Investigation of 7th grade students' scientific creativity levels and opinions on problem posing processes

The aim of the study is to examine the scientific creativity levels of secondary school 7th grade students and their views on problem posing processes. Considering the purpose of the study, it was thought that it would be appropriate to use a survey study, which is one of the quantitative research methods. For this purpose, the Scientific Creativity Scale was used to determine the participants' scientific creativitylevels. To examine their problem-solving situations, the Problem-Posing Test (PPT), developed by the researcher, was utilized in the study.While developingthe PPT, problem-posing approaches present in the literature were examined.As a widely accepted and fundamental approach in numerous studies, including this one, the problem-posing approach proposed and subjected to tripartite categorization by Stoyanova and Ellerton (1996) was adopted.Furthermore, participants' views on the problems they posed were determined using a Semi-Structured Interview Form (SSIF), and the collected data were analyzed through content analysis.As a result, the studyfound that the scientific creativity levels of the students in the study group were below average. The participating students were divided into two groups based on their scientific creativity levels. Students scoring above the average were defined as the upper group, while those scoring below were identified as the lower group. In all problem-posing categories, students in the upper group were more successful than those in the lower group. However, the accuracy rate of posing mathematical problems was low in both groups.According to the PPT results, the activities in which both students in the lower and upper groups were most successful were unstructured, structured, and semi-structured problem-posing activities, respectively.