The Effects of Different Patterns of Group Collaborative Learning on Fourth-Grade Students’ Creative Thinking in a Digital Artificial Intelligence Course

Digital technology plays a unique role in the cultivation of students’ creative thinking, which helps them solve poorly structured problems with effective and original solutions. This study applied collaborative learning in a digital-technology-supported artificial intelligence (AI) course and aimed to explore the impact of collaborative learning on fourth-grade students’ creative thinking. According to whether a leadership role was assigned by a teacher and a final consensus was built in the group, four patterns of collaborative learning were designed for comparison in order to determine which pattern was more effective for the promotion of students’ creative thinking. In total, 37 fourth-grade students taking part in the study were divided into four groups, and each group adapted one of four patterns of collaborative learning. The Torrance Creative Thinking Test (TTCT-Figure) was used to test the pre- and post-creative thinking of the four groups of students. A paired-sample t-test was used to analyze the pre- and post-tests of students’ creative thinking to verify whether all four patterns of collaborative learning could improve the students’ creative thinking. One-way ANOVA was used to analyze the post-test results of the four groups’ creative thinking to determine the differences in the creative thinking of the four groups of students. The results indicated that the patterns of collaborative learning used by G1, G3, and G4 were effective in improving students’ creative thinking, but the pattern for G2 was not. Moreover, there were significant differences in the cultivation of students’ creative thinking via AI courses among these four patterns of collaborative learning. The G4 students, who had an assigned leadership role and consensus building, showed the greatest improvement in creative thinking. In particular, without an assigned leadership role and consensus building, students’ flexibility of creative thinking would be improved to a greater extent. Teachers can adapt the findings of this study in order to consciously train team leaders in the collaborative learning process and guide them to reach a consensus to achieve the goal of fostering creative thinking in digital-technology-supported courses. To be specific, teachers should let students participate in group collaborative learning in a free way to cultivate their flexibility.