Meet Our Newest Colleague: Dr. Xu Shiyu Shares Insights on Scientific Creativity Research

On the afternoon of October 29, the induction ceremony and academic seminar for Dr. Xu Shiyu was held at the Seminar Room 1613. 

The event was attended by distinguished faculty members including An Guiqing, Cui Yunhuo, Gao Desheng, Liu Junyan, Shi Yuchen, Wang Yanling, Wang Zhe, Xiao Sihan, Yang Chengyu, Yang Xiaozhe, Zhang Xiaolei, Zheng Xin, and Zhou Wenye. Over 60 students and faculty from the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and related departments participated in the event, which was chaired by Associate Professor Yang Xiaozhe, Secretary of the Party Branch.

Induction Ceremony

Professor Cui Yunhuo, Director of ICI, delivered the welcoming remarks. On behalf of the Institute, he extended a warm welcome to Dr. Xu Shiyu and presented her with a commemorative plaque to mark her inaugural induction report.

Lecture Highlights

Dr. Xu Shiyu opened her presentation by tracing the historical development and conceptual evolution of creativity, leading into the specific domain of "Scientific Creativity." She defined its core connotations and established a theoretical framework for its study.

Dr. Xu systematically reviewed existing domestic and international assessment methods—including individual creativity metrics, secondary school scientific creativity assessments, and performance-based assessments—while highlighting current theoretical and practical dilemmas in the field.

Based on these insights, Dr. Xu focused on the C-SCA (Comprehensive Scientific Creativity Assessment for Secondary Students), an innovative tool developed by her team. She used specific examples to illustrate the tool's unique design philosophy, assessment methodology, and scoring criteria, emphasizing its practical value in educational settings.

Concluding her report, Dr. Xu outlined future directions for optimizing the assessment system. She expressed her ambition to build a multidimensional evaluation system for scientific creativity, integrating artificial intelligence to explore how AI can further support and enhance the assessment of creative potential in science.

Interactive Exchange

The seminar featured a vibrant Q&A session. Dr. Xu engaged with faculty and students on a wide range of topics, including:

·Strategies for selecting research topics.

·The relationship between scientific creativity and "Scientific Thinking" in national curriculum standards.

·The feasibility of limiting response quantities in assessments and the use of contextualized questioning.

·The assessment of convergent thinking and the academic contribution of creativity research.

·The validity of gamified assessment tools and the correlation between motivation and creativity.

Scholar Profile & Recent Achievements

Dr. Xu Shiyu holds degrees from Hunan Normal University, Beijing Normal University, and University College London (UCL). During her Master’s studies, she conducted exchange research at Ghent University, Belgium. Her doctoral studies at UCL were fully funded by the UCL Research Excellence Scholarship (RES).

Research Interests: Her primary research focuses on science education, the assessment and development of creativity, and inquiry-based teaching.

Academic Contributions: She has published several papers in prestigious SSCI-indexed journals and has frequently delivered oral presentations at top-tier international conferences in science education. She also serves as a long-term peer reviewer for multiple leading international academic journals in the field.