Studying the Association between Thinking Styles and Creativity among Students

Background: Developing thinking skills has been receiving considerable attention in educational systems. Students are taught how to use the power of thinking to live a better life. Understanding and utilizing ways of thinking as a preferred approach of reasoning, assessment, and judgment in different aspects of life seem to be influential. This paper aims to study the relationship between viewpoints and creativity in students of Torbat Heidariyeh University of Medical Sciences in 2015.Methods: Sternberg Wagner Thinking Styles Inventory and Abedi Creativity Questionnaire were used to collect the data among students. 13 styles of thinking were studied. Data was analyzed by SPSS20. P<0.05 considered significant.Findings: The mean score of students’ creativity was 97.88±19.17. The highest (24.96±2.43) and lowest (14.11±1.16) mean score belonged to anarchic and legislative styles of thinking respectively. Our findings indicate that local (r=-0.176) and conservative (r=-0.701) forms of thinking are negatively related to creativity. In addition, legislative (r=0.512), global (r=0.634), liberal(r=0.653), hierarchical (r=0.181), anarchic (r=0.356), internal (r=0.198), and external (r=0.189) styles of thinking were positively related to creativity. With respect to legislative (r=0.045), judicial (r=0.23), conservative (r=0.009), and external (r=0.001) styles, no significant difference was observed between male and female students.Conclusion: It is imperative to pay considerable attention to thinking styles and their influence on students’ creativity. As thinking styles are teachable, the hope is that those styles of thinking that create active learning and facilitate creativity in students be taught to learners and teachers.Keywords: creativity, thinking styles, students

Studying the Association of Quality of Life and Happiness among University Students

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Lance Armstrong as Teacher

The American cyclist Lance Armstrong, I propose, overcame a threatening death sentence through his strength of will, not necessarily his strength of character the latter idealized by Aristotle (2004) in his Ethics. It was Armstrong’s will to survive that made him one of the most celebrated and loved athletes in recent times. He won the Tour de France seven times. He became the achiever per se in today’s achievement society that was already emerging in 90’s.

The differences between historians of empire and other scholars in explaining the causes of imperial expansion

This study discussed and compared the explanations of historians of empires and other scholars for imperial expansion. It provided different interpretation about the factors which caused imperialism. I basically relied on qualitative methods to gain an understanding of complicated phenomenon. It should be said that most of historians had the same opinion and they said this phenomenon lasted from 1870 to 1914 and it was different with colonialism. I found that there was not the same opinion between historians of empire and scholars of non-empire, both sides were completely different in explaining the causes of the phenomenon. Historian of empire focused on economic, social and political factors of imperial countries in interpretation of this phenomenon, but scholars of non-empire focused on cultures, disunity, economic stagnation and underdevelopment of third world countries in explanation of imperial expansion. Keywords: Imperialism, Nationalism, Imperial Expansion, Historian, Scholars, Causes.