Creativity is an important skill that will increasingly play a role in the future professional sphere, not only in arts and crafts professions but also in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) professions. It is precisely in this field that new methods and products have to be constantly developed. Therefore, the promotion of high creative potential needs to start at school. Extracurricular learning activities that prepare pupils for science competitions can also have an impact on this promotion. Since few studies have explored divergent thinking in school chemistry classes and extracurricular science competitions, this study aims to show differences in divergent thinking based on gender, parental academic background and prior participation in a science competition, using a validated test.

Creativity, especially problem discovery and divergent thinking are skills that will be demanded for more and more jobs in the future. STEM subjects are leading the way. Schools are an important learning place to train the future generation of workers. However, promotion of creativity in STEM subjects is not sufficiently implemented. Chemistry teachers prefer frontal teaching instead of free, pupil-centred methods that encourage creative work. Extracurricular learning activities offer potential due to the free work atmosphere of a self-discovered problem. Pupils then have to solve it. In the context of this study, the development of problem discovery and divergent thinking of gender, parental academic background and gender differences based on parental academic background will be presented in this study. It is based on two school laboratories: Agnes-Pockels-Lab (without accompanying and professional support) and the DroPS project (with accompanying and professional support).