The Relationship of Creativity Measures to School Achievement and to Preferred Learning and Thinking Style in a Sample of Korean High School Students

Abstract

Two major purposes of this study were to ascertain for a sample of 193 11th-grade Korean high school students (92 males and 101 females) the extent to which performance in selected measures of creativity involving both verbal and visual tasks was related to (a) school achievement as revealed by a quantitative indicator (percentage score) and (b) the expressed preference for a given learning and thinking style as revealed in a standardized measure (Style of Learning and Thinking by Torrance) intended to portray left-brain, right-brain, or an integrated left-brain right-brain function. A secondary purpose was to identify possible gender differences of Korean students in the variables under study. The following conclusions became evident. First, measures of creativity translated from the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking show little, if any, relationship to school performance. Second, Korean high school females may be expected to exhibit higher average levels of performance on creativity tests than will their male counterparts. Third, irrespective of gender, but especially in the instance of females, those students classified as showing a learning and thinking style preference hypothesized to be associated with right-brain dominance are likely to earn higher scores on creativity measures than will those students classified as displaying a learning and thinking style preference hypothesized to correspond to either a left-brain dominance or an integrated-brain dominance.