Do Multiple Solutions Matter? Prompting Multiple Solutions, Interest, Competence, and Autonomy

Encouraging students to develop multiple solutions for given problems is an important way to improve mathematical knowledge. However, the influence of this teaching element on students' interest-related motivational orientations is an open question. This article reports the results of an experimental study ( N = 145) that was carried out to investigate the influence of prompting students to construct multiple solutions for real-world problems with vague conditions on students' interest in mathematics as well as on their experiences of competence and autonomy and the number of solutions developed.