The development of creativity in senior primary school students: Gender differences and the role of school support

Joint Developmental Trajectories of Novelty and Usefulness in Chinese Children's Creativity

Creativity encompasses both novelty and usefulness, with novelty referring to the generation of unique and uncommon ideas, while usefulness pertains to the effectiveness and appropriateness of these ideas in addressing the given task. The comprehension of the process of coordinated development for children's novelty and usefulness, including the potential gender differences, is crucial; however, it still lacks clarity in the current academic discourse. To address these gaps, this study investigated the joint developmental trajectories of novelty and usefulness as well as the gender differences in trajectory group membership among Chinese children. A sample of primary school children (initial grade 3, N = 665; 46.4% girls; initial Mage = 8.60 years) were followed for three years. The results revealed a negative association between novelty and usefulness across all three time points. Through parallel-process latent class growth modeling, three distinct trajectories of novelty and usefulness were identified: the High Novelty Decline-Medium Usefulness Increase-Stability Group (66%), the Low Novelty Increase-High Usefulness Decline-Convergence Group (19%), and the Low Novelty Decline-High Usefulness Increase-Divergence Group (15%). These findings suggest that the development of children's creativity is influenced by a multifaceted pattern involving both novelty and usefulness. Moreover, gender differences in trajectory group membership were examined and discussed within the context of creativity development in Chinese children.

Differences in the moderating role of supervisors’ and subordinates’ cognition on distributive justice in the relationship between psychological contract and organizational identification

Introduction

In the process of social exchange between employees and organizations, psychological contract, organizational identification, and cognition on distributive justice are closely related and have a common psychological basis, that is, the reciprocity of exchange. The question of how a sense of fairness can affect employees’ psychology and behavior has attracted the attention of scholars and managers.

Methods

The predictive role of psychological contract on organizational identification and the moderating role of supervisors’ and subordinates’ cognition on distributive justice in it were investigated. A paired sample of 133 supervisors and 437 direct reports collected from private service-based SMEs was analyzed through structural equation modeling.

Results

(1) relational psychological contract had a positive predictive effect on organizational identification and transactional psychological contract had a negative predictive effect on organizational identification; (2) subordinates’ cognition on distributive justice played a moderating role in the prediction of psychological contract to organizational identification, and supervisor’s cognition on distributive justice on subordinate’s psychological contract and organizational identification did not reach a significant level.

Discussion

This indicates that there was a significant difference between supervisors’ and subordinates’ cognition on distributive justice.

Analysis of school support: Systematic literature review of core Chinese- and English-language journals published in 2000–2021

School support is of great significance to students' academic quality and overall physical and psychological development. However, there is still ambiguity in the English and Chinese studies on the concept and measurement tools of school support. The data for this study were sourced from the literature on school support included in the China National Knowledge Network (CNKI) and Web of Science (WOS) from 2000 to 2021. A systematic literature review was conducted through literature inclusion and data extraction according to the PRISMA guidelines. Finally, 36 core-journal articles with high academic reference value and authority are identified, including seven in Chinese and 29 in English. The following results were obtained: (1) Related research in both Chinese and English showed an overall increasing trend. (2) The concepts and measurement tools of school support were not clear, and most studies used concepts and measurement tools of “social support” or “school climate” as substitutes for school support. (3) Most of the previous studies were based on social support theory, ecological system theory, and school climate theory. (4) The research mainly adopts quantitative research methods and focuses on special student populations or students below the high school level. Overall, previous studies indicated that school support has a positive impact on student development. Therefore, future research should be broadly extended to the knowledge system in higher education. On the basis of clarifying the concept of school support, it is necessary to try to develop and validate school support measurement tools with great reliability, validity, and general applicability to provide a practical reference for educators around the world.