Effects of Participation in Authoring Multimedia Software on Promoting Creative Thinking of Sixth Graders

Abstract

This study aimed at investigating the effect of students’ participation in authoring an educational multimedia software program on promoting creative thinking. Seventy three sixth grade Jordanian students were assigned to three groups (two experimental and one control group). The first experimental group studied a unit from a science textbook and developed software for the unit, the second experimental group studied the same unit with the assistance of computer software, and the control group studied the unit with regular methods. A creative thinking test was developed and validated to measure the students’ creative thinking in three components (fluency, flexibility and originality). The results revealed that the two experimental groups performed significantly better than the control group in the three creative thinking components. Moreover, the results revealed that the first experimental group, which participated in authoring the educational software, performed significantly better than the second experimental group in flexibility and originality. Recommendations were given based on these results.