Students’ achievements in the field of chemistry according to the indicators of creativity from the trefoil education paradigm

• Published in: Zbornik Instituta za pedagoška istraživanja Vol. 50; no. 1; pp. 50 - 71
• Main Authors: Trivic, Dragica, Milanovic, Vesna, Sefer, Jasmina
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English; Serbian
• Published: Institute for Educational Research, Belgrade 2018
• Subjects: chemistry instruction; creative thinking in sciences; divergent thinking; indicators of creative thinking
• ISSN: 0579-6431; 1820-9270
• DOI: 10.2298/ZIPI1801050T

The aim of this study is to explore the possible use of the indicators of
creative thinking, taken from the Trefoil concept, in the field of chemistry
when assessing students? performance, determining the potential for creative
development and providing directions for further work. In this way, chemistry
instruction might contribute to encouraging the creative abilities of
students necessary in the modern, fast-paced world. There is the question of
whether the indicators of creative thinking can be useful in evaluating
students? achievements in the situation of solving open-ended tasks in the
field of chemistry and the kinds of results achieved by students. The
research sample included 97 eight-grade students from two primary schools in
Belgrade. The research was conducted at the end of the eighth grade in the
school year 2016/17, after the entire chemistry curriculum for primary school
had been covered. An appropriate achievement test was constructed and then
implemented. The obtained results indicate that a large number (30%) of
students are capable of formulating several acceptable answers to the given
open-ended task, which is a characteristic of divergent thinking in sciences.
This finding is even more relevant if we bear in mind that the students from
this sample did not have any similar type of demands or experiences in
previous classes. This points to the fact that there is a significant
potential for developing creative thinking, which might be realised if
students solved open-ended tasks more frequently.