THE IMPACT OF A TRIZ PROGRAM ON SIXTH GRADE STUDENTS’ CREATIVITY AND PSYCHOLOGICAL VARIABLES

The present paper examines the impact of a TRIZ educational program on students’ creativity in mathematical problem solving and on psychological variables, namely general self-efficacy, creative self-efficacy, curiosity, and creative emotions. The research sample consisted of 50 sixth grade students. They were distributed into two groups. The control group consisted of 25 students who learned geometry units in the traditional way. The experimental group consisted of 25 students who studied the same unit using a program based on TRIZ theory. The research results indicated that the TRIZ-based educating unit influences positively the four variables, resulting in significant differences in the participating students’ mean scores in favor of the group of students who learned the TRIZ-based mathematics unit. This influence could be a result of the educational TRIZ program features. Theory-based educational programs are suggested for use in the mathematics classroom, as these programs benefit students’ creativity and different psychological variables.