{"title":"Design knowledge scaffolds to facilitate students’ probabilistic thinking skills for solving classical probability problems: An exploratory study","authors":"Shengqing He , Yan Ping Xin","doi":"10.1016/j.tsc.2025.101928","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tsc.2025.101928","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Students encounter numerous difficulties in solving probability problems. Although there have been efforts to enhance students’ probabilistic thinking, most of these studies focused on extrinsic approaches such as contextual settings and visual representation aided by certain technologies. Few studies adopted an integrated perspective to design scaffolds from contextual, conceptual, and procedural dimensions and to examine their impact on students’ probabilistic thinking skills. This quasi-experimental study explored the effectiveness of integrated contextual-conceptual-procedural scaffolds of combinatorial knowledge to enhance middle school students’ performance in sample space and probability comparison tasks in compound experimental contexts. In this study, we divided four parallel seventh-grade classes from a school in Shanghai, China, involving 132 students into the experimental and control groups. Two classes in the experimental group received tailored instructional intervention, while two classes in the control group did not receive any additional intervention. The post-test revealed that the experimental group performed better than the control group on the sample space task. Still, the experimental group’s advantage on this task did not produce a chain effect. We propose three implications for improving textbook design and teaching practices by analyzing the potential reasons for the above findings.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47729,"journal":{"name":"Thinking Skills and Creativity","volume":"58 ","pages":"Article 101928"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2025-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144704044","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Maria F. Vieira , David H. Cropley , Rebecca Marrone , Chanvi Singh
{"title":"Bridging the gender gap in STEM: The impact of self-beliefs on domain-specific creativity among secondary students","authors":"Maria F. Vieira , David H. Cropley , Rebecca Marrone , Chanvi Singh","doi":"10.1016/j.tsc.2025.101929","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tsc.2025.101929","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>There is a growing recognition of creative thinking in school curricula as a possible solution to address the gender gap in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). This is supported by research suggesting that pedagogical approaches which emphasise creativity may foster greater engagement, interest, and science identity among female students. However, these efforts often overlook that female students may have lower confidence in their creative abilities, which can limit the effectiveness of approaches that focus only on the cognitive dimensions of creativity, such as creative thinking. This study explores gender differences in STEM creativity among secondary school students in Australia (<em>N</em> = 913), specifically examining disparities in the affective dimension of creativity—that is, students' creative self-beliefs. The findings reveal a concerning pattern: despite exhibiting higher domain-general creative potential, females display less confidence in their creative performance within scientific settings compared to males. The results emphasize the urgent need for educational strategies that cater to both the cognitive and affective dimensions of creativity, ensuring that female students can effectively convert their creative potential into performance in STEM fields. Practical implications for classroom educators, school leaders, and policymakers are discussed, including the use of innovative pedagogical approaches in the classroom and the redefinition of creativity in the curriculum.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47729,"journal":{"name":"Thinking Skills and Creativity","volume":"58 ","pages":"Article 101929"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2025-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144696693","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jiahao Ge , Qiannan Fu , Jianzhen Zhang , Zhenni An , Xiaoyu Liang , Hongwei Zhou
{"title":"How does classroom justice contribute to creativity? The mediating effects of sense of place and the moderating effects of social-emotional competence","authors":"Jiahao Ge , Qiannan Fu , Jianzhen Zhang , Zhenni An , Xiaoyu Liang , Hongwei Zhou","doi":"10.1016/j.tsc.2025.101927","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tsc.2025.101927","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Promoting creativity in the classroom has been emphasized in recent years. However, there is a lack of research that combines human and environment to investigate the complex mechanisms of creativity in the classroom. Thus, the present study explored the relationship between classroom justice and creativity based on the ecological systems model of creativity development. Further, the mediating effect of sense of place and the moderating effect of social-emotional competence was tested. A questionnaire survey was conducted with 1555 upper-secondary school students in the eastern area of China. We tested a moderating mediation model using SPSS and AMOS. The findings not only indicated that classroom justice positively affect creativity, but also indirectly through sense of place as a mediator. Also, social-emotional competence was found that have a positive moderating effect between sense of place and creativity. These findings may provide theoretical and practical guidance for educators to better understand the development of creativity in the classroom.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47729,"journal":{"name":"Thinking Skills and Creativity","volume":"58 ","pages":"Article 101927"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2025-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144704043","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Exploring the developmental trajectory of students' creative thinking and intellectual interaction in a computer-supported collaborative learning environment","authors":"Juan Wang , Daner Sun , Yuqin Yang , Zhizi Zheng","doi":"10.1016/j.tsc.2025.101930","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tsc.2025.101930","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Creative thinking is increasingly regarded as a core competency essential for addressing complex challenges in the 21st century. Although previous studies have explored strategies for fostering creativity in educational settings, limited attention has been given to how creative thinking develops within computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environments guided by the design thinking (DT) framework. This study aims to bridge this research gap by examining the effects of a DT-CSCL intervention on students’ creative thinking development and by mapping the progression of creative thinking across the different stages of the design thinking process. A mixed-methods research design was employed with 40 vocational college students participating in the study. Data sources included students’ creative design task outputs and collaborative discourse collected from WeChat-based learning groups. Creative thinking was assessed using a revised coding scheme that captured both divergent and convergent thinking dimensions. Epistemic Network Analysis (ENA) was used to analyze discourse data, enabling a comparative analysis of creative thinking patterns among students with high and low design performance, as well as tracing its evolution across DT stages. The results revealed notable differences between high- and low-performing students: high-performing students demonstrated stronger integration between divergent and convergent thinking, particularly in the areas of elaboration, synthesis, and decision-making. Conversely, low-performing students showed initial potential in idea generation but struggled with elaboration and refinement. Moreover, creative thinking followed a dynamic trajectory across the DT-CSCL stages, shifting from predominantly divergent to more convergent forms as students progressed through the design cycle. These findings highlight the importance of stage-specific instructional scaffolds in DT-CSCL settings and suggest that tailoring pedagogical strategies to the cognitive demands of each design phase can more effectively support students’ creative thinking development.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47729,"journal":{"name":"Thinking Skills and Creativity","volume":"58 ","pages":"Article 101930"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2025-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144704396","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Deeper learning offers opportunities for imagination without cost to content knowledge","authors":"Anahid S. Modrek","doi":"10.1016/j.tsc.2025.101926","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tsc.2025.101926","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Any effort to help educators enact effective instruction has to, at minimum, start from knowledge of their ideas about learning and their implications for pedagogy. In attempt to secure such knowledge, and part of a broader effort to inform instructional change towards a more explorative approach to learning, we ask: What do teachers consider a learning opportunity that affords deeper learning? How does this vary by teachers as a result of professional development? We hypothesize teachers at deeper learning/treatment schools may offer more opportunities for exploratory, imaginative thinking—the type of thinking too often diminishing by adolescence—alongside the knowledge-based learning more common in traditional schooling. Deeper learning/treatment schools are intended to engage students in activities that engender multiple deeper learning competencies to impact cognitive development and academic achievement. In a quasi-experiment with <em>n</em> = 409 teachers/assignments across both math and English subjects, and <em>n</em> = 22 matched-pair schools across the U.S., results support our hypotheses suggesting stronger learning opportunities provided by teachers at treatment schools enacting deeper learning. In both math and English language (ELA) subjects, opportunities to be imaginative can be developed without sacrificing knowledge-based, content learning. That is, both can be offered <em>simultaneously</em>. As part of a much larger longitudinal project, this preliminary work provides new rubrics – new tools – for teachers and researchers alike. We report reliability and validity of the rubrics developed and employed in this study. Implications for curriculum, pedagogy and public policy are discussed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47729,"journal":{"name":"Thinking Skills and Creativity","volume":"58 ","pages":"Article 101926"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2025-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144704490","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Heather T. Snyder , Magdalena G. Grohman , Kim N. Awa
{"title":"Creative coursework and college students’ perceptions: Examining creative self-efficacy, creative personal identity, and intrinsic task motivation","authors":"Heather T. Snyder , Magdalena G. Grohman , Kim N. Awa","doi":"10.1016/j.tsc.2025.101925","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tsc.2025.101925","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Curricula to enhance creativity, including classroom activities, have been found to improve creativity in undergraduate students. Here, we adapted a series of structured classroom activities for an undergraduate Psychology of Creativity course to scaffold students’ work on creative projects using cognitive skills such as idea generation and evaluation. Students in the intervention group (<em>n</em> = 81) engaged in hands-on structured activities focusing on the creative process whereas students in the control group (<em>n</em> = 93) received lectures and discussions about the creative process without the structured activities. Intra-individual pre and post-activity differences were examined in students’ creative self-efficacy, creative personal identity, and intrinsic task motivation. In addition, 169 final creative projects were independently rated on originality and quality. We found that the intervention and control groups did not differ in overall creative self-assessments nor the originality of the projects. However, path analyses revealed a partially mediated effect of creative personal identity on creative self-efficacy and intrinsic task motivation after completing the course project. Additionally, creative personal identity remained a significant predictor of intrinsic task motivation, even when accounting for the mediating effect of creative self-efficacy. Pairwise comparisons revealed an increase in intrinsic task motivation and effort after the project, although they also reported a decrease in the perceived value of the project and feeling competent. The present findings suggest that coursework emphasizing creativity aids in student’s creative self-perceptions and motivations for creative tasks. The results and implications of the findings for promoting creativity in undergraduate students are discussed, as well as the study’s limitations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47729,"journal":{"name":"Thinking Skills and Creativity","volume":"58 ","pages":"Article 101925"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2025-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144704407","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hoai Than Nguyen , Thi Vinh Tran Nguyen , Ngoc Quang Le PhD , Thi Thanh Truc Nguyen , Tu Duy Do
{"title":"Exploring the associations between multicultural experience and creative teaching: the potential roles of cultural intelligence and fear of failure","authors":"Hoai Than Nguyen , Thi Vinh Tran Nguyen , Ngoc Quang Le PhD , Thi Thanh Truc Nguyen , Tu Duy Do","doi":"10.1016/j.tsc.2025.101924","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tsc.2025.101924","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Drawing on Social Learning Theory and Cultural Intelligence Theory, this study explores how multicultural experiences are associated with creative teaching and how cultural intelligence and fear of failure may play a role in shaping this relationship. Data were collected from 334 lecturers using an online questionnaire, and the hypotheses were tested using PLS-SEM. The results show that multicultural experience is positively associated with creative teaching, with cultural intelligence appearing to function as a mediating variable and fear of failure being observed to moderate the relationship. Specifically, the study finds that higher levels of fear of failure are associated with a weaker positive relationship between multicultural experience and cultural intelligence on creative teaching. The study contributes to the literature by integrating both social learning and cultural intelligence perspectives, suggesting that cultural intelligence may serve as a mechanism linking multicultural exposure to creative teaching. Additionally, it provides insights into psychological factors, such as fear of failure that may relate to creative teaching efforts. Theoretical implications include extending the understanding of potential pathways through which multicultural experiences and cultural intelligence may relate to teaching, while practical implications point to the value of supporting educators and institutions should focus on enhancing multicultural experience and cultural intelligence, as well as addressing psychological barriers to foster creative teaching.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47729,"journal":{"name":"Thinking Skills and Creativity","volume":"58 ","pages":"Article 101924"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2025-07-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144662882","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Cross-cultural comparison of creative thinking in mathematics textbooks: A case study of high school mathematics textbooks in China, Japan, and South Korea","authors":"Ling Guohua , Wu Xiaopeng , Tang Jiamin","doi":"10.1016/j.tsc.2025.101917","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tsc.2025.101917","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Creative thinking is the core of students' creativity in the digital intelligence era and is crucial for developing students' mathematics literacy. In the mathematics curriculum, tasks in textbooks serve as a vital vehicle for cultivating students' creative thinking and have become a consensus in education reform across many countries. Analyzing the differences in how students' creative thinking develops in mathematics textbooks from different nations has gained increasing attention from the academic community. Students in China, Japan, and South Korea consistently outperform their Western counterparts in mathematics, and each country's educational development path is distinct. Accordingly, this study employed a continuous comparison method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) to modify Hadar and Tirosh's (2019) creative thinking framework, creating an analysis model suited for examining creative thinking tasks in high school mathematics textbooks. This model includes fourteen sub-categories across three broad themes: divergent thinking, convergent thinking, and horizontal thinking. The comparative analysis reveals that the mathematics tasks in textbooks from these three countries emphasize different aspects of developing students' creative thinking. Additionally, this research offers valuable insights for educators seeking to understand the variations in creative thinking within high school mathematics textbooks across nations. It also provides guidance for future textbook development—such as increasing both the number and proportion of creative thinking tasks, including more interdisciplinary creative thinking exercises—to further foster students' creative thinking abilities.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47729,"journal":{"name":"Thinking Skills and Creativity","volume":"58 ","pages":"Article 101917"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2025-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144634239","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Defu Bao, Chentao Jia, Jie Ying, Guangrun Liu, Yuxiang Yu, Danni Shen, Chao li
{"title":"Cultural creative processes supported by collaborative stimulation: A card-based toolkit for team interaction rules incorporation","authors":"Defu Bao, Chentao Jia, Jie Ying, Guangrun Liu, Yuxiang Yu, Danni Shen, Chao li","doi":"10.1016/j.tsc.2025.101921","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tsc.2025.101921","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Card-based toolkits, a form of design support tool that utilizes cards as information carriers, play a significant role in facilitating creative thinking, problem-solving, and the process of systematic design methodologies. Now, superior team interaction is seen as one of the opportunities to improve toolkit stability and quality. Focusing on the field of cultural innovation, the study employed a five-phase workshop approach, grounded in theories of Collaborative Stimulation Theory, FBS (Function-Behavior-Structure) model, and three-level cultural theory. The research developed a card-based toolkit called CPD (Cultural-collaborative Project Deck) which consists of both physical cards and team interaction rules. Ultimately, five three-person teams conducted thematic design practices based on the CPD under three conditions: no design support, card support only, and both card and team collaboration support. The analysis was based on evaluations of team design fluency, innovation, feasibility, and quality of cultural expression. The findings indicate that both interaction and the toolkit can improve the fluency and quality of cultural creativity. Meanwhile, we were surprised to find that interaction can improve the cultural depth, richness, and abstract expression of the ideas for team outputs.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47729,"journal":{"name":"Thinking Skills and Creativity","volume":"58 ","pages":"Article 101921"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2025-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144623860","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Does spatial ability affect students' learning performance in virtual reality environments? A study on desktop virtual reality systems","authors":"Shouchao Guo , Yuqian Sun , Xiao Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.tsc.2025.101923","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tsc.2025.101923","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Spatial ability is considered to be an effective predictor of student performance in STEM fields, and the educational benefits of Virtual Reality in STEM are becoming increasingly evident. However, it is not clear how students with different initial spatial ability benefit from virtual environment. The ability-as-enhancer hypothesis and the ability-as-compensator hypothesis explain the benefit difference of students with different initial spatial ability in virtual environment from the perspective of cognitive load. However, the existing research has not formed the teaching guidance on the participation of students with different initial spatial ability in virtual reality environment. This study first discusses the performance differences of students with different initial spatial ability in virtual reality environment, and examines the correlation between students' initial spatial ability and learning performance. We verify the training effect of virtual reality environment on spatial ability, and find that students with different initial spatial ability have similar learning performance. Then, through the delayed sequence analysis of student behavior, we found that students with high spatial ability tended to optimize the model, while students with low spatial ability focused on model design. This provides a new perspective for the teaching guidance of students with different initial spatial ability.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47729,"journal":{"name":"Thinking Skills and Creativity","volume":"58 ","pages":"Article 101923"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2025-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144604689","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}