Boys and girls creativity: qualitative differences in divergent thinking

• Autores: Teresa Artola González
• Localización: Single sex education: an option in the forefront of education: IV International Congress of Single-sex Education, 2013, ISBN 978-989-691-152-2, págs. 43-61
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • In this paper, we explore if differences can be found between males and females in the way they use their imagination when solving new or divergent thinking ploblems. The investigation was conducted with a sample of 1377 subjects, 790 males and 587 females: 697 elementary students, 579 secondary and high school students and 100 adults. Our results indicate that in divergent thinking tests girls and female adolescents obtained better results in almost all scores, particularly when diverent thinking was assessed through verbal tasks. Differences were greater in younger children, while in adults no significant gender differences were found between males and females. From the results obtained we can conclude that boys and girls solve divergent thinking problems in a different way. These qualitative differences should be taken into account when promoting creativity in schools and imply that we must be careful when using the same identification procedures for identifying high ability boys and girls.