Identification of Crucial Steps and Skills in High-Achievers’ Solving Complex Mathematical Problem within Mathematical Contest

The aspects of inquiry based learning (IBL) are vigorously and frequently in the focus of recent studies. With the use of inquiry in mathematics in the daily school practice, some further questions are arising there: What kind of problems can be useful for an analysis of students' competencies in the field of IBL and how to assess the performed level of competencies? In this paper, the Mathematics B-day contest assignment is introduced as a mean to assess the students' performance in mathematical inquiry skills. Some new rubrics with didactical variables were designed as a tool for assessing students' competencies. The statistical implicative analysis was used to investigate 29 solutions of Mathematics B-day 2017: Arrow clocks. We identified the key subtasks solutions directly related to the level of the IBL competencies performed in the final mathematical investigation. The subtask which required actually high level of algebraic thinking influenced the level of the final mathematical investigation the most.