An analysis of elementary school 5th grade students? problem solving performance on non-routine open-ended questions

The purpose of this research is analysing of solutions of the nonroutine open ended questions depending on four arithmetical operations for the 5th grade. In this study, qualitative method was used for analysing the solutions of 5th grade mathematic class students for the nonroutine open ended questions.The data collection tool of the research has been created with 6 question which are appropriate for the 5th class students level by discussing professional researchers opinions and executing two pilot applications on students.The research was carried out in three steps, including two pilots and the original application. The first pilot application was carried out with the 5th grade class students (N=42) at an elementary school which is affiliated to Minister of Education, during the fall semester of the 2011-2012 academic year. The second pilot application has executed with the 5th grade class students (N=47) at an elementary school which is affiliated to Minister of Education to provide the item analysis of each non-routine open ended problems. The main application has been performed with the students (N=60) of the two 5th grade class in the spring semester of the 2011-2012 academic year.During collecting data, the worksheet which is prepared by the researcher and includes open ended questions is used. At this phase, for each questions and as general view point, the answers of the 5th grade students are analysied in detail and the percentage (%) and frequency (f) is described to quantify to qualitative data.According to findings of this research, students have been able to answer the questions of the non-routine open ended problems with single answer minimum %36.67 and maximum %75 percentages although there are more than one correct answers. The research is showed that the students are able to provide success to solve the non-rountine problems with more than one correct answer as being appropriate of the purpose of the these kind of problems with minimum %5 and maximum %35 percentages. Results of the study is showed that students are not able to find more than one correct answers for the open ended mathematics problemsKey Words: Matematics education, open-ended problems, non-routine problems, problem solving.