ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Mental Health and Wellbeing in Education
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1580126
This article is part of the Research TopicExploring the determinants of academic underachievement in children and adolescentsView all articles
The influence of flow experience on mathematical creativity among primary school students in China
Provisionally accepted
Xueshen Wang1,2*
Piriya Somasundram2- 1Faculty of Education, Languages, Psychology & Music, SEGi University, Kota Damansara, Malaysia
- 2SEGi University, Kota Damansara, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
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Introduction: Mathematical creativity refers to personal ability to propose novel and original solutions or ideas in the process of solving mathematical problems. Many studies have confirmed that flow experiences can affect personal creativity, but few have focused on the influence of flow experiences in mathematics learning on mathematical creativity. This study explores the influence of Chinese primary school students' flow experience in mathematics class on their mathematical creativity.Methods: This study adopted a convergent method in mixed research, participants were 273 sixth grade students from a public primary school in central China. For quantitative research, this study collected data by using the Mathematics Flow State Scale and the Mathematical Creativity Scale, and then conducted descriptive statistics, independent sample t-test, and linear regression analysis.For qualitative research, this study selected six students to solve two open-ended mathematical problems and conducted a comparative analysis for their performance.The results of quantitative research showed that flow experience could positively predict mathematical creativity of primary school students. The qualitative research results showed that students with higher levels of flow experience in mathematics class exhibited better creativity in solving open-ended mathematical problems. Finally, the research results were discussed, and suggestions were made on how to effectively utilize flow experience theory in mathematics class to cultivate students' mathematical creativity.
Keywords: flow experience, Mathematical creativity, influence, Primary school students, China
Received: 20 Feb 2025; Accepted: 25 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wang and Somasundram. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Xueshen Wang, Faculty of Education, Languages, Psychology & Music, SEGi University, Kota Damansara, Malaysia
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