Thinking Tasks Research Articles

Social Media Use and Critical Thinking Skills among Senior High School Learners: A Quantitative Correlational Study

This study explored the relationship between social media use and critical thinking skills among Senior High School (SHS) learners in the Davao region. A quantitative correlational research design utilized survey data from a sample of SHS students. First, this study assessed the level of social media use among students, with the majority engaged with social media for more than two hours daily, mainly for social interaction and entertainment, with limited use for educational purposes. The study then measured students’ critical thinking abilities, which revealed a moderate level of critical thinking across the sample, with some students performing better on higher-order thinking tasks. A significant positive correlation (r = 0.45, p < 0.01) was found between social media use for academic purposes and critical thinking. It suggests that educationally focused social media activities may enhance critical thinking skills. Further analysis identified that the frequency of participation in academic discussions on social media (β = 0.35, p < 0.01) was a significant predictor of critical thinking abilities. However, passive social media use showed no significant impact. These findings imply that while social media can foster critical thinking, its impact largely depends on how it is used. The study emphasizes the importance of promoting purposeful academic engagement with social media to improve cognitive skills among SHS learners.

“Who” Is the Best Creative Thinking Partner? An Experimental Investigation of Human–Human, Human–Internet, and Human–AI Co‐Creation

ABSTRACTRecent research suggests that working with generative artificial intelligence (AI), such as ChatGPT, can produce more creative outcomes than humans alone. However, does AI retain its creative edge when humans have access to alternative information sources, such as another human or the internet. We explored this question in a between‐group experiment with 202 German participants across four conditions (human–human dyads, human–Internet, and two human–AI groups with basic or specific instructions) and four creativity tasks (two alternate uses tasks, a consequences task, and a problem‐solving task). Results showed that the human–human condition obtained higher creativity scores in the divergent thinking tasks than the remaining groups. No significant between‐group differences were observed in the problem‐solving task. Moreover, interacting in human dyads made people more creatively confident, an effect not observed in the other groups. In addition, we compared human‐rated outcomes with AI‐based automated scoring (Ocsai). Interestingly, notable discrepancies emerged between the AI assessment and the human‐judged results, raising concerns about AI's susceptibility to “elaboration bias.” These findings highlight the benefits of human collaboration for creativity and call for further studies about the reliability and potential biases of AI in evaluating creative performance.

A Transformation of the Way of Thinking: Key Principles in Programming Education Inspired by Pascal

The work of Niklaus Wirth, designer of the Pascal programming language, has led to the introduction of programming in schools in many countries often leading to a transformation in the way of thinking. In this article, we provide a retrospective analysis of the Lithuanian experience driven by Pascal and discuss the main ideas about teaching programming originating from this experience. We conducted a qualitative study by means of interviews with experts involved in the development of programming education during its early phases to examine their memories and perspectives. Programming education in Lithuania started with the Pascal-inspired Young Programmers’ School by Correspondence, founded in 1981, which had a great influence on the Lithuanian programming elite. For this purpose, a compiler for a subset of Pascal was developed for students taking their first steps towards programming, or more precisely, algorithmic thinking. Many innovations were developed and brought into practice. The ones that have proved their worth and have not lost their relevance are the subject of this article. These include assessing program text readability, cultivating programming style, program reading tasks, creative thinking tasks, problem-solving approaches, detailed compiler error messages, automatic error fixing, and compiler advice to novice programmers. While some concepts became obsolete with technological advancements, others remain relevant, directly or as inspiration for new ideas, forming the basis of this study.

Evaluating Overinclusive Thinking: Development and Validation of the Categorical Overinclusive Thinking Task (COverTT)

Evaluating Overinclusive Thinking: Development and Validation of the Categorical Overinclusive Thinking Task (COverTT)

The relationships between balanced-bilingual proficiency, executive function, and rational thinking: a dissociative finding

ABSTRACT The cognitive advantages of bilingualism have accumulated significant support in various domains, and executive function is suggested to be one of their operative mechanisms. However, empirical evidence of the relationships among bilingualism, executive function, and rational thinking is still lacking. The present study extends this understanding. With a refined operational definition of bilingualism and by controlling for possible confounding variables, we recruited 114 university participants to perform a balanced bilingual proficiency task; a modified Simon executive function (EF) task (to assess inhibition and updating components of EFs); a syllogism task; a critical thinking test; and measures of intelligence, socioeconomic status (SES), and the openness-to-experience personality trait. The results showed that balanced bilingual proficiency positively and robustly predicted participants’ performance in syllogism and critical thinking tasks after we controlled for other variables. The relationships between EF components and rational thinking showed a dissociative result: Inhibition and updating ability contributed to syllogistic and critical thinking differently. These results shed further light on the educational application needs of bilingual learning and concluded in a discussion of future investigations of the theoretical accounts and mechanisms of bilingual advantages.

The more open, the more creative? The metaphorical effects of postural openness on divergent thinking and convergent thinking

As one of the most prevalent bodily states in daily life, postures can exert an impact on creative thinking. Adopting the perspective of embodied metaphor, two studies were conducted using the "posture-cognition" dual-task paradigm to investigate the influence of different postural openness on creative thinking. Study 1 explored the effects of expansive/open versus contractive/closed postures on divergent thinking and convergent thinking, and observed whether they were modulated by standing and sitting postures. Study 2 further examined the participants' performance on a convergent thinking task and a non-creative detail processing task of varying difficulty under identical postures. Results indicated better divergent thinking performance with expansive postures than with contractive postures, confirming the "expansive-divergent" metaphor. The expansive standing posture was found to be the most conducive posture for divergent thinking. However, the contractive postures failed to facilitate the convergent thinking task, but showed more conducive to the moderately difficult non-creative detail processing task. These findings support that body postures can have a metaphorical effect on higher cognitive processes such as creative thinking, but the effect varies depending on the type of creative cognitive processing. This research enhances the comprehension of embodied creativity and provides valuable insights for educational practice.

Strengthening Teachers' Ability to Improve Students' High-Order Thinking Skills at Raudlatul Muslimin Kayangan Islamic Boarding School

This service activity seeks to strengthen Raudlatul Muslimin Kayangan Islamic Boarding School teachers' High Order Thinking Skill (HOTS) learning implementation skills. This service is offered since teachers confront many obstacles when setting up HOTS. A lack of awareness of HOTS and its practice contributes to low student achievement. This activity uses workshops to create HOTS using novel learning methods like Problem-Based Learning (P.B.L.) and Contextual Teaching & Learning. Higher-order thinking has been encouraged by learning outcome classifications in training. This training boosts student motivation, improves idea understanding, and promotes higher-order thinking tasks. Thus, this study emphasizes the need for HOTS in learning to prepare students for real-world issues. This study also suggests using other unique learning techniques to promote higher-order thinking skills. In Islamic boarding schools, teacher support and a larger learning environment might improve students' higher-order thinking skills.

Can 5 Minutes of Finger Actions Boost Creative Incubation?

AbstractPrevious studies suggest that the activation of the motor system – either via action, motor imagery, or brain stimulation – may increase subsequent performance on divergent thinking tasks (e.g., the alternate uses task; AUT). We tested this idea in a within-subjects design by administering the AUT using four different target objects and four different 5-min incubation tasks that differed in terms of arm and finger movements. In between-subjects designs, 0-back incubation has been shown to yield more creative responses than rest. Additionally, we included two new incubations that both involved arm actions, but differed in the amount of finger actions (Iranian dance, ballet dance). Incubation tasks involving finger actions (Iranian dance, 0-back) were predicted to increase creativity for objects that are typically manipulated with the fingers. There was a main effect of object. Alternate uses given to the paperclip were rated as more creative than those given to the other objects. With our within-subjects design, we could not replicate the previously described difference between 0-back and rest incubations. However, hypothesis-driven comparisons showed that, although the interaction of object and incubation was not significant, Iranian dance yielded more creative usages for paperclip than for sheet of paper, cup and brick, and all other incubations yielded more creative usages for paperclip than for brick. Iranian dance also generated marginally more creative usages than ballet. Our results suggest that if the hypothesized effects exist, they are likely to be small. Overall, AUT performance seems more influenced by the AUT object than by type of incubation.

Exploring the creativity-curiosity link in early childhood

Childhood is a pinnacle of both creativity and curiosity, and although these constructs theoretically overlap, few studies have probed whether they are directly related in childhood or driven by similar cognitive and emotional processes. Across two online Zoom sessions, 36 3- to 6 year-olds completed six tasks measuring diverse manifestations of curiosity and creativity, as well as tasks assessing vocabulary, self-esteem, and executive function. Caregivers also completed questionnaires regarding their children's curiosity. Only two significant, positive correlations were found between indices of creativity and curiosity: between originality of ideas (creativity) and breadth of exploration (curiosity), and between creativity on a production-based task and parent-reported breadth of exploration (curiosity). Further, the two constructs were predicted by different child characteristics. Age was the main predictor of creativity; originality of children's ideas in two divergent thinking tasks decreased with age, while fluency and holistic ratings of production-based tasks increased. Self-esteem, in turn, was the strongest predictor of curiosity, correlating positively with several subtypes of parent-reported curiosity. The results of this exploratory study suggest creativity and curiosity may not be as closely linked in childhood as some have proposed, and that pinpointing their relations will require careful attention to the individual components and expressions of each construct.

Investigating the use of ChatGPT to solve a GeoGebra based mathematics+computational thinking task in a geometry topic

ChatGPT is a chatbot with potential educational benefits, particularly in enhancing computational thinking (CT) proficiencies such as programming, debugging, and algorithmic thinking for students. Despite its promise, there is limited research on how ChatGPT can specifically support the integration of CT into mathematics education using tools like GeoGebra. The researchers implemented plugged-computational thinking in mathematics (Math+CT) lessons by means of the utilization of GeoGebra, an application that requires students to input commands in order to generate mathematical objects. The present investigation employed an educational design research (EDR) methodology in which the researchers incorporate ChatGPT into our Math+CT lessons to assist students in accomplishing the task. We purposely selected the participants who are mainly postgraduate students and collected data from the participants’ conversation with ChatGPT and recorded their screens while interacting with ChatGPT and our Math+CT task. We analyzed the data through descriptive qualitative method on the participants’ prompts, the final codes and the number of iterations. The researchers examined how ChatGPT could be utilized to assist the participants in writing GeoGebra commands in terms of its benefits and limitations. ChatGPT assisted most participants in completing the task successfully, with only a basic need for proficiency in GeoGebra commands, mathematics, and critical thinking. However, it revealed that participants did not yet utilize an affective prompt to ChatGPT. Furthermore, ChatGPT has the potential to be utilized for differentiated instruction due to the fact that its responses to individual users vary significantly based on the input prompts. Limited understanding of basic GeoGebra commands, and mathematical concepts could hinder the participants from training ChatGPT or prevent them from arguing with ChatGPT. This study enhances the existing literature by illustrating that ChatGPT can facilitate critical CT aspects, including programming and debugging, in a mathematics education context. This suggests that AI tools such as ChatGPT can contribute to the development of independent problem-solving skills, provide tailored support based on the needs of individual students, and enhance personalized learning experiences. Additional research involving students in school is required in order to gain a deeper understanding of the integration of ChatGPT into Math+CT lessons.

It is not always better to have more ideas: Serial order and the trade-off between fluency and elaboration in divergent thinking tasks.

It is not always better to have more ideas: Serial order and the trade-off between fluency and elaboration in divergent thinking tasks.

Exploring Creative Spaces Predict Domain‐Specific Creative Achievements

ABSTRACTThis study aimed to understand the factors predicting creative activities and creative achievements among university students. Based on a recently proposed framework of 10 creative spaces, we hypothesized that exploring those creative spaces, alongside the personality trait openness to experience and divergent thinking abilities would predict creative activities and achievements in specific domains. Using the Inventory of Creative Activities and Achievements (ICAA) to evaluate eight domains of creativity, two divergent thinking tasks, and one associative task, we analyzed a sample of n = 300 university students. The results of Structural Equation Models revealed that the creative spaces significantly predicted creative activities and creative achievements in the eight domains assessed. The model explained in average 27% of the variance in creative activities and 17% in creative achievements. Openness significantly predicted creative activities in music, literature, and arts and crafts. Intellect did not significantly predict any domain. Lastly, fluency in divergent thinking was positively associated with all domains (average coefficient of β = .15), despite not always reaching significance. We discuss the roles of the recently proposed creative spaces, as well as openness to experience, and fluency in predicting creativity across various domains.

Acute aerobic exercise and creative thinking: comparison of transient hypofrontality state and strength model of self-controls’ theoretical predictions

Creativity is a high-level cognitive activity that can" be affected by acute aerobic exercise. This paper aims to determine how acute aerobic exercise intensities may influence aspects of divergent and convergent creative thinking. In this regard, to give an insight into the results, the predictions of the transient hypofrontality thesis and the strength model of self-control have been taken into consideration. Ninety-three healthy male college students (age = 21.18 ±1.73 years) were randomly assigned to anaerobic threshold intensity (%85 HRmax, n = 31), low intensity (%60 HRmax, n = 31), and control (n = 31) groups Participants performed divergent (Alternate Uses Task) and convergent (Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices Test) creative thinking tasks before, during, and after cessation of two anaerobic thresholds and low intensities and control conditions. For the divergent creative thinking, flexibility and fluency performances during and after cessation of exercise in anaerobic threshold and low-intensity groups were improved in comparison to the control group.These results were consistent with the transient hypofrontality thesis and inconsistent with the strength model of self-control pre-dictions. In contrast, the performance of convergent creative thinking was relatively stable during and after cessation of exercise in anaerobic threshold and low-intensity groups which was inconsistent with both the transient hypofrontality thesis and the strength model of self-control predictions. The findings suggest that theoretical predictions of transient hypofrontality thesis are more adaptable with literature than the strength model of self-control to consider the exercise-creative processes relationship and further study of the issue would be of interest. Key words: Cognition, Convergent, Creativity, Divergent, Self-depletion, Physical Activity

The Application of Question Chain in High School English Reading Teaching

An important task of high school English reading teaching is to cultivate students thinking quality and promote the development of students higher-order thinking. Aiming at the current high school English reading teaching in which the activities and tasks of lower-order thinking take up a large proportion, the inability to really promote the development of students higher-order thinking through reading, and the fragmentation of students knowledge, this paper aims at the application of problem chain in high school English reading teaching. to help promote the development of students thinking quality.

Correlates of creativity: an association between creativity, personality, and intelligence

ABSTRACT The present study aimed to explore the association between creativity, intelligence, and personality. The study recruited sixty healthy volunteers in the age range of 20–40 years from Bengaluru city (formerly Bangalore), South India, and administered tests for fluid intelligence (Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices), personality (Big Five NEO-FFI), and divergent thinking (Wallach & Kogan Creativity Test). Findings revealed that intelligence and openness to experience were positively correlated with the fluency, flexibility, and originality dimensions of creativity. The hierarchical multiple regression analysis suggested openness and fluid intelligence significantly predicted creativity. This suggests that individuals who are more open to new experiences continue to integrate new and diverse information into their existing knowledge base. When combined with contextual and emotional stimuli, this integration process can lead to more varied and innovative responses to divergent thinking tasks.

Exploring the Creative Personality: Using Machine Learning to Predict Fluency and Originality in Divergent Thinking

ABSTRACT In this study, 100 self-reported personality items from the Big Five Aspects Scale, responded to by a sample of 334 undergraduate participants, were used to predict quantity (ideational fluency) and quality (originality) of ideas on a divergent thinking (DT) task. The originality of DT responses was scored through a fine-tuned version of the Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) 3.5 (i.e., Ocsai), and a least absolute shrinkage selection operator (LASSO) machine learning model selected the items that were meaningful predictors of each outcome. Results revealed that the personality profiles of highly fluent and highly original individuals were characterized by a tension between seemingly opposed personality attributes. Both ideational fluency and originality were predicted by a playfully open intellectualism that nonetheless avoided more typical work (i.e. was disorderly and unindustrious). Fluency was additionally predicted by a tension between enthusiasm for social interaction and depressive symptoms associated with withdrawal. Originality was predicted by a socially dominant assertiveness that was tempered by awareness and care for others’ feelings (e.g. compassion and politeness) as well as stability (i.e. non-volatility). Taken together, these results demonstrate that the creative personality is likely to be composed of aspects of multiple dimensions of typical personality models like the Big 5, and that the highly fluent and the highly original creative personality is different in important ways.

Task organization of the psychologist’s professional activity

The paper provides a theoretical analysis and reveals the constructive potential of the task-based organization of a psychologist’s professional activity in his/her systematic counseling work with a client, in which the latter goes through a four-stage cyclic-actual path of personal definition of a traumatic life problem as his/her own internal task: first, awareness of its subject and requirements, then its redefinition and redefinition, and finally its independent formulation as a purely personal one. In particular, it is proved that from the standpoint of the task approach, any activity can be interpreted as a series of continuously solvable tasks that can be faced by a person in the form of some action (a simple task); a situation that requires searching for connections between previously known information and unknown information, and thus obtaining some new knowledge (a thinking task), or a situation that, although it contains certain initial data, the person who solves it still does not know how to achieve the desired result (a problem task). It is from the standpoint of the latter definition that the personal request made by a client to a professional psychologist is considered. It is argued that it is the complex internal mechanism of transforming a problematic situation into a problematic task that is the “starting point” that separates a simple feeling of internal discomfort about the difficult life situation experienced by the client from his or her action activity, which, as a result of his or her own efforts, leads him or her to the desired answer. It has been determined that the central stage of this complex path is the process of a person’s internal acceptance of an external task as an internal (self) task, which can either be independently realized by the person at a certain time or recognized and approved with outside help (from a partner, loved one, friend, colleague, etc.). Therefore, it is the professional psychological support of such transformational changes that a psychologist must cope with when providing assistance to a client. The study found that in the process of such problematic dialogic interaction, which is the main channel of counseling or therapeutic practice, the person in need redefines and redefines the previously set task. In addition, the following scientific fact has been established: in order for an externally formed problem situation to become an internally accepted task for a person and eventually find its solution, it must go through four main stages: awareness (of the subject and requirements), its redefinition and redefinition up to the independent formulation of a new, purely personal task, which already contains more additional initial data (causes, means, probable consequences, etc.) and a set of possible options for an acceptable solution.

Depression Accompanied by Hopelessness Is Associated with More Negative Future Thinking.

This study aimed to delineate the interplay between depression, hopelessness, and episodic future thinking (EFT), focusing on cognitive biases towards negative future thinking that are central to depressive symptomatically. A Japanese university student was utilized to scrutinize divergences in EFT across groups stratified by varying degrees of depression and hopelessness. The research leveraged a modified future thinking task (FTT), the Beck Hopelessness Scale, and the Beck Depression Inventory-II to gauge participants' levels of hopelessness and depressive symptoms. Consistent with prior research, the non-depressed group showed a reduction in positive EFT, reinforcing the idea that diminished positive future thinking is a hallmark of depressive conditions, even in the absence of a clinical diagnosis. Moreover, individuals with comorbid depression and elevated hopelessness demonstrated a significant decrease in positive EFT and an increase in negative EFT, substantiating a distinctive cognitive profile for this subgroup. This finding suggests that the presence of hopelessness exacerbates the negative cognitive biases associated with depression. The study emphasizes the importance of considering hopelessness as an independent construct when assessing EFT in clinical contexts. The pronounced impact of hopelessness on future thinking in those with depression suggests that targeted interventions, such as future-directed therapy (FDT), may be particularly effective for individuals with hopelessness depression by focusing on modifying negative future thinking patterns and enhancing life quality.

Conspiracy beliefs in the context of a comprehensive rationality assessment

The recent intense interest in conspiratorial thinking is fuelled by the perception that belief in conspiracies is highly irrational. However, there have been few studies that have examined the associations of conspiracy belief with a comprehensive battery of rational thinking tasks that tap both epistemic and instrumental rationality. The Comprehensive Assessment of Rational Thinking (CART) provides an opportunity to do just that because one of the subtests on the CART assesses the tendency to believe false conspiracies. That subtest is in the part of the CART that measures the presence of contaminated mindware—stored declarative knowledge that embodies poorly justified beliefs. Converging analyses (N = 747) using the 18 subtests and four thinking dispositions measured on the CART indicated that three variables were key predictors of conspiratorial thinking: superstitious thinking, actively open-minded thinking, and probabilistic reasoning. Theoretical consideration of these best predictors, and of the variables that predict the endorsement of true conspiracies, led us to rethink the classification of conspiracy belief as contaminated mindware and move instead towards a conception of conspiratorial thinking as a cognitive style.

Automated Scoring of Scientific Creativity in German

ABSTRACTAutomated scoring is a current hot topic in creativity research. However, most research has focused on the English language and popular verbal creative thinking tasks, such as the alternate uses task. Therefore, in this study, we present a large language model approach for automated scoring of a scientific creative thinking task that assesses divergent ideation in experimental tasks in the German language. Participants are required to generate alternative explanations for an empirical observation. This work analyzed a total of 13,423 unique responses. To predict human ratings of originality, we used XLM‐RoBERTa (Cross‐lingual Language Model‐RoBERTa), a large, multilingual model. The prediction model was trained on 9,400 responses. Results showed a strong correlation between model predictions and human ratings in a held‐out test set (n = 2,682; r = 0.80; CI‐95% [0.79, 0.81]). These promising findings underscore the potential of large language models for automated scoring of scientific creative thinking in the German language. We encourage researchers to further investigate automated scoring of other domain‐specific creative thinking tasks.