Thinking Skills and Creativity最新文献

This research investigated the complex relationship between teachers' emotions, emotional intelligence, professional identity, and teaching for creativity. The study used a web-based questionnaire to survey 15,675 secondary school teachers in China. Structural equation modeling indicated that teachers’ positive and negative emotions were positively and negatively related to their professional identities, respectively. The results of bootstrapping tests indicated that these relationships were mediated by teachers’ emotional intelligence. The study also found that teachers' emotional intelligence not only influenced their professional identity but also had a strong association with teaching for creativity, with professional identity partly mediating between the two. The article concludes with some implications in terms of regulating teachers’ emotions, improving professional identity, and enhancing teaching for creativity.

Humor generation represents the application of creative cognition in spontaneous, real-life contexts. This study sought to explore the cognitive processes involved in humor generation, with a special focus on the selection of humorous punchlines, by comparing humor and creativity. Employing a daily dialogue Question-Answer paradigm, participants were presented with four types of alternative answers for each dialogue: humorous, novel (non-humorous), routine, and irrelevant. Utilizing eye-tracking technology, the study tracked participants' eye movement trajectories during the selection of humorous punchlines, with a focus on fixation durations on the four answer types at different time intervals. Fifty participants were randomly assigned to either the group tasked with selecting humorous answers or the group tasked with selecting novel answers. The findings indicated that the humor group initially spent more time fixating on novel answers than humorous ones when selecting humorous punchlines; however, in the later stages, fixation duration on humorous answers surpassed that on novel answers. This dynamic underscores a competitive relationship between these two types of associations, shedding light on the cognitive distinctions between humor and creativity. Conversely, the novel group consistently exhibited a preference for humorous answers throughout the punchline selection process. The preference for humorous semantics in the novel group underscored cognitive similarities between humor and creativity. This study sheds light on the cognitive processes involved in selecting humorous punchlines and provides valuable insights into the cognitive parallels and distinctions between humor and creativity.

Engagement is critical to computational thinking and programming education. However, as multi-dimensional variables, when analyzing how different aspects of engagement in computational thinking tasks influence skills development, it becomes crucial to discern precisely which engagement components intersect with the progression of computational thinking skills. This discernment is pivotal because engagement can vary based on the task nature, the context, and the individual's preferences. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore the gender differences in engagement and computational thinking skills and the predictive relationships among these sub-dimensions for boys and girls in an unplugged environment. In this study, a quasi-experiment for 90 sixth-grade students from a north Chinese primary school was performed. By partial least squares–structural equation modeling, students’ models of computational thinking skills and engagement were analyzed, and comparisons of boys and girls were made by analysis of covariance statistics. Results indicated that compared with boys, girls reported higher computational thinking performance and more engagement in unplugged contexts. Furthermore, girls’ computational thinking skills were only predicted by their cognitive engagement, whereas boys’ computational thinking skills were predicted by their behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement. Teachers can adopt these findings to design computational thinking teaching interventions that combine the advantages of unplugged activity and focus on the engagement of boys and girls.

This study aimed to reveal the relationship between teachers' perceptions of risky play and children's motor creativity skills. To achieve this objective, the study group constituted of 537 children (48–60-month-old) enrolled in the preschools and the Directorate of National Education-affiliated primary schools in Afyonkarahisar province and 45 teachers training these children in the 2022-2023 academic year. As measurement scales, the study utilized the "Thinking Creatively in Action and Movement (TCAM)" test developed by Torrance (1981) and adapted into Turkish by Karaca and Aral (2017) and the "Scale for the Attitudes towards Risky Play in Early Childhood (SATRPEC)-Teacher Form (TF)" developed by Karaca and Uzun (2020). In this study, hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), a quantitative research method, has been employed. Study's findings indicate that as teachers' attitudes towards discerning risky play behaviors in children improve, there is a corresponding increase in children's motor creativity scores in fluency and originality. This study also determined that the teachers' attitudes towards risky play, including their belief in its necessity, discernment of risky behaviors, tolerance towards risky behaviors, and anxiety about such behaviors, did not significantly impact the imagination aspect of children's motor creativity.

Multiple factors contribute to the success of a teachers in their jobs, and these traits associated with teachers have become essential in the field of teacher education and development. Autonomy is a prominent teacher-related element that has been extensively researched and is considered a fundamental aspect of the educational system. Moreover, creativity has risen to prominence as a crucial talent in the 21st century, slowly gaining more attention from educators. The concept of Professional Identity (PI) holds a significant sway over how teachers perceive their roles, particularly in the modern educational landscape. Consequently, this correlational study aimed to explore whether autonomy, creativity, and PI among English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers could serve as predictors of their success. A cohort of 336 EFL educators participated by completing the relevant questionnaires. Through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analysis, it was established that all three variables could reasonably predict the success of EFL teachers. The model effectively elucidated around 76 % of the variance in teacher creativity, success, autonomy, and PI. These correlations were statistically significant at a confidence level of 95 %. Teacher creativity emerges as a substantial predictor of teacher success which means that as teachers exhibit greater creativity in their teaching approaches, their overall success in the field tends to increase. This finding underscores the importance of fostering creativity among educators, as it directly contributes to their effectiveness. Similarly, teacher autonomy also exerts a significant impact on teacher success which implies that teachers who perceive themselves as having more autonomy in their teaching roles are more likely to experience greater success. The outcomes of this study carry meaningful implications for stakeholders in the realm of EFL education.

Pro-C creativity refers to professional creativity, which plays a key role in designing novel and practical works for designers in practical work. In order to verify the significance of critical thinking and Pro-C creativity and explore how to improve Pro-C creativity through critical thinking training, we carried out two studies. In Study 1, we recruited 58 designers using a longitudinal research approach and employed the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST) and the California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory (CCTDI) to measure designers' critical thinking. Designers were tasked with completing assignments related to Pro-C level of creativity A, and their creativity was assessed by experts. Through a one-year follow-up analysis, we examined how their critical thinking influenced Pro-C creativity in the design domain. The results of the cross-lagged analysis indicate that scores on critical thinking positively predicted the creativity levels of designers one year later. Study 2 is a controlled intervention study. We developed an intervention program for training critical thinking, named the "Structured diary introspection Training Method", which is based on the online technique. Through a 21-day critical thinking training intervention, the results of repeated measures analysis of variance showed that, compared to the control group, designers in the intervention group scored significantly higher in a creative task related to designing a living room. Our findings support critical thinking as an important predictor of Pro-C creativity in the real world and provide a feasible training program for those who need to improve their Pro-C creativity.

Creativity has been associated with increased distractibility, but at the same time - and seemingly paradoxically- also with increased focused attention. Therefore, this study focused on the attentional processes involved in creativity and attentional difficulties. Healthy primary school children (N = 62) between 9 and 13 years old performed a selective attention paradigm while electrophysiological measures were recorded that measured the neural mechanisms of cognitive control (P300), conflict monitoring (N200), and subconscious attentional shifts (Mismatch Negativity). Attentional difficulties were measured with a parental questionnaire and creativity was measured with a divergent mathematical creativity task and a creative drawing task. We found that more creativity was related to decreased neural mechanisms of cognitive control and conflict monitoring (i.e. less negative N200 and smaller P300 amplitudes), however without affecting task performance. In addition, attentional difficulties were related to less negative N200 amplitudes on the attended and non-attended standard trials of the selective attention paradigm, as well as reduced task performance. Tentatively, the current findings suggest that original responses are associated with decreased cognitive control, possibly by promoting remote associations. Furthermore, our data shows that attentional difficulties are associated with a lack of selective attention and impaired information processing. Hence, although less cognitive control is often referred to in a negative way, it might facilitate certain aspects of creative thinking without affecting task performance.

Although creativity research increasingly documents how parents support their children's creativity at home, previous work has been mostly quantitative in nature, while qualitative studies almost exclusively report data from mothers. Thus, we conducted online qualitative interviews of 14 parents (9 mothers and 5 fathers) of children aged between 4 and 6 years, who were living in France or in the United Kingdom during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through a cross-cultural reflexive thematic analysis, we explored questions around what views of early childhood creativity parents shared; whether (and if so why) they are motivated to engage in dyadic home creative activities with their children; and their perceptions of the benefits of these activities, both on themselves, and on their children. The parents shared views and definitions of creativity in line with creativity research. Moreover, they explained how they used creative activities to teach their children social rules, self-expression, independence, and skills development. They also appreciated creative activities as a strategy to help their children vent and calm down or, in contrast, to foster in them a sense of joy and vitality. Parents also reported the extent to which creative activities contribute to parent—child relationship quality. We discuss these findings through the lens of Self-Determination Theory.

Computational thinking (CT) is crucial for students. Robot-supported learning has emerged as a popular approach for CT cultivation. To understand the effects of robot-supported CT cultivation, the current study conducted a meta-analysis to analyze studies from Web of Science, Google Scholar, and Science Direct databases (2012–2022) which screened using keywords ``computational thinking'' and ``robot''. After further screening, 26 peer-reviewed articles were selected. We synthesized the 33 effect sizes to assess the overall effectiveness of robot-supported learning on CT and its sub-dimensions: concepts, practices, and perspectives. Our findings revealed a medium effect of robot-supported learning on students' CT (g = 0.643), a large effect on CT concepts (g = 0.650), a medium effect on CT practices (g = 0.587), and a huge effect on CT perspectives (g = 1.419). We also explored the moderators (i.e., grade level, study duration, culture, learning strategy, and assessment tool) that might influence the effects of robot-supported CT cultivation. Moderator analyses indicated that short-term (less than four weeks) robot-supported learning had a larger effect (g = 0.901) on CT practice than long-term (more than eleven weeks) learning (g = 0.309). This meta-analysis indicates that educators could apply robot-supported learning to cultivate students' CT and concludes with related implications.

Based on social cognitive theory, the current study builds and verifies a mediated moderation model to explore the influence of teacher-student relationship on innovative behavior of graduate students. The mediating role of creative self-efficacy and the moderating role of proactive personality are also discussed. Sample data for the current study were collected from 367 graduate students and their immediate supervisors at three different times. The empirical test results demonstrate that the teacher-student relationship has a positive impact on graduate students’ innovative behavior. Besides, creative self-efficacy of graduate students exerts a mediating role in the influence of teacher-student relationship on their innovative behavior. In addition, proactive personality of graduate students positively moderates the effect of teacher-student relationship on their creative self-efficacy, which in turn impacts their innovative behaviors. Specifically, the teacher-student relationship could make graduate students with high proactive personality have higher creative self-efficacy level than those with low proactive personality, and finally generate more innovative behavior. Taken together, the findings of the current study offer the academic circle a new perspective to explain how and why teacher-student relationship correlates with students’ innovative behavior. This may also provide specific insights for enhancing the innovative behavior of graduate students in practice.