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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science
Learning and Teaching, Volume 5, Issue 2, Article 1 (Aug., 2004) Vivian Mo Yin CHENG Developing Physics learning activities for fostering student creativity in Hong Kong context
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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science
Learning and Teaching, Volume 5, Issue 2, Article 1 (Aug., 2004) Vivian Mo Yin CHENG Developing Physics learning activities for fostering student creativity in Hong Kong context
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Literature Review
Creativity is a complex and diverse construct. Recently, academic fields tend to have consensus on a multi-dimensional and multi-facet approach in defining, enhancing and assessing creativity. Creativity is believed to be a combination of abilities, skills, motivation, attitudes and other factors (Ripple, 1999). Even so, the most popular techniques for enhancing creativity over the past 50 years have involved the teaching of divergent thinking and general problem-solving heuristics (Plucker and Runco, 1999). The core components of divergent thinking are fluency (generating a large number of ideas), flexibility (generating ideas of different categories or approaches), novelty (generating unusual or rare ideas) and elaboration (generating ideas in detail) (Torrance, 1990).
In recent decade, there is a growing number of literature that concerns not only divergent thinking, but the integration of divergent and convergent thinking in the productive thinking process (i.e. producing new and useful ideas) (Treffinger, Isaksen, and Dorval, 1994). Instead of focusing on problem solving, studies also recognize the importance of problem-finding and sensitivity in the creative process (Runco, 1994). In affective aspects, William’s Taxonomy of Creative Thought (Williams, 1980) suggested that curiosity, imagination, challenge-taking and risk-taking attitudes are conducive to creativity development, and motivational factors, like interest, confidence and value in creative thinking are also important determinants. Amable’s studies (1996) emphasized that intrinsic motivation on the tasks and playful attitudes facilitate the emergence of creativity. Some creativity-enhancement programs also involve the learning of specific idea-generating heuristics, like brainstorming, mind-mapping, forced association, check-listing, creating metaphors, creative dramatics (Starko, 2001). Among them, brainstorming technique, creative problem solving technique (CPS) (Treffinger, Isaksen, and Dorval, 2000) are most widely adopted in creative learning activities.
While the above mentioned scholars concentrated on the general aspects of creativity, some scholars believed that creativity is domain-sensitive (Baer, 1999). The former might believe that there exist a set of general creative attitudes and abilities that influence individual’s creative behaviors across domain, and, through nurturing them, the overall creativity of a person can be enhanced. In contrast, the latter suggested that training in creativity cannot be transferred across domain. Whether creative activities in science can enhance some general attitudes or abilities of students, or merely creativity in the science domain involved, it is still an unanswered question. (In this study, infusing creativity-enhancing elements into Physics learning is assumed to have dual purposes.)
Creativity studies in science education
Many scholars have suggested that creativity development is inherited in scientific processes. Craft (2000), Loehle (1994), Meador (2003), Pye and Sherborne (2001), and Schamel (1992) considered engaging students in the active thinking in the open-ended scientific discovery and inquiry process as means to foster student creativity. Instead of asking students to follow a fixed set of directions in doing experiments, educators encourage students to form their own hypotheses and develop their own experimental designs. This open-inquiry approach is considered as a fundamental way to foster creativity in science, and is most widely incorporated into creativity-enhancing course in science education.
Besides this open-inquiry approach, problem-solving activities are always included in science learning curricula to elicit creativity. Two common structured approaches are the creative problem-solving (CPS) model (Treffinger, Isaksen, and Dorval, 2000), and the problem-based learning method (Gallagher, 1997). Abell (1990) illustrated how teachers can adopt the six stages of CPS strategies systematically to solve a biology ill-structured problem. Other educators (Gallagher et al., 1995; Krynock and Robb, 1999; Plucker and Nowak, 2001) suggested problem-based learning developed in science-society-technology approach as a most effective way to foster creativity in science. These instructional designs ask students to do projects on real-life ill-structured problems in a rather self-directed and systematic mode.
Besides the widely accepted scientific inquiry and problem-solving learning activities, educators have tried to integrate some common creativity-enhancing methods (most of which were originated from gifted education field) into science learning. McCormack and Yages (1989) proposed a new taxonomy of science education. On top of the common domains of science education (knowing and understanding, exploring and discovering, feeling and valuing, using and applying), they included an "imagining and creating" domain. They stated that "the abilities that make up this domain are visualizing or producing metal images; combining objects and ideas in new ways; producing alternate or unusual uses for objects; solving problems and puzzles; fantasizing; pretending; dreaming; designing devices and machines; and producing unusual ideas." (McCormack and Yages,1989, p.48) In a following study, Gilbert (1992) suggested six kinds of questioning that should be involved in this creativity domain of science education. They are questions on association, imagination, brainstorming, organization, analogy and metaphor, and reconceptualization.
Though there are a number of isolated papers suggesting some specific instructional strategies for developing creativity in science learning, however, a complete set of activities for infusing creativity-enhancing elements into school science education, especially in senior secondary science curricula, is not yet known. In fact, quality science learning should involve a rich, wide and balanced selection of creative activities in their lessons. The first aim of this study is to develop a comprehensive set of creative science activities that are of wide coverage. This will serve as a checklist for science educators in designing creativity-fostering lessons. Physics is a chosen domain of science learning in this study.
Copyright (C) 2004 HKIEd APFSLT. Volume 5, Issue 2, Article 1 (Aug., 2004). All Rights Reserved.
