Creativity in Two Languages: Convergent and Divergent Thinking in Bilingual Engineering Students

Open Access
- Author:
- Pifer, Emily
- Area of Honors:
- German
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Arts
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Adriana Van Hell, Thesis Supervisor
Jens-Uwe Guettel, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- linguistics
german
psychology
bilingualism
divergent thinking
convergent thinking - Abstract:
- In our modern globalized society, more than half of the world’s population is bilingual (Grosjean, 2010), and, as a result, more companies are expecting employees to be able to communicate professionally across languages when conducting business in global markets. Recent research has also indicated that being bilingual enhances creative thinking and problem-solving skills (Rodriguez-Fornells, 2011; Lee and Kim, 2011; Ricciardelli, 1992). There are two types of thinking associated with problem-solving: convergent and divergent thinking. Convergent thinking is used when there is one specific correct answer to a problem, while divergent thinking is used to solve abstract problems with multiple solutions. A study conducted by Hommel et al. (2011) investigated low- and high-proficient bilinguals in their second language (L2) and how their proficiency impacted convergent and divergent thinking abilities in their first language (L1). The study, however, failed to not compare bilinguals’ thinking abilities across languages. It is very important for bilinguals to be able to solve problems in both their L1 and L2, especially when it comes to working in the engineering field, as they heavily rely on creative problem-solving skills for success and innovation. To the best of my knowledge, there has been no research studies that have compared how bilinguals think and solve problems in their L1 compared to their L2. This present study aims to answer two major questions associated with thinking abilities across languages: how convergent and divergent thinking abilities are affected by language (L1 vs. L2), and to what extent prior problem-solving activities in the L2 affect convergent and divergent thinking in the L1 and L2. To perform this study, thirty-two German-English bilinguals pursuing an engineering major at the Technische Universität Braunschweig and indicating German as their L1 were recruited. Participants first participated in an interactive, real-life, engineering problem-solving task, where they generated as many solutions to the problem as they could in their L2. The participants then performed the convergent (RAT) and divergent (AUT) thinking tasks in various orders to assess the impact that the interactive problem-solving task in their L2 had on their performance in the task immediately following this. Finally, participants completed the LexTALE (Lemhöfer & Broersma, 2012) vocabulary task to assess their vocabulary skills in both their L1 and L2, and a Language History Questionnaire. Data analysis showed a significant main effect of language on convergent thinking abilities (RAT), but no significant effect of language on creativity scores related to divergent thinking abilities (AUT). This means that language proficiency and vocabulary knowledge in the L1 or L2 significantly impacts convergent thinking abilities, but does not impact divergent thinking abilities. Language did, however, impact the participants’ fluency scores on the AUT. This result indicates that the semantic network, which is where an individuals’ creative thinking abilities stem from and has been proven by Borodkin et al. (2016) to be less-organized in an individuals’ L2 compared to their L1, impacts the quantity of creative ideas generated but does not affect the quality of ideas. Finally, the correlation results indicated that there was no significant interaction between language and language order on divergent and convergent thinking abilities, meaning that there was no effect of having participants solve the interactive real-life problem in their L2 before completing either the divergent (AUT) or convergent (RAT) thinking task in their L2.