The purpose of this study was to investigate the degree of contribution that cognitive, affective and environmental variables known to be related to creativity and creative problem solving abilities had to creative problem solving abilities in science...
The purpose of this study was to investigate the degree of contribution that cognitive, affective and environmental variables known to be related to creativity and creative problem solving abilities had to creative problem solving abilities in science, on the basis of the confluence approach to creativity. To the goal of this study, specific questions are established as follows:
First, do divergent thinking and scientific knowledge, cognitive components, have an significant effect on creative problem solving abilities in science?
Second, do intrinsic/extrinsic motivation and personality traits, affective components, have an significant effect on creative problem solving abilities in science?
Third, does the home environment, environmental component, have an significant effect on creative problem solving abilities in science?
The subjects of this study consisted of 116 6th graders of 4 classes, selected for a class of unit, in public elementary schools located in Seoul. Children were given the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking, the Scientific knowledge test measuring the concept knowledge and process skill of science, Amabiles Intrinsic/Extrinsic Motivation Test, Lim Hyun-soos Creative Personality Test, and Amabiles Test for Creative Home Environment. And children were asked to solve creative problems such as food supply, fresh air supply, and energy supply in Designing an Undersea City developed by Bissett(1996). The solutions proposed by children were evaluated creativity by Besemers Creative Product Semantic Scale(CPSS) and Amabiles Consensual Assessment Technique(CAT), product creativity assessment methods. The Standard Multiple Regression Analysis was conducted to analyze the relative degree of contribution of all the variables effecting creative problem solving abilities in science.
Through those procedures, the following results were obtained:
First, this study attempted to investigate the degree of contribution of such cognitive component as the divergent thinking and science knowledge to creative problem solving abilities in science. As a result, it was found that divergent thinking had the low correlation with creative problem solving abilities in science, but failed to make a statistically significant prediction of creative problem solving abilities in science. Scientific knowledge not only showed the significant correlation with creative problem solving abilities in science, but also made a significant prediction of creative problem solving abilities in science.
Second, this study sought to investigate the degree of contribution of such affective component as the intrinsic/extrinsic motivation and personality traits to creative problem solving abilities in science. As a consequence, it was found that extrinsic motivation not only showed the significant correlation with creative problem solving abilities in science, but also made a statistically significant prediction of creative problem solving abilities in science, when evaluated by CAT. And it was found that intrinsic motivation showed the low correlation with creative problem solving abilities in science, but did not make a statistically significant prediction of creative problem solving abilities in science, when evaluated by CAT. And it was found that personality traits showed the low correlation with creative problem solving abilities in science but did not make a statistically significant prediction of creative problem solving abilities in science.
Third, it was found that the home environment as a environmental component not only showed low correlation with creative problem solving abilities in science, but also made a statistically significant prediction of creative problem solving abilities in science, when evaluated by CAT.
The study results revealed that scientific knowledge alone made a significant contribution to predicting creative problem solving abilities in science when were evaluated by CPSS. Therefore, the results did not support the confluence approach to creativity. But it was found that when creative problem solving abilities were evaluated by CAT, scientific knowledge as the cognitive variable, extrinsic motivation as the affective variable, and the home environment as the environmental variable made a statistically significant contribution to predicting creative problem solving abilities in science. Therefore, this supported the confluence approach conceptualizing creativity as the convergence of cognitive/affective/environmental components.
The findings of this study suggest that an deep understanding and learning of scientific knowledge be important in creative problem solving abilities in science. Also, it is desirable to use extrinsic motivation properly and establish the environment stimulating creativity.