Exploring Creative Thinking in Solving Open-Ended Statistical Problems: A Descriptive Study of Grade 12 Learners at SMA Negeri 14 Jambi

Abstract

This study examines the creative thinking of Grade 12 students in solving open-ended statistical problems. The research addresses the problem of limited understanding of how students with different mathematical ability levels demonstrate creative thinking when working with open-ended statistical tasks, and aims to describe the fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration reflected in their solutions. Three students representing high, medium, and low achievement levels were selected through purposive sampling to capture varied mathematical abilities. Data were collected through written tests and interviews, and analyzed using indicators of fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration. An exploratory, qualitative approach was employed to gain in-depth insights into students’ reasoning processes. Results show that the high-achieving student generated two valid datasets (mean = 25, median = 23, mode = 20), the medium-achieving student produced one nearly accurate dataset (mean = 24.9), and the low-achieving student produced a dataset with a mean of 23.5. For the second problem, all students obtained b = 12, but only the high-achieving student justified why it is the minimum. In the third problem, all calculated the average yield as 1.225 tons, yet only the high-achieving student provided a contextual interpretation. These findings indicate that open-ended tasks reveal clear differences in students’ creative thinking. The results suggest that incorporating open-ended problems into statistics lessons can enhance students’ creative mathematical reasoning and support the development of higher-order thinking.