ERIC Number: EJ1067661
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2015-Jul
Pages: 12
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-1934-9041
EISSN: N/A
Giftedness and Aesthetics: Perspectives of Expert Mathematicians and Mathematically Gifted Students
Tjoe, Hartono
Gifted Child Quarterly, v59 n3 p165-176 Jul 2015
Giftedness in mathematics has been characterized by exceptional attributes including strong mathematical memory, formalizing perception, generalization, curtailment, flexibility, and elegance. Focusing on the last attribute, this study examined the following: (a) the criteria which expert mathematicians and mathematically gifted students fleshed out to identify their own most preferred mathematics problem-solving approaches and (b) the extent to which students perceived expert mathematicians' preferences for one approach over the others as aesthetically pleasing. The findings suggested that: (a) unlike expert mathematicians who saw beauty in mathematics as an exhaustive consequence of simplicity and originality, mathematically gifted students found mathematical elegance only in approaches that were efficient in terms of time and number of steps to solve the problems and (b) although expert mathematicians considered mathematically gifted students' most preferred approaches to be the least "beautiful," mathematically gifted students, showing no enthusiasm, considered expert mathematicians' most preferred approaches to be no more attractive than their own approaches.
Descriptors: Academically Gifted, Aesthetics, Attitude Measures, Problem Solving, Preferences, Comparative Analysis, Creativity, College Faculty, Mathematics Teachers, High School Students, Special Schools, Interviews, Mathematics Tests, Surveys, Mathematics Instruction, Student Attitudes, Teacher Attitudes
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education; High Schools; Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: New York
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A