| dc.description.abstract | For many years, divergent thinking has been an intriguing subject for scientific research. Research on divergent thinking among children provides insight into multiple research areas, such as developmental psychology, the development of creativity, and education. Despite the importance of research on divergent thinking among children, little is known. Additional, and more specific research, is therefore required.
This research is an explorative study to gain insight into the differences of divergent thinking between boys and girls at the age of four. For this study, divergent thinking is seen as the ability to interpret multiple problems and construct appropriate solutions (Kaufman & Beghetto, 2009, Runco, 2004; Runco & Okuda, 1988).
To obtain results from 105 four-year-old boys and girls (56), from four different primary schools in the Netherlands, the study used the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking, figural version (TTCT). Using this test, divergent thinking is measured and compared on the domains of fluency, originality, and elaboration. Using a multivariate analyze of variance (MANOVA), a significant difference was found on elaboration, with girls outperforming boys. No significant difference was found on fluency and originality.
A possible conclusion for the obtained results can be explained by socialization differences between the genders, what possibly results in different creative performance styles of boys and girls. Valuable information may be obtained by studying these creative performance styles of genders. Additionally, this research only conducted figural divergent thinking tests, to obtain a more complete representation of the differences and the similarities of the genders, research specified on both figurative and verbal measured divergent thinking tests is recommended. | |
