An Exploration of Junior High School Students’ Creative Thinking Processes in Solving Integer Problems

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-537-9_20How to use a DOI?

Keywords

creative thinking; fluency; flexibility; originality; elaboration; integer arithmetic

Abstract

This study aims to describe the creative thinking processes of junior high school students in solving integer arithmetic problems based on four indicators of creative thinking: fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration. A qualitative descriptive approach was used, involving three students representing high, medium, and low ability levels. Data were collected through problem-solving tasks and semi-structured interviews, and analyzed according to the four indicators of creative thinking. The results show that high-ability students demonstrated all four indicators of creative thinking. They generated many ideas, applied various strategies to solve problems, showed unique ways of thinking, and provided detailed and logical explanations of their reasoning. Medium-ability students met some indicators, especially fluency and flexibility, but often made mistakes in using parentheses and provided limited explanations of their thought processes. Meanwhile, low-ability students showed less evidence of creative thinking; their ideas were few, strategies lacked variation, and their reasoning was minimally explained. Overall, the findings indicate that students’ ability levels influence their creative thinking processes. High-ability students tend to show more complete and structured creative thinking, while medium- and low-ability students need more guidance to develop fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration in mathematical problem solving.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Indi Ananda Irfan
AU  - Muh. Rizal
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/02/19
TI  - An Exploration of Junior High School Students’ Creative Thinking Processes in Solving Integer Problems
BT  - Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Education (ICE-3 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 222
EP  - 232
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-537-9_20
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-537-9_20
ID  - Irfan2026
ER  -