Creative Thinking In Male And Female Vietnamese, Filipino, And Anglo-American College Undergraduate Students, As Measured By The Torrance Tests Of Creativity

Author

Peter Chu-Quang-Minh, University of the Pacific

Date of Award

1980

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)

Department

Education

First Advisor

William C. Theimer, Jr.

First Committee Member

R. Eugene Rice

Second Committee Member

R. Ann Zinck

Third Committee Member

Robert W. Blaney

Fourth Committee Member

J. Marc Jantzen

Abstract

Purpose. The purpose of this study was to examine (a) the degree of creative thinking of Vietnamese, Filipino, and Anglo-American college undergraduate students as measured by the Torrance tests of Thinking Creatively with Pictures (TCWP), form A, and Thinking Creatively with Words (TCWW), form A; (b) the degree of creative thinking between males and females in the three groups of students tested; and (c) the differences, if any, between the TCWP scores and the TCWW scores of the Vietnamese, Filipino, and Anglo-American college undergraduate students tested. Procedure. A sample of 15 males and 15 females in each ethnic group was randomly selected from the total Vietnamese, Filipino, and Anglo-American college undergraduate students who enrolled in one university and two colleges in Northern California in the Spring semester of the 1979-80 academic year. The TCWP and the TCWW were administered to students in each group; the T-scores were used in the data analyses. Ex post facto design was used in this study because it was not possible to manipulate the independent variables, namely, ethnicity and sex. The level of significance for rejecting the null hypotheses was set at .05. Statistical techniques used in this study were the two-way ANOVA and the Pearson product-moment correlation. Conclusions. The findings of this study indicated that: (a) the Filipino college undergraduate students scored higher on figural Fluency than the Vietnamese college undergraduate students; (b) females had higher figural Fluency scores than males; (c) the Anglo-American college undergraduate students scored higher on figural Flexibility than the Filipino college undergraduate students; (d) males had higher figural Originality scores than females; (e) the Anglo-American college undergraduate students scored higher on figural Elaboration than either the Filipino or the Vietnamese college undergraduate students; (f) there was no correlation between the TCWP scores and the TCWW scores on the factors of Fluency and Flexibility, but a moderate positive correlation was found in the Originality scores among the three ethnic groups tested. Recommendations. (a) Educational instructors and counselors should help their Vietnamese students become better acquainted with taking tests when these students are in the American educational system; (b) Filipino and Vietnamese students should be taught how to study in a democratic educational and political system, to concentrate on divergent thinking rather than on convergent thinking by recalling more verbal interaction between students and students and professors in defending different value positions; (c) additional studies should be conducted using samples of other ethnic groups such as Chinese, Laotian, Korean, and Japanese to verify findings in this study and to further examine cultural differences and the influence of specific cultural traditions; (d) an in-depth study, isolating specific cultural elements in the Vietnamese, Filipino, and American cultures should be undertaken to determine which traditions, mores, and values have the greatest influence on creativity.

Pages

162

Recommended Citation

Chu-Quang-Minh, Peter. (1980). Creative Thinking In Male And Female Vietnamese, Filipino, And Anglo-American College Undergraduate Students, As Measured By The Torrance Tests Of Creativity. University of the Pacific, Dissertation. https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/uop_etds/3334