A study of student technological creativity using online problem-solving activities

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of online (web-based) creative problem-solving (CPS) activities on student technological creativity and to examine the characteristics of student creativity in the context of online CPS. A pretest-posttest quasi-experiment was conducted with 107 fourth-grade students in Taiwan. The quantitative analysis revealed that the technological creativity of the online-CPS students was better than that of the traditional group. It was evident that students in the online-CPS groups were better at analytic than at synthetic thinking. Metaphor and analogy were used to produce new ideas most frequently. In addition to generating ideas by themselves, students arrived at solutions by refining and adapting others´ thoughts with little discussion or interaction on the web. Consideration of the feasibility of production was the most important factor in the technological creativity of students.