Teaching children in a way that encourages them to empathize with others measurably improves their creativity, and could potentially lead to several other beneficial learning outcomes, new research suggests.
The findings are from a year-long University of Cambridge study with Design and Technology (D&T) year 9 pupils at two inner London schools. Pupils at one school spent the year following curriculum-prescribed lessons, while the other group's D&T lessons used a set of engineering design thinking tools which aim to foster students' ability to think creatively and to engender empathy, while solving real-world problems.
Both sets of pupils were assessed for creativity at both the start and end of the school year using the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking: a well-established psychometric test.
The results showed a statistically significant increase in creativity among pupils at the intervention school, where the thinking tools were used. At the start of the year, the creativity scores of pupils in the control school, which followed the standard curriculum, were 11% higher than those at the intervention school. By the end, however, the situation had completely changed: creativity scores among the intervention group were 78% higher than the control group.
The researchers also examined specific categories within the Torrance Test that are indicative of emotional or cognitive empathy: such as 'emotional expressiveness' and 'open-mindedness'. Pupils from the intervention school again scored much higher in these categories, indicating that a marked improvement in empathy was driving the overall creativity scores.
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