Evaluating of creative thinking of students and creativity development at Southeast University, China

On the basis of creative thinking test of students at Southeast University, characteristics of students' creative thinking and their relations to creativity are summarized in this paper. The main characteristics of students' creative thinking evaluated in the test are fluency, flexibility and elaboration. Generally speaking, marks of fluency and flexibility have direct relations to the general grade of creative thinking. Thus, it is important to train fluency and flexibility of thinking in order to develop students' creative thinking ability. The above understanding led to the reform in engineering education. First, the authors set up a course of creativity development for students. In the course known as Creative Studies or Creatology, students took part in various exercises of fluent thinking and flexible thinking, especially divergent thinking, to facilitate their creative thinking ability. Second the authors improved their teaching methods in class. The chief reform included self-comment, mutual-comment, debating, discussion on special items, exercise-correcting mutually and creativity-compensated examination etc. In a word, the above reform in class meant an attempt of creative education. The investigation showed that most of the students increased their creativity effectively through creative education.