Abstract
Elementary school students tend to produce single solutions for math problems that require two or more solutions. To generate multiple solutions, students must be aware of the existence of multiple solutions to math problems that require them, and then think of multiple solutions. This study examined whether learning experiences that enabled fourth- and fifth-grade students to think of multiple solutions subsequently increased the spontaneous production of multiple solutions to math problems that required them. The results of Investigation 1 indicated that students could spontaneously arrive at multiple solutions immediately after the learning experience, but 6 days later most returned to producing a single solution. The results of Investigation 2 indicated that students could reproduce multiple solutions 3 days after the learning experience, if they were alerted to the existence of multiple solutions. These results suggest that while learning experience increases the likelihood of producing multiple solutions, students tend to stop considering the possibility of multiple solutions existing.
