Non-cognitive factors in the development of combinatorial thinking in future elementary school teachers

Moscow City University, Institute of Pedagogy and Psychology of Education Psychological Sciences, Moscow, Russia

^* Corresponding author: asavenkov@bk.ru

Abstract

The article describes the study of the effectiveness of methodological techniques used in classes with students training to become teachers of mathematics in elementary schools in accordance with the methods of teaching mathematics to elementary school students. The methods proposed by the authors activate the mutual connection between logical thinking and several non-cognitive abilities of students. This reciprocal relationship is seen as a means to diagnose and develop students’ combinatorial abilities. The study uses testing methods with subsequent mathematical processing. The non-cognitive factors (level of general cultural development, general humanitarian training, features of the micro-environment, as well as the level of general psychosocial development, etc.) are assessed through the methods of academic success diagnostics, expert assessment of the level of general cultural development, and assessment of the level of psychosocial development. The obtained data were compared with the level of development of students’ logical thinking determined through the Raven test. The formative stage deployed original methodological methods allowing to stimulate students’ interest in composing textual mathematical tasks. The proposed methodological solutions to the problems of diagnosing and developing combinatorial thinking understood as a combination of logical thinking and several non-cognitive factors in future teachers show themselves effective. The proposed hypothesis is that composing textual mathematical tasks for elementary school students is an effective means of developing combinatorial abilities in students. The main conditions stimulating the effectiveness of non-cognitive factors are the increase in the level of an individual’s general cultural development, the expansion of their outlook, and the development of knowledge base, the creation of the “right” atmosphere for creativity, and stimulation of metaphorical thinking in the learning process.