Thinking styles and conceptions of creativity among university students

This research aims to understand university student thinking styles and the relationship with their views of creativity. The Thinking Styles Inventory-Revised II (TSI-R2, Sternberg, Wagner & Zhang, 2007) was used to measure 13 thinking styles as defined in Sternberg's (1988) theory of mental self-government and the Conceptions of Creativity Scales (CCS, Zhu & Zhang, 2010) was used to inquire students' views about the conditions for evaluating creativity from six aspects: intelligence, knowledge, style of thinking, personality, motivation, and environment (Sternberg & Lubart, 1995). Significant relationships were identified between thinking styles and conceptions of creativity. This research contributes to the understanding about the relationship between conceptions of creativity and thinking styles, and brings insights for educators about educational innovations, as one of the key objectives of educational innovations is to develop creativity of the younger generation.