Development and Validation of the Chinese Creative Writing Scale for Primary School Students in Hong Kong

The 13-item Chinese Creative Writing Scale was expanded and modified from the Carlson Originality Scale to assess creativity elements in compositions of primary school students in Hong Kong. The content validity was endorsed by a small expert panel. Results show that the scale has excellent interrater reliability (.90 to .98), and moderate to good internal consistency. Exploratory factor analysis shows that the three factors (flexibility, originality, and fluency) accounted for 59.1% of the variability, which is consistent with the design of the scale. The scale can also be used as an outcome measure for assessing the effectiveness of strategies which aim at enhancing creativity of students. With minor modifications, the scale can also be applied in mainland China, Taiwan, and Chinese societies elsewhere in the world.     

Teaching Creative Writing Skills to Primary School Children in Hong Kong: Discordance Between the Views and Practices of Language Teachers

Although creativity has been valued in ancient and contemporary Chinese literature, the degree to which creativity is valued and incorporated into teaching by Chinese language teachers is not known. This information is important given that creativity has been increasingly recognized in the education literature as a component of effective writing. The purpose of this study was to compare the views of Chinese language teachers in Hong Kong about creativity and the acquisition of creative writing skills by primary school children, and their teaching practices. A total of 449 Chinese language teachers, employed at primary schools throughout Hong Kong completed a survey questionnaire. The 14‐item questionnaire focused on teachers' views of creativity, their perceptions of how to develop students' creativity, their awareness of creative writing strategies, and teaching practices related to creative writing. With respect to the definition of creativity, teachers identified imagination foremost, followed by inspiration, and original ideas. Teachers identified developing students' confidence, and providing an open atmosphere as essential means of fostering creativity. Despite the apparent value of creativity expressed by the teachers and their familiarity with methods for enhancing creativity, the majority reported using traditional methods of teaching writing. Strategies are recommended for reconciling this discrepancy, and promoting creative writing skills by primary school teachers in Hong Kong and other Chinese speaking societies.     

冲突的指南的解决

当越来越多的学术机构开始制定诊疗指南时,因为相同的病人会得到不同的诊疗建议,其中一部分必然会陷入到冲突之中.在学术组织内解决这些冲突非常关键,具体理由如下:第一,被建议的医疗行为有差异可以导致健康结果的差异;有冲突的学术组织的存在,意味着至少有部分病人被误治(除非被推荐的医疗都有效);第二,规范的差异可引起混乱.     

A Tale of Two Generations: Creativity Growth and Gender Differences Over a Period of Education and Curriculum Reforms

The Wallach–Kogan Creativity Tests were translated into Chinese and later fully computerized for research in Hong Kong. The normative data of two cohorts (1994 and 2002) of school children were employed to test the hypothesis that growth in creative thinking occurs in a society or culture during a period of education and curriculum reforms that emphasize creative thinking. Results of multivariate analysis of variance and subsequent univariate analysis of variance supported the hypothesis. Moreover, some interesting gender differences in creativity growth were observed, underlining the fact that boys and girls should be treated differentially to obtain a desirable creativity growth for them.     

Family Strain and Adolescent Delinquency in Two Chinese Cities,Guangzhou and Hong Kong

Elucidating the conditions in which family strain takes effect in adolescent delinquency is one avenue along which to substantiate general strain theory. These conditions include family relationship and the type of delinquency. In the context of Chinese societies, the conditions also include the differences between socialist, collectivist Mainland China and capitalist, more individualist Hong Kong. We collected survey data from 1,026 secondary school students in Guangzhou in Mainland China, and from 1,116 in Hong Kong, to demonstrate these conditions. The results, which indicate the intimate relationship between parents and adolescents, verify that family strain has a very strong impact on adolescent delinquency. In this connection, family strain comprised parental support as a negative indicator. However, the effect of parental support on adolescent strain was only weakly negative in Guangzhou and even positive in the case of nonworking mothers. The differentials in parental influence between Guangzhou and Hong Kong are attributable to the different family policies and structures in the two cities. On the other hand, family strain exhibited similar effects on two types of delinquency, violence and status offense.     

Brief report: Publications from mainland China,Hong Kong,and Taiwan in behavioral journals 1980–2021

Research involving international research communities has been advocated in the field of behavior analysis (Dymond et al., 2000; Martin et al., 2016). The purpose of the present study was to report the status of behavioral research in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, in terms of number of publications, types of research, and frequency of collaboration with international researchers. Fifteen behavioral journals were selected from the list by Cooper et al. (2020). These were searched by hand to find publications conducted in or authored by researchers from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan dating from each journal's inception to December 2021. The earliest publication we found appeared in 1980 in The Psychological Record. Over the following four decades (1980–1989; 1990–1999; 2000–2009; 2010–2021), the number of publications per decade increased dramatically and continues in recent years to rise. Publications include research reports, review papers, and conceptual articles, with the majority being basic research reports published in Behavioral Processes. Approximately half the publications involve collaboration with international researchers, mostly in North America. Implications for behavioral research, practice, and policy in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan are discussed.     

Do thinking styles contribute to academic achievement beyond self-rated abilities?

This research identifies individual differences in academic achievement attributable to thinking styles over and above what can be explained by self-rated abilities. Participants were 209 university students from Hong Kong and 215 university students from mainland China. Participants responded to the Thinking Styles Inventory (Chinese version) that is based on Sternberg's theory of mental self-government (R. J. Sternberg, 1988). They also rated their own analytical, creative, and practical abilities on a 10-point scale based on R. J. Sternberg's (1985) triarchic theory of human intelligence. Participants' academic achievement scores were also used. The prediction that thinking styles statistically predict academic achievement was supported by data from both Hong Kong and mainland China. Academic achievement and thinking styles are related differently in the two groups. Implications of these findings for both teaching and research are discussed.     

Creativity of university students: What is the impact of field and year of study?

There is a long‐lasting dispute about development of students' creativity in the course of their university education. Both the duration and major field of study may represent the educational effects. To address the issue, the present study collected data (N = 859) from a series of surveys of students in Hong Kong to clarify educational effects by controlling a number of background characteristics and prior scores on creativity. Apart from measuring self‐reported creative traits and creative products, it measured divergent thinking with five tasks to elicit students' creative ideas, which led to scores of fluency, flexibility, novelty, innovativeness, and originality. Results indicate the trend of monotonic decline in creativity with years of study at university and the general superiority of verbal creativity among students of humanities and social sciences, whereas business students had the highest scores on self‐assessed creative traits and products.     

Biblical stories removed,Christian beliefs retained: religious elements in the life education curriculum of Hong Kong’s Methodist Church primary schools

ABSTRACT

The Methodist Church of Hong Kong has promoted a life education programme since 2004, and has progressively applied it in all affiliated schools. This article analyses the characteristics of the latest primary school life education curriculum compiled by this Christian school sponsoring body. There are three significant findings: 1) religious elements remain rich in the four strands of life education the Universe, oneself, other people, and environment; 2) biblical stories have been removed, but Christian beliefs are integrated into the curriculum materials and summaries in terms of Christian role models and the Holy Scriptures, in order to develop students’ relevant values, good character and positive attitudes towards life; and 3) the importance of prayer as a religious practise for action. The intended curriculum demonstrates how religious elements like Christian beliefs can be applied in secular education to build students’ sense of meaning and purpose in life.     

Social Studies and Ideological Beliefs in Mainland China and Hong Kong

Research in the West suggests that social science education enables students to become more liberal and less prejudiced in their outlook towards other people. This is the first study to test this thesis – the enlightenment thesis – in Chinese societies. Data were collected from 1,221 college students in Mainland China and 1,174 students in Hong Kong enrolled in a total of 29 institutions. The results show that though social science students showed significantly less interest in individualistic explanation and gender role traditionalism than other students, they did not gain from longer stays in college. These findings do not support the enlightenment thesis in Chinese societies. Instead, the findings that Mainland students favored nationalism significantly more and authoritarianism and individualist explanation significantly less than did Hong Kong students are consistent with the dominant ideology thesis.     

Contributions of moral education lectures and moral discussion in Hong Kong secondary schools

Moral education in the traditional form of classroom didactic lectures in secondary schools has been prevailing in Hong Kong since the initiation of moral education in the 1980s. However, such a traditional form has not received credit from research in the West. Instead, discussion of moral issues would be a more effective way of moral education than would didactic lectures. Because of the differential ways of moral education in Hong Kong, findings from other places can be subject to a test in Hong Kong. As such, this study employed panel data from 19,069 secondary school students in Hong Kong to analyze the impacts of moral education on moral commitment to sustain societal interests. Findings indicated a weak contribution of moral discussion and an even weaker contribution of moral education lectures to moral commitment. These findings therefore echo those in other places and suggest that real-life moral education contributes in the expected way, albeit weakly.     

Post-migration Growth Scale for Chinese International Students: Development and Validation

There has been a significant paradigm shift in recent acculturation research from a psychopathological perspective to a resilience framework. However, one indicator of positive adaptation outcomes in acculturation—measurement of personal growth in migration—is lacking. The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a Post-migration Growth Scale (PMGS) for Chinese international students. A 14-item scale was developed through in-depth interviews, item analysis and factor analysis. The scale was initially validated in a sample of 400 mainland Chinese students studying in Hong Kong. Exploratory factor analysis suggested two factors (interpersonal growth and intrapersonal growth), which were cross-validated in an independent sample of Chinese international students in Australia from mainland China (n = 154) by confirmatory factor analysis. The PMGS showed satisfactory internal consistency reliability and concurrent validity. The PMGS can thus be a reliable and valid instrument to measure Chinese international students’ personal growth from overseas study experiences. Limitations were discussed and implications were suggested.     

The adaptation of Chinese adolescents in two societies: a comparison of Chinese adolescents in Hong Kong and Australia

This study aimed to compare the adaptation of two groups of migrant Chinese adolescents with their nonmigrant peers. The migrant adolescents included 55 Chinese migrant adolescents who migrated to Australia (Chinese‐Australian) and 111 China‐born adolescents who migrated to Hong Kong (Chinese‐Hong Kong). The nonmigrant adolescents included 157 Anglo‐Australian adolescents residing in Australia and 456 Hong Kong‐born Chinese adolescents residing in Hong Kong. There were three research questions in this study. First, would there be any differences in the adaptation of Chinese migrant adolescents in different societies of settlement? Second, would migrant adolescents experience more adaptation problems than nonmigrant adolescents? Third, would there be any differences in the adaptation of adolescents in the two societies, Australia and Hong Kong? It was hypothesized that: (1) mainland Chinese migrant adolescents in Hong Kong would experience more adaptation problems than Chinese migrant adolescents in Australia; (2) migrant adolescents would report better adaptation than nonmigrant adolescents; (3) adolescents in Hong Kong would report poorer adaptation than adolescents in Australia. The participants were requested to complete a questionnaire on various adaptation outcome measures including life satisfaction, self‐esteem, psychological symptoms, academic satisfaction, and behaviour problems. The results indicated that Chinese‐Australian adolescents reported better psychological adaptation but Chinese‐Hong Kong adolescents reported better sociocultural adaptation. Adolescents resident in Australia reported higher psychological adaptation but lower sociocultural adaptation than those in Hong Kong. Migrant adolescents reported better psychological and sociocultural adaptation than their nonmigrant counterparts. The results were discussed in relation to the social and educational systems of the two societies.     

The Impact of the Core Knowledge Curriculum on Creativity

The Core Knowledge Sequence, which has been proposed as a voluntary national curriculum and has been adopted in many school districts across the United States, is unusually specific about the content students are expected to learn at each grade level. This has led to suggestions that it may promote rote learning and result in a decline in creativity. This possibility was investigated by comparing the creative performance of middle school students who had been attending Core Knowledge schools to that of students at a matched non-Core Knowledge school. There were 3 comparisons: poems written by seventh-grade students, short stories written by seventh-grade students, and short stories written by eighth-grade students. Experts evaluated the creativity of these stories and poems using a consensual assessment technique. Only 1 of the 3 comparisons yielded a statistically significant difference, and that difference favored Core Knowledge students. These results suggest that the Core Knowledge Curriculum and its detailed and specific requirements of content to be studied at each grade level do not negatively impact students' creativity and may even have a positive impact on creative performance in some areas.     

两种意义下的批判思维教学

批判性思维教学在国内方兴未艾,同事们就搜集教材、试验学生反应、测试教学成果及理解课程本质等纷纷交流意见。在国外包括港台等地,批判性思维教学已有一段时间的实践经验,亦不时有提出理念反思。美国哲学家理察·保罗(Richard Paul)在其1981/1995年的文章中,提出两种意义下的批判思维教学理念,引起广泛关注和讨论。"弱式"批判思维视批判思维教学为提供规则、锻炼技巧、学习把对手逐点击破的手段;"强式"批判思维则强调思维的整体性,把思考看作是人的生命形态,锻炼学生敏锐地察觉及指认自己与他人的世界观,分析不同观念、发掘相关问题、进行对话、以审视其价值,成为智性上开放、道德之个体。本文介绍保罗的理念,并尝试结合一些笔者在英国及香港的经验,对批判思维教学的理念作出反省,并讨论将包括英国牛津大学和伦敦大学国王学院的导修制度,以及香港中学生、大学生、乃至中学老师对批判思考的理解和态度等。     

The Relationship of Promotion Focus,Need for Cognitive Closure,and Categorical Accessibility in American and Hong Kong Chinese University Students

Categorical accessibility is a cognitive factor that limits the extent of creative conceptual expansion. In the present study, we sought to establish the categorical accessibility norms in five conceptual domains among American and Hong Kong Chinese university students. In addition, we predicted that the tendency to access normatively inaccessible exemplars in a conceptual domain is positively related to the motivation to maximize the likelihood of attaining positive outcomes (promotion focus) and negatively related to the need for cognitive closure. We obtained the predicted relationships among both American and Hong Kong Chinese university students. These findings were discussed in terms of their implications for promoting creativity across cultures.     

From Implicit Theories to Creative Achievements: The Mediating Role of Creativity Motivation in the Relationship between Stereotypes,Growth Mindset,and Creative Achievement

Research has demonstrated that implicit theories of creativity are crucial in shaping an individual’s behavior and real‐life decisions toward being creative. The present study proposed and examined the underlying mechanisms of how two kinds of implicit theories—the growth mindset of the creative self and the stereotype of creative others—are associated with creative achievements through the mediating role of creativity motivation. Participants were 606 undergraduate students who were enrolled in an education major in two universities in China. Overall, the study found that Chinese students held a positive image toward a creative student, regarding him or her as highly competent, warm, and popular. Student perceptions of a creative other were positively related to their growth mindset of creativity. Moreover, results verified both the mediating role of creativity motivation on growth mindset, as well as the effect of positive stereotyping of the creative other on students’ creative achievement. These findings point to promising creativity motivation strategies including the cultivation of a malleable view of creativity and of creative role models, that may, in turn, promote creative achievement by encouraging students to do, learn, and accomplish new things.     

Measuring creative thinking: An activity‐based approach

The primary objective of this exploratory study was to test activity‐based behavioral measures of creative thinking with a sample of Hong Kong fifth‐grade school children, and also to determine the concurrent validity between activity‐based measures of creative thinking and standard divergent thinking tests. Altogether five creative thinking abilities were measured using the behavioral techniques and the children's scores for fluency, flexibility, and originality were compared with those from the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT). The construct‐related validity among all the different abilities on the behavioral measures was also calculated. Contrary to previous assertions about the lack of creativity among Chinese populations, the Hong Kong children demonstrated their ability to use a number of creative thinking features in order to solve problems. No construct validity was found between the different measures of creativity except between originality and fluency. Possible reasons for this are reviewed. The TTCT and the behavioral techniques were found to have some concurrent validity in relationto fluency and originality on the Verbal Tests. There was no correlation for flexibility. The advantages of using activity‐based measurements of creative behavior are discussed.     

Who are the Best‐Known National and Foreign Creators — a Comparative Study Among Undergraduates in China and Germany

Separate studies of Chinese and Western individuals have suggested that there are cultural differences in perceptions of creativity, particularly in an emphasis on meritorious salience versus aesthetic salience as bases for creativity, but cross‐cultural studies are needed to substantiate that difference. In this study, undergraduates from Giessen in Germany and Hong Kong and Nanjing in China provided data on the recognition of famous creative persons. Chinese undergraduates in Hong Kong and Nanjing mostly nominated politicians, scientists or inventors, but rarely nominated artists, musicians. German undergraduates mostly nominated philosophers, artists, and writers but rarely nominated politicians. This supports our assumption that the Chinese evaluation of creators emphasizes the meritorious salience of creativity whereas the German evaluation of creators emphasizes the aesthetic salience of creativity. Implications and limitations of this study are discussed at the end of the paper.     

Polite Girls and Creative Boys? Students' Gender Moderates Accuracy of Teachers' Ratings of Creativity

The aim of this study was to examine whether, and to what extent, teachers are able to recognize the creativity of their students. The study measured the creative abilities, creative attitude, creative activity, as well as intrinsic motivation, intelligence, and school functioning of 589 Polish high school students, while their teachers (N = 178) rated students' creativity. The structural equation model (SEM) demonstrated that the accuracy of teachers' ratings of students' creativity is generally low—the latent factor of students' creativity reliably, however weakly, predicted teachers' ratings. The accuracy of teachers' ratings was moderated by gender: Only in the case of male students did the latent creativity factor reliably predict teachers' ratings. Students' school functioning emerged as a key factor positively associated with the perception of students as creative.