Thinking Skills and Creativity最新文献

The article reviews different interventions to teach critical reading and proposes a tested two-stage critical reading model, starting from identifying the author's purposes to responding to the text. In the stage of identifying the author's purposes, students need to analyse the text and connect the text to its context. In the stage of responding to the text, students need to evaluate the author's message. After a teaching experiment carried out with undergraduate students (n = 39), a vast majority of the participants (94.87%) believed that the model helped them to practise fundamental reading skills, such as predicting, identifying the main idea, arguments and evidence, to construct their critical thinking by reflecting, understanding different perspectives and building their own arguments. From students’ suggestions, the model is revised to make it more interactive and dynamic by applying the double-entry note technique and repetitive reading in groups with discussion to exchange viewpoints and interpretation.

This study aims to explore the pivotal roles of environmental resources (ER) and grit in fostering creativity, while meticulously examining the diverse effects of motivation on creativity across various educational stages, ranging from primary school to university. A large random sample of 47,278 Chinese students was examined for ER, grit, motivation, and daily creative behavior using questionnaires. The findings revealed that ER and grit positively predicted creativity among students. ER, and grit among high school and university students predicted creativity through autonomy orientation, whereas those among upper primary schools were predicted through controlled orientation. Additionally, the creativity of lower primary schools is predicted through controlled-autonomy orientation. The current research reveals that the impact of autonomy and controlled orientation on creativity varies among students of different grades. These findings enrich current models of motivation on creativity and provide a reference for the application of external rewards in teaching and learning among different grade students.

The current study examined the role of mindfulness-enhancing instruction (MEI) in university students’ Electroencephalogram (EEG) dynamics, Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS), and effective learning. In so doing, 60 junior university students, being screened out of 72 available sample, were randomly assigned into two groups. MEI was incorporated into class activities of the experimental group during the term. A package containing a host of activities was devised, integrating general meditation practices with educational MEI. These in-class activities were complemented with daily at-home practices offered by a mobile application. To assess participants’ level of HOTS, two tests from the “Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal” (CTA) (Form A) was utilized. In this study, inference and deduction modules were included. The participants responded to the tests while they were involved in EEG acquisition. The results of statistical analysis demonstrated the efficiency of the implemented MEI in enhancing two dimensions of HOTS (inference-making & deduction) as well as academic achievement. The EEG analysis demonstrated notable changes in the experimental group's brain activity patterns. Specifically, there was a significant decrease in the ratio of energy in the alpha to beta frequency band (α/β ratio) for Fp1 and Fp2 channels post-meditation, indicative of heightened attentiveness. Conversely, the control group exhibited less pronounced changes in the EEG measures.

In the context of tertiary education, the ability to evaluate sources is of paramount importance for students’ academic reading and writing development, particularly for first-year university students who are still in the transitional stage. Some researchers have argued that Chinese students may lack critical thinking skills, including evaluation skills. However, little attention has been given to this higher-order thinking skill when it comes to first-year Chinese university students reading academic literature. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the criteria used by 117 Chinese first-year undergraduates when evaluating academic literature and how these criteria influence their evaluation accuracy. The results revealed that students generally demonstrated the ability to distinguish reliable from unreliable academic documents by utilizing a range of evaluation criteria. Among the identified criteria, Topicality and Publication Information were prominently employed by students. Furthermore, these criteria accounted for approximately 21 % of the variance in evaluation accuracy, with Publication Information, Reference, and Data significantly predicting evaluation performance. The study also discussed the pedagogical implications of teaching academic literacy to first-year undergraduates.

Digital technologies are increasingly acknowledged for their potential to enrich early childhood learning experiences, particularly in the area of creativity. However, research has tended to focus upon end products and skill development, and little is known about creative development processes. This study sought to explore young children's creative processes as they engaged with three digital coding devices over an eight-week period as part of a Digital Discovery Program. It employed a microethnography to provide nuanced observations of five young children's (aged 4–5 years) interactions and behaviours. Data was collected through approximately 40 hours of video recordings, capturing the dynamic and multimodal aspects of the childrenʼs play and learning experiences. A multimodal interaction analysis was used to examine the multimodal design affordances of each device as mapped against Murcia et al.'s (2020) A-E of Creativity Framework. The findings revealed a clear interplay between digital technologies and various modes of communication, with children demonstrating creativity through their verbal expressions, manipulation of the devices, and spatial understanding of their physical environment. By understanding the multimodal affordances of digital devices aligned with educational frameworks and embracing child-specific definitions of creativity, educators, curriculum designers, policymakers, and researchers can collectively promote creativity and enrich digital learning and play for young children.

This paper investigates the intersection of media and design literacies in learners becoming more competent in developing complex ideas within a history classroom. Drawing from multiliteracies, design literacy, and media literacy, this paper conceptualizes media design rhetoric as a process. It utilizes a virtual exhibition as a facilitator to deepen the understanding of propaganda. We accumulate qualitative data from artifacts created by 10th and 11th graders (age range: 15–17) in a history classroom within a suburban high school in Western Canada, with written reflections on their artifacts. artefact analysis is followed by thematic and subject analysis in NVivo 12. Results show that media design rhetoric supports learners in deepening their understanding of propaganda, critically reading media, and creatively communicating messages. Results suggest that virtual exhibitions can be pivotal in creating new artifacts with complex but interest-driven topics. This research introduces media design rhetoric as a bridging concept (between multiliteracies, design literacy, and media literacy) and situates virtual exhibitions as a facilitator for developing complex ideas. This research highlights the significance of critical thinking and creativity in the media design rhetoric, as students critically engaged with historical content and creatively adapted it to modern contexts.

Critical thinking has been recognised as a core skill in the latest English curriculum standards for secondary schools in China. However, the current state of critical thinking education in China remains underdeveloped. Although some Chinese secondary schools have reported success in infusing critical thinking into regular teaching, there is little evidence of its impact as no independent robust studies have been conducted. The aim of this study was to determine whether the infusion of critical thinking in the regular curriculum has any impact on improving Chinese secondary students’ critical thinking skills and academic attainment using a more robust research design that can establish causation. Twenty-one English language teachers and 2,011 Grade 8 students from four rural secondary schools in China participated. The intervention was delivered by 11 experimental English language teachers once a week for three months. The impact of the intervention was measured by differences in modified standardised critical thinking skill tests. A process evaluation, including class observations and interviews, was also conducted to determine fidelity to the treatment. The results indicate a small positive impact of the infusion teaching on students’ critical thinking skills. Therefore, it is feasible and promising to infuse critical thinking into the English curriculum in China's secondary schools. However, the positive impact was not observed in academic attainment outcomes. The trial provides policy and educational practice recommendations to support the development of critical thinking skills among Chinese students.

With a set of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2015 test items as the assessment tool, this study constructed a mathematics competency assessment framework composed of eight attributes, and formed a Q matrix using data of 4,733 students in the four provinces (cities) of mainland China. Through model comparisons, this study selected the mixed model and made in-depth analyses of attribute mastery from four aspects: international comparative analysis, learning path analysis, learning progression construction, and personalized report development. The study found obvious advantages in most attributes of Chinese students’ basic mathematics competencies. The learning path was rich with large knowledge status distributed in the second, third, and fourth level of learning progression. It provided a basis for a detailed understanding of the basic mathematics competencies of Chinese students and their current situation in international education. It also provided a methodological basis for the cognitive diagnosis assessment of students’ mathematics competencies.

This study aims to determine how mathematical thinking skills are exhibited in educational robotics activities. In the study, activities with Lego Mindstorms EV3 robot kits were designed and implemented. An exploratory case study is adopted with secondary school students. The data obtained from open-ended questions, observations, and interviews were analyzed by content analysis. The results demonstrated various strategies in specializations and generalizations in terms of mathematical thinking skills while solving robotics problems. In this framework, "noticing symmetry", "finding a relationship between angle and direction of rotation", "noticing obtuse angles, acute angles”, and “noticing the change of sign when changing the direction of angles” were found prominent strategies in the specialization dimension. The strategies of "finding solutions compatible with the problem", "using algebraic operations", and "making calculations" were found prominent in the generalization. We hope that the findings of this study will assist in the future design and implementation of the applications of educational robotics activities for mathematical thinking.

Fostering creativity is vital for tackling 21st-century challenges, and education plays a key role in nurturing this skill. According to the associative theory, creativity involves connecting distant concepts in semantic memory. Here, we explore how semantic memory changes following an educational intervention intended to promote creativity. Specifically, we examine how a scientific education curriculum—Scientific Creativity in Practice (SCIP) program—impacts the semantic memory networks of 10–18-year-old students in a chemistry class (n = 176). Students in an Intervention group who received the SCIP intervention, and a Control group who did not, completed creative thinking tests, as well as verbal fluency tasks to estimate semantic networks in science-specific (chemistry) and domain-general (animal) categories. Results showed that the SCIP intervention enhanced performance on one test of scientific creative thinking but showed no significant difference on another. Using network science methods, we observed increased interconnectedness in both science-specific and domain-general categories, with lower path distances between concepts and reduced modularity. These traits define a ‘small-world’ network, balancing connections between closely related and remote concepts. Notably, the chemistry semantic network showed substantially more reorganization, consistent with the chemistry contents of the SCIP intervention. The findings suggest that semantic memory reorganization may be a cognitive mechanism underlying successful creativity interventions in science education.