Employing Mixed Reality to Develop Creative Thinking Skills among Graduate Physics Students

Abstract

Graduate physics students need to think creatively in order to provide answers to complex problems and advance science. Conventional education tends to focus on analytical abilities and does not give much chance to creativity. This paper discusses how mixed reality (MR) can be utilized to improve creative thinking among graduate physics students. A quasi-experimental design was employed in order to study forty graduate physics students (22-30 years old) studying at a public research university. Two groups were selected at random, including the experimental group (n=20), who were taught through the use of the Microsoft HoloLens 2 and the control group (n=20), who were taught with the use of the traditional lecture-laboratory instruction. The Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT) were used to measure creative thinking, which includes fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration. The data regarding qualitative data were gathered by observation in the classroom, by student artifacts, and the reflective logs. In the overall creative thinking scores, the MR group had improved by +25% and the control group by +10%. It is worth noting that the MR group recorded significant gains in originality and elaboration. The qualitative data demonstrated that MR was creative due to the possibility of advanced visualization, efficient experimentation, and the exchange of ideas. This paper gives empirical data that MR can be effective in increasing creative thinking in graduate students of physics without affected learning of the content. The results indicate that MR is a useful pedagogical instrument to enhance creativity in STEM education, and it should be included into the advanced physics programs.