Impact of Analogical Images on Solving Scientific and Environmental Problems Creatively

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of analogical images on students' creative abilities of novelty and offeasibility, through solving scientific and environmental problems. There are eight problems: fours cientific and four environmental derived from content-text of science and social studies curricula which were provided to the students.The experiment was implemented over 4 weeks. Analogical images were provided to the experimental groups, whereas control groups were asked to solve the problems abstractly. The experiment was based on the activation of the cerebellumby analogical images to improve creativeabilities. A 2 × 2 factorial design was used. A total of 112 sixth-grade students (45 males & 67 females) from two government schools in Muscat governorate participated in this study. The sample was classified into four classes: two experimental and two control. The findings show that:(a) the experimental group performed better on problem-solving than the control group did; (b) design not gender has the most effect on alinear combination of novelty and feasibility; and (c) gender and design have the most effect on alinear combination of scientific and environmental problems.