Yu Lin Chang

Investigating the synergy of critical thinking and creative thinking in the course of integrated activity in Taiwan

The relationship lying between critical thinking and creative thinking is opposite or complementary, results of previous relevant researches have not yet concluded. However, most of researches put the effort to compare the respective effect of the thinking methods, either the teaching of creative thinking or that of critical thinking. Less of them showed the interest to investigate the combined effect of these two thinking skills teaching, especially its synergy. Therefore, present study aimed to discuss the synergy of critical thinking and creative thinking, and investigated the joined effect of these two methods of thinking in the courses of ‘Integrated Activity courses’. Not only the separate influence but also the synergy would be our interests. Moreover, the outcome would also be compared with the learning result of single creative thinking skill teaching. Participants were 147 male students and 118 female students of ninth grade from 8 intact classes in a public middle school in Taiwan, the number of total participants were 265. Experimental design was ‘nonequivalent control group pretest/post-test quasi-experimental design’. Participants were assigned into three groups, three intact classes for creative thinking teaching group (EG1), three intact classes for ‘critical thinking and creative thinking combined teaching group (EG2)’ and two intact classes for regular teaching method group (watching video, control group). All participants took the assessment ‘The New Creative-Thinking Testing’ and ‘The Critical-Thinking Testing, Level 1’ after receiving the courses as post-test. Data were analysed statistically by one-way ANCOVA. The results showed that: Regards to the performance in Integrated Activity courses, no significant difference was found among students in EG1 and those in EG2. However, the students in both experimental groups got higher scores than those in control group did. As for the ability of critical thinking, students in EG2 got higher score than those in EG1 and CG did, but no difference was found among the students in EG1 and those in CG. In respect of originality, students in EG2 got higher score than those in EG1 did, the influence of critical thinking was significant. Theoretical and possible applications of the results were also discussed. Present study not only manifests the correlation between creative thinking and critical thinking, but also provides the empirical data for synergy in actual pedagogical situations.

Effect of radical-position regularity for Chinese orthographic skills of Chinese-as-a-second-language learners

The present study investigated the influence of radical position regularity in Chinese character orthographic tasks among Chinese-as-a-second-language (CSL) learners. The role that radical position regularity plays in the learning of Chinese characters was also verified by showing the aforementioned regularity. To address this issue, two experiments were conducted using the Chinese Radical Assembly Game (CRAG). The first experiment involved 88 CSL. The participants were grouped into high and low grades according to the results of a character recognition assessment. The participants were then randomly assigned to an REG group (radical regular arrangement matrix) and an RAN group (radical random arrangement matrix). The results showed there was no difference in the orthography performance between the REG and RAN groups. However, the orthography performances of the high-grade individuals were better than those of the low-grade individuals in the REG group. The second experiment involved another 84 CSL learners. The results showed that the orthography performances of the low-grade individuals were not different than those of the high-grade individuals after giving radical position regularity to the REG. It support the effect of radical position regularity and suggest that the aforementioned regularity was helpful to CSL learners in the process of learning Chinese characters. Examining the development of orthography ability among CSL by CRAG is beneficial.This study supports the effect of radical position regularity with CRAG.The aforementioned regularity is helpful to CSL when learning Chinese characters.

Effectiveness of humor training among adolescents with autism

Humor training has been applied to educational and clinical cases and has been found to be effective, but humor training for individuals with autism is relatively rare. The present study proposed a humor-knowledge and humor-skill training workshop to enhance the humor comprehension and appreciation of individuals with autism and examined the effects of the training. Participants were 20 adolescents with autism and average intelligence (above 70 in WAIS-III). They were randomly divided into experimental and control groups. Both questionnaire of joke comprehension and appreciation and a humor style questionnaire were used as instruments. The results supported the effectiveness of the 15-h training. The comprehension and appreciation of nonsense humor were significantly increased in the experimental group in comparison with the control group, although the incongruity-resolution jokes remained difficult to comprehend. The tendency to use affiliative humor was greater among individuals with autism in the experimental group, suggesting that the appreciation of humor can be learned.

Humor Styles in Marriage: How Similar Are Husband and Wife?

Past research found that similar appreciation for humor exists between spouses, but it is not certain whether this similarity between spouses also exists in kindhearted or malicious humor. The present study investigated the similarity of Taiwanese married couples’ humor styles. Participants included 239 couples (mean age = 42.9 years) who had been married to each other for at least 10 years. We used a traditional Chinese edition of the Humor Styles Questionnaire to measure the humor style and clustered participants’ humor styles in order to examine the similarity between spouses. The results show that husbands have higher tendencies toward aggressive (Cohen’s d = 0.29, p < .01) and self-defeating (Cohen’s d = 0.35, p < .01) humor styles than wives. Results from multilevel modeling indicate that spouses’ aggressive (p < .001, confidence interval = .17, .41) and self-defeating (p < .01, confidence interval = .05, .30) humor styles acting as a valid predictor to the other spouses’ negative humor styles. Furthermore, the results show that personal humor styles could be categorized into four clusters: positive humor endorsers, negative humor endorsers, general humor endorsers, and humor deniers. According to the clusters within spouse pairs, results show that similarities in humor styles exist between spouses (χ2 = 16.73, p = .01). The current study finds that most couples have similar humor styles and that a high proportion of married couples share the same humor clusters.