Scientific Creativity and High Ability: Gender and academic level differences

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of gender and educational level on scientific creativity among gifted/talented students. A cohort of creatividad científica y alta habilidad: diferencias de género y nivel educativo 78 secondary school students from 12 to 16 years old participated in this research. The scientific creativity was measured using the Creative Scientific Ability Test (Sak & Ayas, 2011) designed for secondary school students from 11 to 14 years old. Its theoretical framework sets up the measurement of a three dimensional structure: general creative abilities (fluency, flexibility and creativity), scientific creative abilities (hypothesis generation, hypothesis testing and evidence evaluation) and scientific knowledge. This test has the right adequate psychometric properties with a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.848 (Sak & Ayas, 2013). Results indicated that male students scored significantly higher in a task named Interaction Graph which measures hypothesis generation in interdisciplinary science. The analysis also showed that students involved in upper education levels scores significantly higher in general fluency and in the task called The Food Chain which measures evidence evaluation in the area of ecology.