SELF-REFLECTIONS OF GIFTED STUDENTS IN THE CONTEXT OF MATHEMATICAL PROBLEM SOLVING

Abstract

This qualitative study examines the gifted students’ self-reflections about the mathematical problems in an elaborated way. The participants of the study were three gifted students in 10th grade and 10 problem solving sessions were carried out with these participants. According to findings, the gifted students did not take into account the structure of the problem and they mostly evaluated their performances based on their own behaviors such as developing their own solutions and making calculation errors. Furthermore, the researchers found out that whether the students were able to come up with a solution by themselves was considered to be the most important performance evaluation criterion. The findings suggest that the students attribute their correct solutions to their efforts.  In addition, the students mostly associate the reasons behind their satisfaction with the solutions and their performances during the process.