Thinking Skills and Creativity最新文献

The interplay between executive functions and divergent thinking remains a debated question in creativity research. To address this issue, two studies were conducted from different perspectives. The first study explored which of the executive functioning components—namely working memory, inhibition, and shifting—predicted divergent thinking. A sample of 203 college students performed a battery of tasks assessing divergent thinking, executive functions, and related cognitive variables (fluid intelligence, verbal fluency, and processing speed). After statistically controlling for these variables, only working memory emerged as a significant predictor of creativity scores in the Alternative Uses Task, while inhibition and shifting did not. In the second study, a cognitive training approach was employed to further elucidate the potential efficacy of working memory training in fostering divergent thinking. The results found that the experimental group, which received a 15-day dual n-back task training, demonstrated greater improvements in the creativity score of the Alternative Uses Task compared to the control group, suggesting a transfer effect from working memory training to divergent thinking. This research underscores the plasticity of divergent thinking and highlights a plausible avenue for enhancing creativity through targeted cognitive training.

This article presents a comprehensive validation study of a Critical Thinking Test (CTT) conducted among Czech adolescents in 2023. It offers valuable insights into the psychometric properties, correlations, and predictors associated with analytical, evaluative and inferential abilities of critical thinking. While there are tools available for measuring critical thinking, they tend to be lengthy and inaccessible in the Czech language. Our study seeks to address this gap by developing a concise and effective tool that students can complete within a single class period. Our study is based on a large sample of Czech adolescents in their first year of secondary school (N = 9,495), which allows us to apply Item Response Theory (IRT), which is the best method for validation. The results showed that the abbreviated 33-item version of the CTT is a reliable and valid instrument that measures three distinct abilities (analysis, evaluation, and inference) that are highly correlated. Limitations and implications for the use of the instrument are discussed.

Student-generated questions enhance deeper learning and empower active participation and critical thinking. Researchers have extensively explored teacher questions, but a notable gap persists in how to teach young children to ask questions effectively. This mixed-methods pilot study examined the impact of teaching questioning skills using the Question Formulation Technique (QFT) in an early childhood summer program for children from under-resourced areas. Pre-post oral language assessment scores from 33 children were analyzed to determine the impact of the QFT. Results reveal that using this method, teachers can effectively guide young students to ask more and better questions. Students involved in the research exhibited a substantial increase in the number of questions posed. They demonstrated a qualitative improvement in their approach to questioning, significantly increasing the number of wonderment questions (high-level questions). Conclusions indicate that using the QFT in early childhood classrooms can encourage young children to generate questions. Based on these findings, the authors conclude that teaching learners to ask meaningful questions can enhance their engagement, comprehension, and overall academic performance in diverse populations.

The present paper describes a new, theoretically grounded model for stance de-centring that advocates for enhancing foreign language learners’ intercultural awareness, sensitivity, and behaviours. This model embraces both three levels of stance de-centring: epistemic, emotional and effective, and three dimensions of intercultural competence: cognitive, affective and conative. Epistemic, emotional, and effective stance de-centring is carried out at the cognitive, affective and conative intercultural dimensions to raise foreign language learners’ intercultural awareness, develop their intercultural sensitivity, and activate their intercultural behaviours. Each intercultural dimension comprised within the model is rigorously examined, highlighting the importance of nurturing skills in critical thinking, empathy, and behavioural adaptability to counter ethnocentrism through stance de-centring. Practical examples illustrating the successful implementation of the stance de-centring model within the foreign language classroom are also presented. These examples elucidate the practical application and potential impact of the model, offering insights into fostering inclusive environments and preparing foreign language learners to navigate diverse cultural landscapes as future agents of change.

This study investigates the potential of using ChatGPT, a large language model, to assess students' critical thinking in online peer feedback. With the rapid development of technology, big language models, such as ChatGPT, have made significant progress in natural language processing in recent years and have good potential for application in teaching evaluation and feedback. However, can generative AI help educational practitioners in teaching and learning? How to accurately assess students' critical thinking using generative AI remains a challenging task. This study investigates whether ChatGPT can effectively evaluate critical thinking using established coding systems. By comparing the consistency and accuracy of manual coding with ChatGPT coding in online peer feedback texts, it clarifies how ChatGPT processes online peer feedback data and conducts assessments. Through a comprehensive analysis employing various metrics including precision, recall, F1 score, and a confusion matrix, we assess ChatGPT's performance. Additionally, we group students and analyze how ChatGPT's assessments relate to their critical thinking levels. Our findings suggest that the ChatGPT demonstrated some ability to assess higher dimensions of critical thinking, but showed limitations in assessing the more granular secondary dimensions under the higher dimensions of critical thinking. However for this kind of granular assessment will more accurately capture the level of learning critical thinking. Surprisingly, ChatGPT's evaluations are not influenced by students' critical thinking levels. This study underscores ChatGPT's potential in automating critical thinking assessment at scale, alleviating the burden on educators and enhancing understanding of critical thinking in peer feedback.

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.

Question-asking, an underexplored aspect of creativity, is integral to creative problem-solving and information-seeking. Previous research reveals that lower creativity correlates with asking simpler, closed questions, while higher creativity correlates with complex, open-ended inquiries. The present study explores the relation between question asking complexity and problem-solving tasks involving open- and close-ended thinking and how these abilities generalize and compare to AI. In Study 1, participants (N = 89) completed the alternative questions task (AQT), a close-ended riddles task (Stumpers), and the alternate uses task (AUT), a creativity measure. Our results show AQT question complexity wasn't correlated with stumpers performance, although it correlated with AUT originality (r = .3). In Study 2, participants (N = 100) completed the AQT, AUT, and open-ended creative problem-solving (CPS) task. CPS responses were evaluated for originality and quality. A positive correlation was observed between CPS quality and AQT complexity (r = .29) and originality (r = .34). In study 3, AI agents (N = 100) completed the AQT, AUT, stumpers, and CPS tasks. Like humans, AI's AQT originality and complexity were related with open, but not closed problem-solving. AI questions were also significantly more creative and complex, it solved more stumpers and gave higher quality CPS solutions. Surprisingly, human and AI CPS originality didn't differ. We find significant links between question complexity and open—but not closed-ended—problem-solving in humans, which generalize to AI. Our results highlight the significance of complex and creative question-asking in everyday life and as an integral part of our problem-solving toolkit.

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.