Investigation of problem posing and problem solving skills of vocational high school students in context of functional thinking

This study aims to examine the problem posing and solving skills of vocational high school students in context of functional thinking. The design of the research is quantitative survey research. The sample of the research consist of 265 vocational high school students by convenience sampling method. In this study data were obtained from problem posing and solving tests prepared by the researcher in the light of the literatüre. The data obtained was analyzed using the content analysis method. In this regard, first of all, students' problem posing and solving skills were examined. Then, the answers given to the problem posing and solving tests were analyzed again in the context of functional thinking. In addition, the students' problem posing and solving scores were calculated and the relationship between the two scores was examined. As a result of the research, it was seen that the majority of the students posed solvable but easy problems and asked the closest term that was not given. However, in the problem solving test, it was determined that the majority of the students could correctly answer the problems in which the close term was asked, but could not correctly answer the problems in which the rule was asked. At the same time, it was determined that students mostly preferred list representation and concrete strategy in their solutions. It was concluded that there was a significant relationship, albeit at a low level, between problem posing and solving test scores. Keywords: Problem posing, Problem solving, Vocational high school, Functional thinking