Scientific creativity and innovation ability and its determinants among medical postgraduate students in Fujian province of China: a cross sectional study.

BACKGROUND: Graduate education is the main approach to training high-level innovative elites. With the expansion of the scale of graduate education in China, it has gradually emerged that the lack of innovation ability of graduate students is recognized as the primary problem in graduate education. How to comprehensively improve the quality of postgraduate teaching has become the core task of educational reform and development. However, data about the current cultivation and development of the innovative ability of graduate students in China is limited. METHODS: A questionnaire survey was conducted among medical postgraduate students. Descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis methods were used to analyze the data to describe the current innovation ability in advanced medical education and potential influence factors. RESULTS: A total of 1241 medical students were surveyed, according to the results of questionnaire data analysis. The proportion of subjects who participated in the College Student's Entrepreneurship and Innovation program or any other scientific research programs are fairly high which are 46.82% and 29.20% respectively. Most of the participants are observed with high levels of self-motivation and active learning and have good performance in creative thinking. However, only a small number of participants (16.6%) reported academic achievements such as publications. Most of the students are satisfied with the current scientific research environment and think that the current postgraduate training system is qualified for the cultivation of innovation ability, and expects the inclusion of course specialized in systemic medicine and medical informatics in the curricula. Multiple logistic regression results showed that among the factors studied, gender, medical specialties, and types of master's degrees are associated with cognition & skills, academic performance, and creativity. CONCLUSIONS: It will be important to incorporate more techniques for creating and improving creativity in the curricula of the current postgraduate education, especially for courses such as systemic medicine and informatics. Guidance in earlier school life can stimulate creativity and an early introduction to scientific research work will facilitate innovative thinking and behavior. Scientific research programs such as the National Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training for the universities of PRC have been widely implemented in the undergraduate education system throughout the country. However, the training effectiveness of the current scientific research programs is worth improving.

John Wheeler's Desert Island: The conservatism of non-empirical physics.

This paper argues that non-empirical physics, as paradigmatically embodied by string theory, is a conservative research program, in spite of appearances. John Wheeler's 1950s research program of "daring conservatism" is identified as another non-empirical research program that checks all the same boxes as string theory. This case study is used to further analyze the connection between conservatism and a non-empirical approach. It is concluded that the prime difficulty of non-empirical physics is not that it involves unbridled speculation, but that the lack of empirical input prevents it from achieving revolutionary progress.

Creative Potential in Science: Conceptual and Measurement Issues.

This paper examines the concept of creative potential as it applies in science. First, conceptual issues concerning the definition of creative potential are explored, highlighting that creative potential is a moving target, and measures of creative potential are estimates of future behavior. Then three main ways to detect creative potential are examined. First, a person's previous accomplishments in science can be analyzed. These accomplishments can be regarded as predictors of future creative performance. Second, science talent competitions can help to detect creative potential in children and adolescents. There are particular types of talent competitions differing from each other by the extent of focusing on individual (e.g., Science Fairs) or collaborative (e.g., Science Olympiads) work. Third, to measure an individual's creative potential, psychometric tools such as Creative Scientific Ability Test (C-SAT), Test of Scientific Creativity Animations for Children (TOSCAC), and Evaluation of Potential Creativity (EPoC) can be used. These tools are conceptualized in terms of two scientific activities: hypothesis generation and hypothesis testing. In a final section, these three types of measures are placed in a novel time-space framework as applied to creative potential. Suggestions for future work are also discussed.

Dimensions of Creativity in Secondary School High-Ability Students.

The objective of this study was to analyze the dimensions of creativity in high-ability teenage students. Firstly, we reviewed the most relevant scientific contributions on creativity. Next, the dimensions of creativity in secondary school students who were previously identified as high-ability students were analyzed. The sample was obtained from 215 students, of which 31 were identified as high-ability students. The abilities associated with divergent thinking were assessed using the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking The fluency, flexibility, and originality dimensions were assessed with the Scientific-Creative Thinking Test. This study was conducted using a quantitative approach. Tests were administered during school hours from March to June 2019. They were corrected considering the protocols established by the original authors themselves. Data were analyzed using SPSS, version 24.0. The results provide evidence that high-ability students achieve higher scores in both the figurative-creativity and scientific-creativity dimensions. A significant relationship between creativity and high ability was therefore established. Students with high abilities and qualities require the educational support necessary to develop their talent. This study was of an exploratory nature and the results obtained contribute to developing future studies applying its findings in teenagers' teaching-learning process.

Prompting Socially Shared Regulation of Learning and Creativity in Solving STEM Problems.

Problem-based learning (PBL) is a widely recommended method in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education through which students develop their scientific knowledge by collaboratively solving real-world problems. PBL benefits from both the activation of creative thinking and from socially shared regulation of learning (SSRL)-a group-level phenomenon whereby students collectively share common perceptions of their collaborative learning process and co-construction of knowledge. The current study examines the influence of three types of support (question prompts designed to promote SSRL, creative thinking, or a combination of both) on the participation of individuals in SSRL processes and on their knowledge acquisition, using a sample of 104 seventh-graders in accelerated science classes. Individuals' participation through the different stages of SSRL (forethought, performance, and reflection) was assessed using video recordings, and their scientific knowledge was measured through pre-and post-intervention knowledge tests. While all groups improved their scientific knowledge, individuals receiving only SSRL support improved their participation in most stages of SSRL compared with those receiving creativity or combined support, and a control group which received no support. The findings strengthen the case for SSRL-directed question prompts as a means to enhance student engagement in problem-solving tasks.

The Relation of Scientific Creativity and Evaluation of Scientific Impact to Scientific Reasoning and General Intelligence.

In many nations, grades and standardized test scores are used to select students for programs of scientific study. We suggest that the skills that these assessments measure are related to success in science, but only peripherally in comparison with two other skills, scientific creativity and recognition of scientific impact. In three studies, we investigated the roles of scientific creativity and recognition of scientific impact on scientific thinking. The three studies described here together involved 219 students at a selective university in the Northeast U.S. Participants received assessments of scientific creativity and recognition of scientific impact as well as a variety of previously used assessments measuring scientific reasoning (generating alternative hypotheses, generating experiments, drawing conclusions) and the fluid aspect of general intelligence (letter sets, number series). They also provided scores from either or both of two college-admissions tests-the SAT and the ACT-as well as demographic information. Our goal was to determine whether the new tests of scientific impact and scientific creativity correlated and factored with the tests of scientific reasoning, fluid intelligence, both, or neither. We found that our new measures tapped into aspects of scientific reasoning as we previously have studied it, although the factorial composition of the test on recognition of scientific impact is less clear than that of the test of scientific creativity. We also found that participants rated high-impact studies as more scientifically rigorous and practically useful than low-impact studies, but also generally as less creative, probably because their titles/abstracts were seemingly less novel for our participants. Replicated findings across studies included the correlation of Letter Sets with Number Series (both measures of fluid intelligence) and the correlation of Scientific Creativity with Scientific Reasoning.

Replication, Registration, and Scientific Creativity.

The bureaucratization of psychological science exacts intellectual costs that go beyond the sheer amount of time that is drained away from creative scientific activity. Additional administrative hurdles are now being generated in an attempt to ensure the replicability of psychological effects. A cognitive analysis of those hurdles shows that impairment of scientific creativity is a foreseeable consequence, owing to their frequent verbatim-processing focus and the negative emotional context in which they are embedded. We consider whether it is possible to enhance replicability without increasing bureaucratic obstacles and to enhance scientific creativity in the presence of such obstacles.

Can shared mechanisms of cultural evolution illuminate the process of creativity within the arts and the sciences.

All creative activity brings about change, since it results in the production of something that did not previously exist. The act of creation is itself influenced by changes that have been previously brought about by others, including previous acts of creation. As with any human behavior, creativity has both biological and cultural aspects and is therefore influenced by biological as well as cultural evolution. However, biological evolution operates slowly and over a much longer timescale than cultural evolution, and change occurring within a human lifetime must be driven by cultural and social, rather than biological processes. In order to examine changes at this timescale, we therefore assume a fixed biological substrate and examine how creativity occurs in a social and cultural context. We argue that a fuller understanding of artistic creativity arises from setting this phenomenon in a wider context that encompasses creativity in both the arts and the sciences. We analyze creativity using the BVSR model developed by Simonton and conclude that creativity is driven by similar mechanisms in both domains. We propose that the arts and the sciences are not qualitatively different intellectual domains but should be conceptualized as activities situated at different regions of a continuum of human endeavor. This suggests that it would be fruitful for both scientists and artists to devote more attention to learning from the achievements of those who generate creative ideas at different points on this continuum.

E. E. Just and Creativity in Science. The Importance of Diversity.

Renowned biologist Ernest Everett Just (1883-1941) was an outspoken advocate for the classical embryologist's view of the cell; he believed that all the parts of the cell, but especially the cytoplasm, have important roles to play in the process of development, whereby a one-celled zygote becomes a many-celled animal. In opposition to geneticist Thomas Hunt Morgan, Just formulated a hypothesis for how the cell works in development, one that gave a more dominant role to cytoplasmic (instead of nuclear) factors. This paper argues that, in creating his hypothesis, Just applied insights from the African American intellectual community in which he was immersed, much as Charles Darwin applied insights from British political economist Thomas R. Malthus in formulating his theory of evolution by natural selection. This in no way diminishes the scientific validity of Just's (or Darwin's) hypothesis. Rather, it highlights Just's creativity and, as such, points to the importance of having diversity in science.