Development of a mathematical test for creativity of middle school students

This dissertation presents the development of a mathematical creativity test and research on its psychometric properties. The study was conducted in six public schools in the city of Eskişehir and in the Research and Practice Center for High Ability Education (UYEP Center) at Anadolu University between 2015 and 2018. The sample of the study included 1129 middle school students. The MCT consists of problem posing, conjecture posing, and proof subscales. Each scale has two items. The scores of MCT are composed of fluency, flexibility and creativity quotient. For construct validity, EFA yielded a 3-factor solution, which were problem posing, conjecture posing, and proof subscales. The total variance explained by the scale was found as 63.36%. CFA confirmed the 3-factor solution and all fit indices were found as perfect. For criterian validity, one-way ANOVA for independent samples was conducted to compare scores of students from different classes and it showed that there was a significant differences F(3,876)=9.820,…,48.452, p<.001. The relationship between scores of the MCT and school report of math lesson was investigated using Pearson correlation coefficient. There was a strong, positive relationship between the two variables rfluency=.504, rflex.=.554, rcq=.550; p<.001. The internal consistency of the test was calculated as α_(flu.)=.831; α_flex=.780; α_cq=.852 and the interrater reliability of the test was found as 〖ICC〗_(flu.)=.991; 〖ICC〗_(flex.)=.981; 〖ICC〗_cq=.988. Keywords: Mathematical creativity, Assessment of mathematical creativity, Problem posing, Conjecture posing, Proof.