Developmental Histories Facilitating the Emergence of Creative Scientific Expertise: The Role of Developed Cognitive Talents, Education, and Social and Cultural Contexts

Abstract

Understanding how individual and contextual factors collectively contribute to the developmental histories that facilitate the emergence of creative expertise in science is improved by considering the contribution of the broad structure of developed cognitive abilities to creativity, prospective research on the high achieving or gifted students who may choose careers in and end up as creative scientists later in life, as well as retrospective studies of established creative scientists themselves and what their educational histories reveal. We first review and elaborate on these connections as documented in research which explore the development of talent, including cognitive mechanisms that include math and spatial reasoning and science related educational opportunities. We propose a research thought experiment that utilizes the multi-trait, multi-method matrix, and bifactor modeling to help understand the true overlap between measurement structures of cognitive and creative aptitudes. Then we explore the social and cultural contexts that may facilitate and/or hinder creative solutions in science through the lens of how these ecosystems influence talent development for gifted students and also the production of elite scientists. Based on this review, some policies will be suggested that may enhance the development of scientific creativity and broader societal innovation and expand the pipeline to include and fully develop the talents of disadvantaged students and provide nurturing environments to improve the likelihood of the emergence of scientific creative expertise.

Why Hasn’t the Gifted Label Caught up with Science?

“…For example, Lewis Terman’s work in California and the Scottish Mental Survey both illustrated a positive correlation between IQ and longevity ( Deary et al 2008 ; Holahan 2021 ). Wai and Brown ( Wai and Brown 2021 ) using a sample of 48,558 individuals from the US and the UK found that cognitive ability in youth correlated with several positive outcomes in educational, health, social, and occupational attainments. Moreover, the contributions of genetic influences to measured IQ scores appear to increase with age; this may suggest that school-based programming has more influence on younger learners, a view that would support the effectiveness of gifted education and other school-based interventions, or perhaps there are selection effects, motivational differences, or other extraneous variables that influence this relationship.…”