Effects of association interventions on students' creative thinking, aptitude, empathy, and design scheme in a STEAM course: considering remote and close association

Zehui Zhan; Xiao Yao; Tingting Li

doi:10.1007/s10798-022-09801-x

Effects of association interventions on students' creative thinking, aptitude, empathy, and design scheme in a STEAM course: considering remote and close association

Int J Technol Des Educ. 2022 Dec 12:1-23. doi: 10.1007/s10798-022-09801-x. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Zehui Zhan^{1

2}, Xiao Yao^{1

3}, Tingting Li¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Information Technology in Education, South China Normal University, 510631 Guangzhou, P.R. of China.
² Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, 510631 Guangzhou, P.R. of China.
³ Shenzhen Fuyuan School, 510970 Shenzhen, P.R. of China.

Abstract

One of the primary goals of STEAM education is to equip students with the capability of creativity to solve problems. Creativity is believed to be closely related to the ability of making remote associations and combining unrelated concepts. This article explored the effects of three kinds of association interventions (i.e., remote association, close association, free association) on students' creative thinking, creative aptitude, empathy, and design scheme. A total of 94 middle school students participated in the study and were assigned to three groups: the experiment group 1 (n = 30) used remote association and experiment group 2 (n = 32) used close association, the control group (n = 32) used free association (brainstorming) to complete the STEAM integration design projects respectively. Creative Thinking Test, Williams Creativity Aptitude Test (WCAT), Basic Empathy Scale (BES), design ideas, and interviews of students become source data for analysis. Results indicated that both remote and close association were effective strategies in promoting creativity in the STEAM course. However, students in the remote association group achieved a significantly higher degree of creative thinking. While students in the close association group significantly outperformed the remote association group on creativity aptitude and quality of design ideas. No significant difference was found among the three association conditions in students' degree of empathy. The findings highlight the different effects of remote and close association for creativity cultivation in STEAM education.

Keywords: Association intervention; Close Association; Creativity; Remote Association; STEAM Education.

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