Singapore students top Pisa study on creative thinking, despite not thinking of themselves as creative
SINGAPORE – Singapore's 15-year-olds came out top in an international benchmarking study on creative thinking, even though they do not think of themselves as creative.

This audio is AI-generated.
SINGAPORE – Singapore's 15-year-olds came out top in an international benchmarking study on creative thinking, even though they do not think of themselves as creative.
Singapore students were tested on how well they generate creative ideas, as well as evaluate and improve on them in the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) 2022.
A total of 6,600 students from 149 secondary schools and 15 private schools, including international schools and religious schools, participated in the study, said the Ministry of Education (MOE) in a press release on Tuesday (June 18). Singapore also topped the scoreboard for mathematics, science and reading.
Since 2012, Pisa has included an optional innovative domain in each testing cycle, such as creative problem solving, collaborative problem solving and global competence. Singapore ranked joint-first with Korea for creative problem solving, and first for the other two.
Singapore participated in the creative thinking study because it is an "important competency" that helps to prepare young people for a rapidly evolving world, said MOE, adding that it was interested in having insights on how students have developed in this area.
The findings are useful in improving the curriculum and training teachers to better nurture creative thinking in students, said the ministry's deputy director-general of education Sng Chern Wei.
"We certainly will be analysing the findings, and allowing us to learn from these findings the areas for further improvement, as well as areas of strength that we ought to affirm and preserve, despite the regular changes to our curriculum," he added.
For example, to nurture creative students, they need to be given more space to experience unstructured activities and more exposure to aspects that allow them to come up with different ideas, said Mr Sng.
MOE will take these into account during its curriculum reviews, he added.
SMALLEST PROPORTION OF LOW PERFORMERS
Students were presented with tasks that measure their ability to generate diverse ideas, generate creative ideas, as well as evaluate and improve ideas. This type of creativity can be developed through practice and is demonstrated in everyday contexts, MOE said.
For example, in one exercise, students were presented with a book cover with the number "2983" on it, and were tasked to come up with an original story idea for the book.
Conventional answers include an account of what life is like for humans in the year 2983, while an unconventional reference to the number "2983" in the story could be a more original idea. Participants were awarded full credits for uncommon ideas, and partial or no credits for common and conventional ideas.
Singapore students ranked first in generating diverse ideas and generating creative ideas. They came second, behind Korea, in evaluating and improving ideas.
Students were assigned to a proficiency level based on their results, with levels three and four, or a creative thinking score of 23 to 41, marking baseline performance.
Those who scored below 23 points were regarded as low performers, while those who scored 41 and above were regarded as top performers, at proficiency levels five or six.
About 58 per cent of Singapore students were top performers, attaining proficiency levels five or six. This is more than twice the OECD average proportion of 27 per cent, and the highest among all 64 participating systems, said MOE.
The mean score in Singapore is 41, above the OECD average of 33. Singapore also had the smallest proportion of low performers at 6 per cent, below the OECD average of 22 per cent.
Students from lower-socioeconomic status households also performed better than the average OECD student, with 36 points on average. Students in the top 25 per cent of households scored an average of 45 points.
In most of the countries that participated in the study, girls performed better than boys on average, and Singapore was no different, although they were comparable in some aspects, said MOE.
Girls scored an average of 42 points while boys scored an average of 40 points. Girls also outperformed boys in generating creative ideas, as well as evaluating and improving ideas.
LESS CONFIDENCE IN BEING CREATIVE
Despite performing well in the study, Singapore students did not think of themselves as creative. Just 64 per cent of them said they were confident or very confident of being creative, compared with the OECD average of 73 per cent.
About 47 per cent of them said they were confident or very confident in telling creative stories, and 42 per cent of them thought they could produce good drawings, compared with the OECD average of 61 and 55 per cent.
MOE noted that the conventional impression of Singapore students is that they are not creative and only book smart, and that this Pisa study was an instrument that could test this assumption.
The outcomes are reassuring, and indicate that Singapore schools are not as uncreative as typical impressions of them would suggest, said the ministry, adding that it was "surprised but not entirely shocked" by the results.
The Pisa results in the past 20 years can also debunk the notion that Singapore students are rote learners who cannot apply their knowledge, MOE added.
"A rote learner would not be able to perform in the Pisa main instruments so strongly cycle after cycle," it said.
The study is a "very affirming indication" that Singapore students can think creatively to thrive in the future, which will demand more innovation and adaptability, said Mr Sng.
Singapore students also reported favourable perceptions of their teachers’ pedagogies, which helped in nurturing their creativity, the Education Ministry said. The majority – 80 per cent – said their teachers valued creativity and encouraged students to come up with original answers.
Students also reported positive family environments that fostered creative thinking. For example, 84 per cent of Singapore students noted that their family encouraged them to try new things.
Schools and parents can work together to help increase students' confidence in their creative abilities, he added.
Students may lack confidence because they have not received clear feedback on this aspect of their growth, since there are "very few" instruments that test creative thinking, Mr Sng said.
"Another possible reason may be that they are generally humble... and therefore don't rate themselves very highly when asked for their ability in creative thinking." CNA
For more reports like this, visit cna.asia.