Creative Thinking Abilities of Mexican Youth

Abstract

To examine the relationship of bilingualism to the creative thinking abilities of Mexican youth, four subtests from the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking were administered to Spanish-English coordinate bilingual and Spanish monolingual subjects from two private high schools in Torreon, Coahuila, Mexico. It was hypothesized that the Spanish-English coordinate bilinguals would score significantly higher on the dependent measures of figural fluency, figural flexibility, figural originality, verbal fluency, verbal flexibility, and verbal originality than the Spanish monolinguals. A multivariate analysis indicated that the main effect of language group was significant in favor of the bilinguals. Neither the main effect of sex nor the interaction effect was significant. Univariate analysis indicated that the dependent measures of verbal flexibility, verbal originality, and figural originality were significant at the .05 level in favor of the bilinguals, and the dependent measure of figural fluency was significant at the .01 level in favor of the bilinguals.