Evaluating the suitability of mathematical thinking problems for senior high-school students by including mathematical sense making and global planning

The mathematics curriculum often provides for relatively few mathematical thinking problems or non-routine problems that focus on a deepening of understanding mathematical concepts and the problem-solving process. To develop such problems, methods are required to evaluate their suitability. The purpose of this preliminary study was to find such an evaluation method by including mathematical sense making and global planning. Eighteen 11th-grade high-school students, divided into three groups of three pairs, solved six mathematical thinking problems that included the finding of a numeric solution and the writing of mathematical texts and arguments. Content analysis of the students’ solution procedures provided for three kinds of hierarchically ordered mathematical sense-making categories. The results showed the expected statistically significant difference between the kinds of problems, though only mathematical sense making enabled the exclusion of the routine problem. The implications for practice are discussed.