Investigation of the relationship between gifted students' mathematical ability and mathematical creativity skills

This study aims to examine the relationship between mathematical ability and creativity in gifted middle school students, and the moderating effect of fluency and flexibility skills. The research utilized a relational survey model, which is one of the general survey models of quantitative research methods. Purposeful sampling, a non-random sampling method, was employed to form the study group. The research sample consists of 289 middle school students enrolled in the Gifted Education Programs (UYEP) at Anadolu University. Test of Mathematical Talent (TMT) was used to assess the mathematical ability levels of the participants, and Creative Mathematical Ability Test (C-MAT) was used to evaluate their mathematical creativity levels. Correlation and Simple Linear Regression analyses were conducted to examine the relationship between between mathematical ability and creativity, as well as the predictive effect of ability on creativity. An independent samples t-test was conducted to determine differences in creativity levels by gender and grade. A moderating variable analysis was performed to explore moderating effect of fluency flexibility skills. The analyses revealed a weak but significant positive relationship between participants' mathematical ability and mathematical creativity levels, with mathematical ability predicting 1.4% of the variance in mathematical creativity levels. Moreover, it was found that mathematical creativity levels did not differ significantly by gender but did differ significantly by grade level, favoring 6th-grade students. Additionally, the findings indicate that fluency and flexibility skills can be considered as moderating variables in the relationship between participants' mathematical ability levels and mathematical creativity levels.