Development of student creative skills: A quest for successful science education

Abstract:

Twelve middle school teachers taught one section of science in a Science‐Technology‐Society (STS) context and another in a more traditional manner organized around typical concepts of science. Because science is concerned with exploring and questioning, trying to explain, and devising tests for such explanations, there is an obvious tie to Creative Problem Solving. Students (314 in twelve class settings) who experienced science as concepts to be considered were compared to students (326 in twelve class settings) who experienced science by considering contemporary issues and student generated questions. Pre‐ and posttest measures were taken on the quantity and uniqueness of student generated questions, possible causes, and predicted consequences for a discrepant presented event. Students in the STS classes consistently showed greater growth in terms of (a) total number of questions generated; (b) number of unique questions; (c) total number of causes suggested; (d) uniqueness of the causes suggested; (e) total number of possible consequences predicted; and (f) uniqueness of the consequences.