RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BRAIN DOMINANCE, GENDER, AND IMPROVEMENT IN CREATIVE THINKING SKILLS

This study analyzed the relationship between brain dominance, gender, and improvement in creative thinking skills. The creative skills studied were fluency, originality, abstractness of titles, elaboration, resistance to closure and the creativity index. In addition to investigating the possible relationships between brain dominance, gender, and improvement in creative thinking skills, the question of whether or not improvement occurred was also examined. Brain dominance was determined by a self-report instrument. This instrument was based upon brain dominance research. The subjects were 63 high school students in grades 9 through 12. These subjects were enrolled in three separate classes. The subjects' ages ranged from 14 to 19 years of age. Subjects were administered the Human Information Processing Survey, a self-report learning style instrument, and the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking, a test of creative thinking skills. The scores on the Human Information Processing Survey were used to determine the subjects' brain dominance. The Torrance Test of Creative Thinking was used in a pretest and posttest design as a measure of improvement of the creative thinking skills. The results of this study indicated a significant improvement for selective creative thinking skills following a four week series of special activities. Significant relationships with brain dominance and gender were found between specific creative thinking skills.