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and scientific creativity, while the second focuses on gender differences in affective
reflections in computer-based learning and assessment.
5 Affect, Attention, and Scientific Creativity in Chemistry
Learning
Lubart and Getz (
1997
) mentioned that emotion is a very important factor affecting
scientific creativity. Scientific creativity, which is defined as a logical problem
solving process, is an important element in chemistry learning. Humans always
solve problems of daily life by using their background knowledge, but they need to
solve problems about new or specific situations by using divergent thinking which
is based on their background knowledge or life experiences. Scientific creativity not
only plays an important role in daily life but it is also specifically critical in solving
chemical problems.
Besides background knowledge and divergent thinking, affect is also an impor-
tant factor influencing scientific creativity. However, there are some conflicting
findings in the previous studies. George and Zhou (
2002
) indicated that negative
emotions improve the skills involved in scientific creativity, while positive emo-
tions restrain such creativity. On the other hand, Petty and Cacioppo (
1986
) found
that positive emotions improve a person
s scientific creativity. Recently, Filipowicz
(
2006
) proposed that positive emotions raise the performance of scientific creativity
in some cases and restrain it in others. To clarify this issue, Huang, Shen, and Liu
(
2008
) used the EEG methodology to ensure that the participants
'
emotions were
really being induced while analyzing their scientific creativity in chemistry learn-
ing. In their project, they chose 30 pictures from the International Affective Pictures
System (IAPS) to induce the participants
'
affect. Of these pictures, ten showed
positive emotions, ten showed negative emotions, and ten were neutral in not
reflecting any emotion. Figure
11
shows examples of these pictures.
All participants needed to take part in the three affect experiments while wearing
an electrode cap to collect the EEG data. At first, the participants would see a red
cross in the center of a computer screen, which was used to arouse their attention.
Then they were asked to complete tasks A, B, and C, randomly selected to induce
the corresponding emotions. For example, if a participant was asked to complete
task A, his/her positive response would be induced by looking at the positive affect
pictures. After completing the task A affect experiment, he/she was asked to answer
questionnaire A on scientific creativity which combines chemistry background
knowledge. For example, one question of the scientific creativity questionnaire is
as follows:
What could iron make? Please think of products with the physical and chemical charac-
teristics of iron.
'
Then, this participant was asked to complete task B and scientific creativity
questionnaire B two hours later. Finally, the participant was asked to complete task
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