Park Ji Hoon, Niu Weihua, Cheng Li, Allen Heavon
Department of Psychology, Pace University, New York, NY, United States.
Developmental and Educational Research Center for Children's Creativity, Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
Front Psychol. 2021 Nov 11;12:760351. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.760351. eCollection 2021.
Enhancing creativity and critical thinking have garnered the attention of educators and researchers for decades. They have been highlighted as essential skills for the 21st century. A total of 103 United States students (53 female, 24 male, two non-binary, and 24 non-reporting) and 166 Chinese students (128 female, 30 male, one non-binary, and seven non-reporting) completed an online survey. The survey includes the STEAM-related creative problem solving, Sternberg scientific reasoning tasks, psychological critical thinking (PCT) exam, California critical thinking (CCT) skills test, and college experience survey, as well as a demographic questionnaire. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) yields a two-factor model for all creativity and critical thinking measurements. Yet, the two latent factors are strongly associated with each other (=0.84). Moreover, Chinese students outperform American students in measures of critical thinking, whereas Americans outperform Chinese students in measures of creativity. Lastly, the results also demonstrate that having some college research experience (such as taking research method courses) could positively influence both United States and Chinese students' creativity and critical thinking skills. Implications are discussed.
几十年来，提高创造力和批判性思维一直吸引着教育工作者和研究人员的关注。它们已被视为21世纪的必备技能。共有103名美国学生（53名女生、24名男生、2名非二元性别学生和24名未报告性别的学生）和166名中国学生（128名女生、30名男生、1名非二元性别学生和7名未报告性别的学生）完成了一项在线调查。该调查包括与STEAM相关的创造性问题解决、斯滕伯格科学推理任务、心理批判性思维（PCT）考试、加利福尼亚批判性思维（CCT）技能测试、大学经历调查以及一份人口统计学问卷。验证性因素分析（CFA）得出了一个针对所有创造力和批判性思维测量的双因素模型。然而，这两个潜在因素彼此之间存在很强的关联（=0.84）。此外，中国学生在批判性思维测量方面表现优于美国学生，而美国学生在创造力测量方面表现优于中国学生。最后，研究结果还表明，有一些大学研究经历（如修读研究方法课程）会对美国和中国学生的创造力和批判性思维技能产生积极影响。文中讨论了相关启示。
