The effect of mathematical modelling instruction on gifted middle school students' compuational thinking skills, creative problem solving skills and self-efficacy towards research - questioning

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of Mathematical Modeling education on the Computer Thinking Skills, Creative Problem Solving Characteristics and Research Inquiry self-efficacy of gifted middle school students. Nested research design, one of the mixed research designs, is used in the study. In the quantitative part, pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design without control group was used and in the qualitative part, phenomenological research design was used. In the study, 40 gifted students from 6th and 7th grade students who were diagnosed with special ability with appropriate sampling from non-random sampling types constitute the study group. In the experimental application, six mathematical modeling activities created by adopting model building processes were implemented with an 8-week training. Within the scope of this study, the "Computer Thinking Skill Levels Scale (α=0.809)" was used to determine the extent to which mathematical modeling activities affected the computer thinking skills of middle school students, and the "Creative Problem Solving Characteristics Inventory (α=0.73 to 0.88)" was used to measure the effect of mathematical modeling activities on creative problem solving levels; "Attitude Towards Research Inquiry Scale (α=0.756)" to measure the extent to which mathematical modeling education affects the attitudes of gifted middle school students towards inquiry, and 'Semi-structured Interview Form' to determine the views of gifted middle school students towards mathematical modeling education were used as data collection tools. Dependent Sample T-Test analysis was used to analyze quantitative data and content analysis method was used to analyze qualitative data. As a result, mathematical modeling training is an effective tool in improving gifted middle school students' perceptions of computer thinking skills and creative problem solving. This effect is attributed to the fact that students find problem solving processes more fun and meaningful, make connections with real life and enjoy group work. In addition, there was a significant improvement in students' research and inquiry skills, especially in the "curiosity" dimension.