Many students arrive at colleges and universities underprepared for college-level mathematics courses. In the United States, these students are required to complete developmental mathematics courses before completing the required mathematics courses for their degrees. Students who are required to take developmental mathematics courses frequently encounter delays in the completion of their degree program, which has the additional effect of increasing the financial cost of earning their degree. Moreover, students who are required to take developmental mathematics courses are less likely to complete their degrees than students who met their institution's requirements. In. order to develop methods that allow underprepared undergraduate students to access and make use of mathematical concepts, it is vital to understand how these students engage in mathematical activities. One type of mathematical activity that may be beneficial for underprepared undergraduate students is mathematical problem posing. Mathematical problem posing is the act of creating mathematical problems, often from a given situation. Problem posing is a naturally-occurring mathematical activity, occurring as part of the process of solving problems, in the classroom as teachers pose questions to their students, and in science and mathematics research and exploration. Previous research suggests that engaging in problem-posing activities can have positive effects on students' mathematical thinking. While previous studies have focused on the problem posing of students in primary school, secondary school, teacher education, and students in more advanced stages of study, little is known about the problem-posing of undergraduate students in developmental mathematics courses. The focus of the research presented in this dissertation is to examine the potential for using problem-posing activities as a way to help underprepared undergraduate students develop their mathematical understanding and learning. In particular, the studies in this thesis were guided by two questions:1. What does underprepared undergraduate students' problem posing look like?2. How do underprepared undergraduate students engage in mathematical problem posing? Through these guiding questions, the two research studies in this thesis examined the products of students' problem posing (that is, the problems the students created) and the process in which students engaged to pose problems. The first study examined the problems that underprepared undergraduate students posed, looking to answer the following research questions:1. What mathematical problems are underprepared undergraduate students capable of posing, and what mathematical ideas can they invoke in those problems?2. How is these students' problem-posing performance related to their course grades? Prior research suggests that performance on problem-posing tasks is related to students knowledge of mathematics. Thus, students' performance on the problem-posing tasks was compared to their performance in their developmental mathematics course. Forty- five students took a problem-posing assessment consisting of four posing tasks, with the tasks representing a broad spectrum of mathematical concepts, including functions, proportions, and combinatorics. The responses that students wrote for these tasks were first assessed for whether the response qualified as a mathematical question. Any response deemed a mathematical question was evaluated for whether there was sufficient information available (either provided in the posing prompt or supplemented by the student in their response) to identify a solution. Additionally, for the purpose of analysis, students were categorized as high-performing, average-performing, or low- performing, based upon their final grade in the developmental math course. Students who earned a grade of A or B were classified as high-performing: students who earned a grade of C were classified as average-performing: and students who earned a grade of D or F were classified as low-performing. The results from the problem-posing assessment revealed that underprepared undergraduate students were capable of posing mathematical problems, regardless of their academic performance. Across three of the four posing tasks, there were no significant differences in the proportion of responses that were mathematical questions between the three performance groups. Moreover, when examining the proportion of responses that were solvable mathematical questions, there were no significant differences between any of the three performance groups. The one posing task where significant differences were present which asked students to create problems for the graph of a line - revealed that students in the high-performing and average-performing groups created greater proportions of mathematical problems than their peers on the low-performing group. This result suggested a need for a closer examination of how students pose problems for a given task. The second study was a case study with three underprepared undergraduate students. Building on the findings of the first study, this study sought to more directly examine students' interactions with problem-posing tasks. To this end, the study aimed to answer the following two research questions: 1. What are students' reactions to (and feelings towards) problem posing? 2. What mathematical ideas do students posed problems invoke? In answering the first question, the goal of the study was to identify the feasibility of using problem-posing activities in a developmental mathematics course would the activity be well received? Would students view such activities as valuable? In answering the second question, the goal of the study was to examine the educational value of the tasks would students pose problems that would allow for the discussion of certain mathematics ideas? The three students participated in five problem-posing sessions, where they posed problems for scenarios consisting of linear relationships, quadratic relationships, and exponential relationships. During each session, students were encouraged to note the mathematical information present in each task, make sense of the relationships. Between the pieces of information given, and generate questions from the relationships they identified. The students were further encouraged to describe their thought process for creating their problems. At the end of the session, students were asked to reflect on their experience posing problems that day. Recordings from each session were transcribed, and the problems posed for each session were examined for the type of functional relationship invoked (linear, quadratic, exponential).Analysis from the recordings revealed that the students held a positive disposition towards posing mathematical problems. The students valued the opportunity to examine the problem-posing scenario in its entirety, as compared to solving a specific problem like they would be asked to do during their experiences in school mathematics. They particularly indicated that they felt more attentive to the information in the posing tasks, which they felt would enable them to gain a deeper understanding of the problem situation. The students' positive disposition towards problem posing also stemmed from the novelty of the activity. While the novelty of posing problems first presented a challenge for the students, the students enjoyed the creativity afforded to them as they posed problems and ultimately found the activity to be accessible. Similar to the findings in the first study, the students could pose problems that invoke a variety of linear, quadratic, and exponential relationships. The students most frequently posed problems that invoke linear relationships, but the students generated problems invoking a wider variety of relationships when multiple underlying relation- ships were available in the posing task. This observation supports the finding from the first study that the posing task does have an impact on the problems that a student will pose. More importantly, this observation supports the idea that underprepared undergraduate students can attend to mathematical relationships that are presented. to them in a problem-posing situation. The results of these studies suggest that mathematical problem posing can be an accessible activity for underprepared undergraduate students. Regardless of their academic performance, these students could pose mathematical problems that invoke a variety of mathematical relationships. Moreover, these students valued the opportunity to engage in problem posing, due to its open-ended design and the opportunity to explore a problem scenario in multiple ways. The findings in these studies make it reasonable to believe that when underprepared undergraduate students engage in problem posing, they will perceive a positive learning experience with mathematics and improve their performance on problem-posing and problem-solving tasks. As these two studies are exploratory in nature, further investigation is needed to assess the specific implication of problem-posing activities on these students' learning. However, the findings of these studies are encouraging for the systematic development of problem-posing activities for use in developmental mathematics courses. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]