Investigating the middle school students' mathematical thinking process in geometry problems

The purpose of this study was to investigate eight grade students specializing and generalizing process in the geometry problems. In addition to generalizing process, the strategies that enable students to generalize were examined. In this research qualitative research methods were used to collect, to analyze, and to interpret data. This research was conducted with 8 eighth-grade students in the 2014-2015 academic year at the middle schools in the center of Eskişehir and clinical interview was used to collect data. Students were given five geometry problems, and after they completed the solutions, they were asked to solve the problem and reach the same generalization with different strategy. Thematic analysis was used to analyze data. The obtained data was analyzed based on the questions and each question was specifically investigated in the context of mathematical thinking. Findings were displayed according to the themes and sub-themes which was carried out within this processes and tables were used to show what strategies students used to generalize and which strategy were stuck their solutions. Results revealed that students' generalizations differed according to the context of the problem. It was deduced that students who successfully specializing and had difficulty in generalizing were generally reached the expected generalizations. Furthermore, some of the students who verbally or geometrically express the generalization had difficulty in algebraic generalization of the problem. In addition, successful students made expected generalization by using more than one strategy and different ways as they seeking relation between facts. Key Words: Mathematics education, mathematical thinking, specializing,generalizing, strategies of generalizations, geometry problems, problem solving