Describing and enhancing creativity in Chinese writing

of thesis entitled DESCRIBING AND ENHANCING CREATIVITY IN CHINESE WRITING submitted by CHEUNG WAI MING for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at The University of Hong Kong in December 2005 This dissertation consists of three studies which addressed the issue of describing creativity and enhancing creativity in Chinese writing among primary school students in Hong Kong. Although creativity is valued in the Curriculum Reform of Hong Kong, the degree to which creativity is incorporated into teaching by Chinese Language teachers was unknown. Study One addressed this issue by a survey using a tailor-designed 14-item questionnaire conducted among 449 Chinese Language teachers in primary schools to tap the respondents’ perceptions of creativity, perceived ways of developing students’ creativity, and their day-to-day practice of writing in classrooms. The results show that most of the teacher respondents conformed to the traditional method of teaching writing. Results suggested a detailed study to enhance teacher’s skills in teaching creativity in Chinese which formed the foundation for Study Three. With Study One as the foundation, distinctions between Eastern and Western perspectives of creativity may be explored in future. Study Two was the development and validation of the Chinese Creative Writing Scale (CCWS) that was later applied as an outcome measure for creative writing in Chinese language in Study Three. The development of CCWS contributes to the measurement of creative writing in Chinese. With its good internal consistency, inter-rater reliability and construct validity, it can be used as an outcome measure for assessing the effectiveness of enhancing creativity in Chinese writing. With minor modifications, the scale can be applied in Mainland China, Taiwan, and Chinese societies elsewhere in the world. In Study Three, we first developed four learning studies using the phenomenographic approach and the Theory of Variation. To test the effect of the learning study approach, a quasi-experimental trial was then conducted in a primary school in Hong Kong. Four teachers joined the learning study for one academic year. Some 277 students were randomly allocated into the target group (137) and comparison group (140). The target group received creative teaching of writing by the four teachers involved while the comparison group received traditional teaching. Outcome assessments, the Chinese Creative Writing Scale and the Williams Scale, revealed that the students in the target group showed improvement in almost all aspects of creativity whereas the students in the comparison group did not. This study provided empirical evidence to the positive effects of learning study. Through the learning study, teachers discovered the necessary conditions for the learning of specific objects of learning in Chinese writing. Meanwhile, teachers could enhance the generic capability of creativity which went beyond specific thing. The ground-breaking aspect of this study is that it contributes to both the discernment of specific objects of learning and the enhancement of generic attribute of creativity. Implications to educational policy, teaching practice and further research were suggested.