Effects of Gender and Thinking Style on Student's Creative Thinking Ability

The aims of this study were (1) to explore the relationships between gender and brain thinking style with creative thinking ability of a group of lower sixth students (n=216), and (2) to identify the interaction effect of the two personal factors on creative thinking ability. Brain thinking style of the students was measured by the Styles of Learning and Thinking test while creative thinking ability was measured by the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking. By controlling three moderators, i.e. ethnicity, academic major and critical thinking ability, results of the MANCOVA test indicate that gender was significantly correlated with creative thinking ability, while right brain thinking and learning style was positively and significantly correlated with all of the five components of creative thinking ability, i.e. originality, fluency, elaboration, abstractness of title and resistance to premature closure. Results indicate that gender and thinking style were significant factors of creative thinking ability. However, no significant interaction effect of the two variables on overall creative thinking ability was found.