The paper questions the relationship among reason, imagination, and empathy, and argues that empathy fosters critical and creative thinking and that its enhancement should be adopted as an important educational goal. The paper proposes that critical and creative thinking are much more integrated processes than often supposed. (JDD)

From their experience with open-ended tests requiring higher-order thinking and problem-solving abilities, schoolchildren in the USSR learn to think before answering. U.S. students instead train for rapid response, learning how to take tests rather than how to solve problems. Tests should be part of the curriculum, not separate from it. (MLH)

Considers arguments for and against the use of videotape productions of children's literature as motivators to reading. Criteria for the selection of videos that are successful adaptations of books are identified and discussed in the context of specific video productions. (four references) (CLB)

Examining the metaphor of the child, or lay adult, as an intuitive scientist results in a theory of the development of scientific thinking centering on progressive differentiation and the coordination of theory and evidence. This metacognitive and strategic development requires thinking about theories and evidence. (SLD)

Synectics is a creative problem-solving process carrying participants from problem analysis to the generation and development of new ideas. The system recognizes three types of thinkers: apposite, divergent, and generative. Effective thinking is often limited by maintaining inflexible criteria concerning thinking, insisting on literal meaning,…

Suggests metaphor is a linguistic tool for discovering meaning and a fundamental form of understanding. Recommends instructing students to produce and analyze extended metaphors by composing biographical portraits. (MS)

To evaluate Mednick's theory of the creative thinking process, an associative priming paradigm was used to measure latencies to lexical decisions primed by associations of low, medium, or high strength with 20 high-creative and 20 low-creative high school students. Mednick's theory that creative individuals show a flatter associative hierarchy…

This article describes 2 experiments conducted with a computer-aided problem-solving tool called BRAIN, involving 30 adults of varying backgrounds and 15 organizational executives. The BRAIN program encourages users to discover partially and fully formulated insights, through iterative generation of word lists and meaningful statements. Eighty…

This paper examines research on influences of emotions on creativity, describes how feelings impact an individual's ability and willingness to function creatively, and discusses the implications for management of creativity in the employment setting. A four-step model of the creative process is discussed, and two sources (proximal and distal) of…

This paper argues that emphasis on conventional critical thinking ("logicism") skills neglects nonlogical, imaginative ways of knowing and suggests that imagination is a necessary condition for good thinking. Education in thinking skills should encourage both imaginative thinking and logical analysis. (DB)

This study compared responses of 20 Chinese and 20 U.S. students to the 9-dot problem, a problem demonstrating the common assumption of nonexistent boundaries. There were significant effects of culture (significantly more Chinese students solved the problem), age, and interaction between culture and age and between culture and sex. (DB)

Efficiency denotes left-brain (management) activity, involving concrete sequential thinking, whereas effectiveness denotes right-brain (leadership) activity involving creativity and vision. As executive stewards, school administrators must exhibit both management and leadership capabilities and engage both brain hemispheres to articulate and…

Among 40 second and sixth graders in a Bureau of Indian Affairs reservation school, those who participated in 6 15-minute sessions of imagery training had significantly higher posttest scores on the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking, compared to controls. Such training may increase children's problem-solving ability. Contains 24 references. (SV)

Suggests that humor promotes group unity, relieves tension, and stimulates creative thinking. Demonstrates how using cartoons in nursing education helps students identify and examine stereotypes to improve relationships. (SK)

The recession, reorganization of work, and total quality management are spurring emphasis on creativity training in the workplace. A wide spectrum of techniques are being used to influence the generation of new ideas, although documentation of the benefits is difficult. (SK)