How The Example In Creativity Influences The Divergent Thinking

Divergent thinking is the most important element in creativity, and is one of the main indicators in measuring creativity. Potential that reflected in divergent thinking are thought to be the most direct manifestation by scholars. Based on the theory of divergent thinking, Torrance made a series of tests measuring creativity and related potentials. Before1900, Binet and Henri had brought up divergent thinking tests, which were considered to be the core element of creativity later. According to Zhang Qinglin and Sternberg[1], it is easier to generate creativity in the state of defocusing than highly centralized focus. Guilford[2], saying, divergent thinking includes three features:fluency, flexibility, and originality. Wang Feng and Zhu Jizhi have the same opinion with Guilford. Fluency is a low-level feature, which merely reflects the quantity feature for development of thinking. Flexibility is the higher-level feature. It refers to the degree of flexibility of divergent thinking and its span. It opens up new ideas and seeks new ways. Originality is the highest level. It is the result of breaking the shackles of rules and experiences.Worked-example learning refers to the process of acquiring knowledge by self-observation and thinking. Different results exit with regards to complete example learning and incomplete example learning. Renkl, Stark, and Ctuber found that incomplete example learning was better than complete example learning[4][5],which was confirmed by the study from Xing Qiang and Mo Lei[6] However, the more recognized opinion is that the elements that influence the example learning include learning materials, the learner, and learning environment. There are few studies in this area.The learning materials that previous studies used were artificial questions that came from non-real life, as forms of words, graphics, and questionnaire. The forms many institute used had little related to the real scientific invention. Under the premise of there was no example in creativity, there was neither study exploring the relation among fluency, flexibility, and originality, nor study exploring how the work state of brain influence the thinking processing. The present study simulated the creative problem-solving process in reality, exploring "scientific discoveries questions". Abstracted8questions out of84from Material library of creativity experimental questions, and adapted to two groups:example and no example. Based on the existing research, the assumption of this experiment is that with the non-example, the subjects’scientific inventions urged divergent thinking.Experiment1aimed at college students, adopted whether "the use of a prototype to the idea of an invention" example, and explored whether the example of the invention influence the divergent thinking inspired by a prototype. Experiment2had the same experiment process, but with junior high schoolers as the subjects. The measure indicators of the divergent thinking were fluency, flexibility, and originality. The results showed that the flexibility and originality were significantly higher in example learning than non-example learning with the college students as subjects, and that the flexibility and originality were significantly higher in non-example learning than in example learning with the junior high students as subjects.In summary, in scientific and technological inventions, example learning and non-example learning influence the performance of divergent thinking, especially for the negative influence of originality on example learning. Influence of example on originality and flexibility in creative problem-solving results in the fixed prototype in inspired thinking.The results of the present study indicated a possible scientific and technological measure paradigm, that is, measure the originality and flexibility of the subjects with the premise of providing example learning and generating the fixed prototype.