An Examination of Open-Ended Mathematics Questions’ Affordances

OpenAlex · English

This study explores the affordances that the open-ended questions hold in comparison with those of closed-ended questions through examining 6th grade students’ performance on a mathematics test. For this purpose, a questionnaire including 2 open-ended and 2 closed-ended questions was applied to 36 6th grade students. The questions were prepared in the light of four categories: (i) question with one correct outcome (closed-ended), (ii) question with multiple fixed outcomes (closed-ended), (iii) question with multiple variable outcomes (open-ended), and (iv) question with limitless outcomes (open-ended). The collected data were analysed in terms of correct, incorrect, uncategorized and unanswered categories as well as with regard to the diversity of the responses. The findings reveal that students showed lower performances for the question that requires limitless outcomes, there were a lack of generalizations or general rules in their responses and they provided more diverse responses for the open-ended questions. The findings were discussed with regard to higher-order thinking skills such as creativity and divergent thinking as they are often associated with open-ended questions and their affordances. Finally some implications are put forward and further research areas are highlighted.