Teachers' Conceptions of Creativity and Creative Students

Teachers' conceptions of creativity and creative students were investigated. Questionnaires were administered to elementary school teachers to examine their attitudes, beliefs, and current classroom practices. Teachers were found to possess inaccurate concepts regarding what constitutes creativity and revealed conflicts with the classroom behaviors demonstrated by creative students. The paradox between teachers' reported support for creativity enrichment and virtual lack of related classroom practice is explored as a result of multiple misconceptions and contributing variables.     

高中生创造性思维发展特点的研究

选取110名高中生为被试,采用自编“中学生创造性思维测验”,考察了高中生创造性思维水平的年龄特点、性别差异以及学科成绩与创造性思维水平之间的相关.结果表明:(1)从创造性思维总分上看,高中生的创造性思维水平发展比较平缓,各年级间差异不显著;其中创造性思维最重要的品质——独特性:从高一到高二年级处于较为平稳的水平,二者无显著差异;高三比高二(P<001)和高一(P<0001)有显著提高;(2)高中学生的创造性思维不存在显著的性别差异;(3)中学生语文成绩与创造性思维总得分及部分项目得分有一定相关,与创造性思维的独特性及各项目上的独特性均无显著相关.数学成绩与创造性思维的诸方面均无显著相关.     

Comparing Visitors' Conceptions of Evolution: Examining Understanding Outside the United States

ABSTRACT

In contrast to the United States, other predominantly English-speaking countries generally have higher acceptance rates of evolutionary theory. This article explores whether natural history museum audiences in these regions also have fewer misconceptions about the underlying processes of evolution. Museum visitors in Great Britain, Canada, and Australia were asked to explain how evolution worked, as well as whether or not they believed that the theory was valid. Although findings suggest that these visitors were significantly less likely to reject evolution (compared with a recent investigation conducted at natural history museums across the United States), they were just as likely to harbor misconceptions as their American counterparts.     

Taiwanese University Students' Conceptions of Counseling

The purpose of this study was to describe and discuss Taiwanese university students' conceptions of counseling. A qualitative method was used to analyze 60 in-depth interviews from 30 male and 30 female students at a national university in central Taiwan. Results indicated that Taiwanese university students recognized the importance of counseling services to students and citizens, even though most of them were unfamiliar with counseling. Thematic patterns emerged from Taiwanese university students' conceptions of counseling, which suggested implications for clinical practice, education, and research. Namely, accessibility, familiarity, credibility, and effectiveness of counselors seemed to enhance students' willingness to seek counseling. Results also suggested that counseling services should implement a combination of educational, preventive, and therapeutic functions.     

Greater Male Variability in Creativity Outside the WEIRD World

Recent studies in creativity literature have demonstrated higher variability of creative ability between males and females, despite the lack of systematic sex differences in average scores on creativity tests. However, little is known about the causes of this variability and its generalizability beyond industrialized societies. This study presents the first evidence of the greater male variability in a sample of nonindustrialized, traditional Meru people residing in Kenya, Africa. The effect size of this difference was even greater than that reported in the majority of studies conducted on industrialized populations. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Students' Ethical Awareness and Conceptions of Research Ethics

The study focused on university students' understanding and conceptions of ethical issues in research. Domain-specific and domain-transcending measures were developed to gauge the students' awareness of ethical issues. Responses were obtained from 269 undergraduate and graduate students at a U.S. regional university. Participant withdrawal, the debriefing of research participants, the dissemination of findings, and giving credit to co-contributors were the most challenging ethical issues for the students. Ethical awareness was predicted by professional and organizational socialization, and perspective taking. Contextualization greatly improved the students' ability to recognize ethical issues. Simulations and role-taking are suggested as the means with which to teach students about the ethical issues perceived as challenging.     

Conceptions of Creativity and Relations with Judges' Intelligence and Personality

The aim of this study is to describe naïve conceptions of creativity and offer some explanation for their variability. Two methods are used to analyze conceptions of creativity. The first one consists of analyzing adjectives that are associated by naïve judges with the notion of creativity of an advertisement. The second one consists of predicting the evaluation of creative level of advertisements by naïve judges, through the assessment of dimensions such as the originality of these advertisements or the quality of their design. Results show that with both methods, originality is always the most characteristic dimension of creativity. Moreover, the results show that the variability of the importance given to the dimensions of creativity is linked to certain characteristics of judges. In particular, factor g is positively related to the weight given to originality in creativity. A personality trait, preference for novelty, is also positively associated with greater weight for originality in creativity judgments.     

Thinking Outside the Disciplinary Box: a Reply to the Comments

This article is a reply to the comments on my target article, “Presentism and diversity in the history of psychology” (Brock Psychological Studies, 60, 2015a). The most controversial aspect of the article by far was my views on what it is appropriate to call, “psychology” and what it is not. Having established that psychology has its origins in Europe, I refer to the efforts of psychologists from outside the Western world to construct an “indigenous psychology”. I conclude by discussing the view of Staeuble (2006) that the disciplinary order of the social sciences is “Eurocentric” in that it reflects the assumptions of the culture in which it was produced. As long as psychologists outside the Western world continue to unquestioningly adopt a disciplinary order that reflects its cultural origins in the West, and even insist on projecting it backwards onto their own intellectual traditions, the process of indigenisation will be incomplete.     

焦虑对学生创造性的影响

以138名初二学生为被试,研究了特质焦虑和状态焦虑对学生创造性影响的问题。由于国外在此方面的研究结果不一致,研究的方法也缺乏生态化效度,因此本文试图通过教学现场实验,运用实际教学情境中的刺激来诱发学生的焦虑情绪,以探索在教学情境中学生焦虑对其创造性影响状况。研究结果表明,特质焦虑和状态焦虑对学生创造性的影响存在差异,其中特质焦虑对学生的创造性没有显著影响,而状态焦虑对学生的创造性有显著影响,即状态焦虑低分组在创造性测试的总分上明显高于状态焦虑高分组,且主要体现在流畅性和变通性两个方面。     

小学教师的创造力培养观与创造性教学行为的关系:教学监控能力的中介作用

用创造力培养观、教学监控能力和创造性教学行为问卷对430名小学教师进行调查,考察三者之间的关系,并着重对教学监控能力在其中的中介作用进行分析。结果表明:(1)创造力培养观、教学监控能力及其各个维度对创造性教学行为都有正向预测作用;(2)教学监控能力的计划准备性、控制调节性、评价反馈性、课后反省性及作为一个整体在创造力培养观与创造性教学行为之间均具有显著的中介效应。这一发现提示教师培训工作应重视教师教学监控能力的实际增长,这样才能使教师已经接受的创造教育理念落实到创造性教学行为上。     

小学生数学学习观:结构与特点的研究

采用问卷法,本研究探讨了小学生数学学习观的结构与表现特点。研究表明:小学生数学学习观的四个因素,即数学学习兴趣、课堂参与性、数学学科观与数学交流的素养,能够较好地解释数学学习观的心理结构;小学生的数学学习兴趣与课堂参与性,随着年级升高显著下降,而在数学学科观与数学交流的素养方面则表现出相反的趋势,即随着年级升高而提升;男生的学习兴趣与课堂参与性明显高于女生,但在数学学科观与数学交流的素养方面,女生则明显好于男生。     

Convergent Thinking Moderates the Relationship between Divergent Thinking and Scientific Creativity

Creativity plays an important role in human society as well as in individual development, and creativity in the domain of science is a specific form. A body of research had demonstrated the role of divergent thinking in creativity. The role of convergent thinking had also been recognized, but more empirical evidence was needed. To investigate the interaction between convergent and divergent thinking on adolescent scientific creativity, the current study tested 588 high school students. The results showed that convergent thinking interacted with fluency/flexibility of divergent thinking on scientific creativity. In particular, divergent thinking predicted creativity in those high in convergent thinking. Findings suggested a threshold-setting effect of convergent thinking, which meant only when convergent thinking capacity reached a certain level, divergent thinking could play a role in scientific creativity. Implications for future research and educational practice were discussed.     

Students' Views of Business Ethics: An Analysis

This study investigates the difference in perceptions between undergraduate business and MBA students regarding selected ethical issues facing employees and managers of today's businesses. Furthermore, the study investigates the intergroup (i.e., at each educational level) and intragroup (i.e., between undergraduates and MBAs) differences in terms of the "situation"; that is, their position as an employee or a manager of the company. A sample of 104 undergraduate and MBA students was used. The results indicate that undergraduate students tend to act more ethically than do MBA students, and both groups tend to be more ethically oriented the higher their professional corporate position is. The findings have direct implications for business practitioners and for educators.     

Scientific Creativity: Divergent and Convergent Thinking and the Impact of Culture

This paper examines the contrast and distinction between divergent and convergent scientific creativity, and the paradoxical relationship of scientific creativity with cultural factors in elementary students. With a newly developed measure of potential for scientific creativity, EPoC Science (Lubart et al., in press), students produce ideas in response to scientific problems, and both divergent‐exploratory as well as convergent‐integrative processes involved in scientific creativity are analyzed. An empirical study (n = 118) was conducted in France with elementary school children (ages 7–10). The divergent‐exploratory task was scored for fluency and statistical uniqueness. For the convergent‐integrative task, the number of concepts that a student integrated and synthesized, and the originality of the synthesis were scored. Results showed that divergent and convergent task performances were weakly related to each other. This suggests that divergence and convergence are two relatively distinct processes for scientific creativity, and that the relation is more complex than commonly assumed. In terms of culture‐related variables, immigrant cultural background (number of family members born outside of France) was significantly and negatively correlated with the originality of divergent and convergent scientific creativity. Findings are discussed and educational implications are proposed.     

Counseling Students' Conceptions of Substance Dependence and Related Initial Interventions

Counseling students who have received varying amounts of instruction in substance abuse counseling differ in choices of initial interventions with a hypothetical client and in conceptualization of substance dependence. Findings have implications for counseling practice and counselor education and supervision.     

The Creativity Crisis: The Decrease in Creative Thinking Scores on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking

The Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT) was developed in 1966 and renormed five times: in 1974, 1984, 1990, 1998, and 2008. The total sample for all six normative samples included 272,599 kindergarten through 12th grade students and adults. Analysis of the normative data showed that creative thinking scores remained static or decreased, starting at sixth grade. Results also indicated that since 1990, even as IQ scores have risen, creative thinking scores have significantly decreased. The decrease for kindergartners through third graders was the most significant.