Although traditionally creative and critical thinking have been viewed as independent skills and dispositions, several commenters have argued that both modes of thoughts can be complementary. The purpose of the current study is to examine the relationship between creative and critical thinking among Chinese art and design undergraduates in Macau. A total of 140 college students from the art and design program in Macau were recruited for our study. Two major findings were recorded. Creative and critical thinking were positively correlated among our Chinese undergraduates and this correlation was strong. Furthermore, creative thinking was similar between students from Mainland China and from Macau; nevertheless, students from Mainland China had better critical thinking abilities than students from Macau. Although there were some salient limitations in the current study, it remains of importance and value. Future research in this line of study seems promising and deserves more attention.

A B S T R A C TThe current study investigates creativity from a creative product perspective. More specifically, we want to know if a connection exists between an individual's creativity and his or her evaluation of creative products. We also want to know what role cognitive style plays in this relationship. The sample (139 second-year undergraduates) was collected from an art and design program of an institution in Macau. Convenience sampling was used for the current study. The present study found partial support for the associations between cognitive style, creativity, and evaluations of creative products. Based on zero-order correlations, visual and verbal cognitive styles were moderately and positively correlated to three components of CPSS (novelty, resolution, and elaboration and synthesis). The results of the SEM further confirm this relationship between cognitive style and CPSS (r = .69, p < .05).

Design thinking takes an adaptive and holistic view toward product and user needs. It involves engaging in observation, fast learning, visualization, prototyping, and enhancing customer experience. Personality traits have been widely examined in the education field and at the same time design thinking is the main topic of design education. However, until now, there has been a lack of related studies investigating these two variables. As a result, the purpose of the current study is to examine the relationship between design thinking and personalities among Chinese design undergraduates. Convenience sampling was used to recruit 95 first-year Chinese fashion design college students in Taiwan. Two major findings were recorded. Based on zero-order correlations, some variables of personality and of design thinking were positively correlated among our Chinese undergraduates; however, taken as a whole, the structural equation modeling did not support this relationship. Further, age and gender did not play a role in these relationships.

Within the existing creativity-training programs, the Creative Problem Solving (CPS) model may be the most effective tool for facilitating individual creativity. Among various factors that influence individuals' creative performance, personality is widely considered one of most important factors. By far the most popular measure of personality types is the MBTI; unsurprisingly, the relationship between the MBTI and creativity has been extensively studied. However, relatively little research has touched on the relation between personality types and CPS. The purpose of this study was to use the KTS II as its instrument for measuring personality types, and FourSight as its instrument for measuring CPS styles. In our Macau business undergraduates, canonical correlation analysis shows that a link exists between personality types and CPS styles, and that this link is not gender-dependent. However, the variable thinking is the only valid and influential predictor of the canonical function. It is apparent that more empirical investigations are needed to confirm our findings.

For modern visual artists and graphic designers, creativity is the sine qua non, and it should be equally important to fashion designers. The main objective of this study was to investigate the relationships among figural creativity, creative potential, and personality in a sample of Taiwanese fashion design undergraduates. Convenient sampling was used. A sample of 90 first-year fashion design undergraduate students (73 women and 17 men) at Asia University in Taiwan, was recruited from the Foundation of Design, which is the foundational fashion design course, to participant in this study. This study's results suggest that figural creativity is not related to creative potential or to personality. However, we suggest that using alternative or additional instruments to measure creative potential and/or include additional relevant variables might build on these findings and increase our understanding of the relationships among figural creativity, creative potential, and personality.

A significant effort has been made to study the impacts of the learning environment on students' academic performance. The main purpose of the current study was to investigate the possible link between the learning environment in a university and learning outcomes in students Chinese educational settings. The sample used in this study consisted of 128 students (recruiting from the third-year art and design program) from one private university in Macau. The results of the Pearson correlation showed us that the students' perception of their learning environment was not related to their academic performance. When we treated gender, residency status, and students' perception of their learning environment as independent variables to predict their academic performance, we again found that in the regression model, students' perception of their learning environment could not predict their academic performance. A number of limitations were also discussed; as a result, the interpretation of this study should be considered tentative.