Teaching creative thinking in regular science lessons: Potentials and obstacles of three different approaches in an Asian context

Basic concepts of creativity

Creativity has growing significance in contemporary world, and received increased attention in recent educational reforms around the world. What is creativity? Sternberg and Lubart (1999) states, “creativity is the ability to produce work that is both novel (i.e., original, unexpected) and appropriate (i.e., useful, adaptive concerning task constraints)” (p. 3). In education field, creativity is believed to be a combination of abilities, skills, motivation, attitudes and other factors (Ripple, 1999). Among all these attributes, creative thinking is always considered as central to creativity development. From the cognitive approach, leading scholars of creativity consider divergent thinking as the essence of creative thinking (Guildford, 1950; Torrance, 1974). The most influential definition of divergent thinking includes the elements in Guilford’s (1950) Structure of the Intellect (SOI) model: fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration. In contrast, some scholars take an affective approach. For example, William’s Taxonomy of Creative Thought (Williams, 1980) suggests that affective factors such as curiosity, imagination, challenge-taking and risk-taking attitudes are conducive to creativity development, and motivational factors like interest, value and confidence in creative thinking are also important determinants.

Creativity in Science Education

Creativity is an elusive concept and can be interpreted in a variety of different ways. So is creativity in science domain. Creativity in science education may aim at developing scientific creativity, as defined in Hu and Adey (2002) or some general creative thinking elements, as described in McCormack and Yager (1989). Creativity field is having an on-going debate on the domain-specificity and generality of creativity (Baer & Kaufman, 2005). This shed doubt on the transfer of creativity learning from science to other domains. On the other hand, the suitability of developing creativity of scientists in a “science for all” curriculum is controversial. There is still no conclusion to what should be the teaching objectives and instructional strategies of creativity education in science. For these reasons, a multi-faceted perspective for integrating creative learning into science education is easier to be accepted than a unidirectional one.

In a recent review of Kind and Kind (2007), they reported different perspectives in defining creativity in science education, and different approaches adopted by science educators, including poetry, inquiry-based science teaching, experimental methods, imagery and imagination. Cheng (2006) suggests multiple approaches to foster creativity in Physics education, including discovery, understanding, presentation, application, and integration of science knowledge. For infusing creativity into regular lessons, one may need to consider the approaches of existing science curriculum. For long, science content-based and science process-based are the two most common approaches in science curriculum (Swatton, 1990). Coming to recent decades, the science-technology-society (STS) approach grew in significance (Mansour, 2009). In parallel with these science curricula, this study suggests three approaches for integrating creativity into regular science lessons, i.e. developing creative thinking through science process, science content and science scenario.

Let’s first discuss the science process approach. Open-inquiry is regarded as a most fundamental and widely used way to foster creativity in science education (Johnson, 2000; Kind & Kind, 2007; Meador, 2003). Craft (2000), Meador (2003) and Shahrin, Toh, Ho and Wong (2002) considered engaging students in the open-ended discovery and the scientific inquiry process could help to build new concepts, and develop creative thinking abilities and attitudes. Among all inquiry processes, hypothesis-making is considered as an essential one for creating connections between prior knowledge and new experiences, and also practices a critical element of scientific investigation and creativity enhancement (Starko, 2010, Watson & Konicek, 1990).

In the science content-based approach, creative writing, which involves the use of analogies, is another useful strategy in nurturing creativity in science education (Drenkow, 1992). Everyday analogies lead an individual to new ideas, and personal analogies (in which students are asked to be the thing) help to foster imagination (Girod, Rau & Schepige, 2003). Kind and Kind (2007) and Starko (2010) commented that such process of imagination in specific situations results in students’ better understanding and new perspectives to science. In fact, the use of analogies has played a vital role in scientific discovery and invention (Gibbs, 1999). In light of this, creative writing is considered as an effective strategy for enhancing students’ imagination, creative thinking and also understanding of science concepts.

In the science scenario approach, creative problem solving (CPS) is another common way to foster creativity in science education. It aims to offer students an opportunity to “work with open-ended problems or tasks that require creative solution” (Park & Seung, 2008, p.48). According to Isaksen, Dorval and Treffinger (2000), CPS model consists of six stages: mess-finding, data-finding, problem-finding, idea-finding, solution-finding and acceptance-finding. In each stage, divergent thinking (finding many ideas) is followed by convergent thinking (analyzing ideas and making choice). Several studies on science teaching (Gallagher, Sher, Stepien & Workman, 1995; Gallagher, Stepien, & Rosenthal, 1992) adopted CPS or other similar problem solving model, and demonstrated different degrees of success.

Context of the study

Hong Kong is a modernized Chinese city. Similar to Singapore, Taiwan, Korea, Japan and other Asian places, recently, Hong Kong is undergoing creativity-related educational reform. In Hong Kong, creativity has become one of the three most significant “generic skills” to be developed across all subject curricula (Curriculum Development Council, 2002a). The same as all other Asian places, creativity is suggested not to be taught as a separate subject, but to be infused into the regular curriculum. Sciences are subjects in which creativity elements should be integrated in all levels (Curriculum Development Council, 2002b). However, the creativity reforms of Hong Kong were confronted with many obstacles and dilemmas (Cheng, 2004; Craft, 2005; Hui & Lau, in press). It has a centralized examination-orientated educational system with heavy knowledge-dominated curriculum and Confucian-heritage classroom culture. Almost all Hong Kong teachers have little, if any, experience in teaching creativity. In fact, all these characteristics of teachers, curriculum and culture are quite common in educational systems of Asian places (Cheng, in press).