Improving high school students' scientific creativity by promoting and facilitating divergent thinking

Abstract

The development of creativity has long been advocated, especially in science education. While creativity performance can be influence by cognitive and noncognitive factors, divergent thinking, which encourages people to “think outside the box”, is identified as an essential component of creativity. Accordingly, training on divergent thinking by applying cognitive strategies has shown promising effects on creativity development. However, the strategies are often abstract and not easy for learners to master due to the complex cognitive process involved in divergent thinking. It remains unclear how divergent thinking can be fostered by making its cognitive process accessible to learners so as to support creativity development. This research aimed to address the gap in two studies. Study 1 explored an explicit instruction approach to facilitating divergent thinking by making its core elements (association, decomposition, and combination with adjustment) explicit to learners, and examined the effects of the approach on improving scientific creativity among high school students. Given that creativity performance can be influenced by individual differences in domain knowledge and creative potential, Study 1 also investigated how such individual differences might influence the effects of the proposed approach. In this study, students’ scientific creativity performance was assessed using scientific creativity tests, their science knowledge scores were collected, and their creative potential was measured using an ideational behavior scale. The results showed that students receiving the proposed training performed better in the scientific creativity test than those only receiving general instructions on divergent thinking. Students with either a high or low level of creative potential equally benefited from the proposed training, whereas students with a high level of domain knowledge profited more from the training than those with a low level of domain knowledge. Considering that divergent thinking involves a complex process of applying its core elements, Study 2 explored a visible thinking approach to further facilitating divergent thinking by visualizing the complex process of applying its core elements in a thinking map, and examined the effects of the approach on improving students’ scientific creativity. In this study, students’ scientific creativity performance was tested, and their motivation and perceptions towards the training were measured. The results showed that students received the proposed training performed better in the scientific creativity test, perceived higher competence in scientific creativity, and reported more values of the training than those trained with explicit instruction only. The findings have both theoretical and practical implications. While divergent thinking is crucial to scientific creativity, it is not easy to master by students due to its complex cognitive process. It’s therefore important to make the complex cognitive process of divergent thinking accessible to students by externalizing its core elements, which has shown positive effects on creativity training. The interaction between the explicit instruction-based training effects and individual differences in domain knowledge scores implies the need for aligning the acquisition of domain knowledge with creativity training. Moreover, to further facilitate divergent thinking, it is important to visualize the complex process of applying its core elements, where computer-based cognitive tools have shown promising effects.