The relative influences of domain knowledge and domain-general divergent thinking on scientific creativity and mathematical creativity

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship among domain-general divergent thinking ability, domain-specific scientific creativity, and mathematical creativity. Additionally, the present study intends to investigate the relative influences of domain knowledge and divergent thinking ability on scientific creativity and mathematical creativity. A total of 187 primary school sixth-graders were recruited as participants and were invited to take the Scientific Creativity Test (SCT) and the Mathematical Creativity Test (MCT) to assess their creativity in specific domains and the Newly Creativity Test (NCT) to assess their domain-general divergent thinking ability. Their average grades in science and mathematics were also collected to represent their achievements in domain knowledge. The results show that (1) the SCT has a moderately positive correlation with the NCT. Both science achievements and NCT can effectively explain the variance in SCT performance. (2) The MCT is modestly positively correlated with the NCT. However, only mathematical achievement can effectively explain the variance in MCT performance, but the NCT cannot. The results imply that creativity in different domains has the diverse influences from domain knowledge and divergent thinking ability, which support the domain-specificity of creativity.