creatively, we have to see how the process of creative thinking happens. This is a neuroscience study in mathematics with a quasi-experimental design. We tried to describe the relationship among neuroscience, mathematics creative thinking skills, and gender. We involved 30 male students (automotive major) and 30 female students (accounting major) from the 12th-grade of Islamic Center Vocational High School of Cirebon, West Java, Indonesia. Statistics test used was independent sample t-test to see about mean differences of males and female group. There are three indicators about mathematical creative thinking used are fluency, flexibility and novelty. Finally, we found that male students and female students have their own structure of the brain. Female student has a higher ability of mathematical creative thinking skills than male students in Islamic Centre Cirebon, West Java, Indonesia.