Comparing expert and novice performance is a fruitful approach in research on
mathematical problem solving, but is there something like expertise in children aged
10 – 12? The problem solving processes of 10 “pupil experts” (successful participants
of mathematical competitions) are compared to those of 45 “novices” (regular pupils).
The “experts” show superior performance in all of the three tasks that were chosen for
this study as well as higher “mental flexibility” in executing the processes which seems
to distinguish them from the novices beyond advance in practice.