The Relationship Between Students’ Complex Problem Posing and Story Writing Skills

This study was conducted to determine the relationship between sixth-grade intermediate school students' free story writing skills and complex problem posing skills. A mixed method design was used to investigate this issue in a more holistic manner. The participants of the study were consisted of 217 sixth-grade students from an intermediate school in Province X, selected through a convenience sampling method. A free story writing form and two different semi-structured problem posing forms were used to collect data from the participants. The study determined that the students posed a total of 1983 problems based on two different semi-structured problem posing situations. After the analysis of them, they were classified as unsolvable and solvable mathematical problems, not problems. Solvable mathematical problems were analyzed and identified as homework, relational, and conditional problems. Participants posed the most problems in the homework category and the least problems in the relational problem category. A rubric used in the literature was utilized for analyzing participants’ stories. Since the data obtained from the participants did not exhibit a normal distribution, Spearman analysis was used to evaluate the data. As a result of statistical analyses, a positive and significant relationship was found between students' free story writing skills and their complex problem posing skills calculated by the total scores they received from semi-structured problem posing 1 and 2. Hence, the increase in sixth-grade students' problem posing skills increases their free story writing skills.