我國國中學生科學才能之測量

人類的進步，往往並非發靭於大眾的集體努力，而是肇端於少數才華出眾的秀逸之士。這些人憑其智慧和創意，在社會上擔當起先知先覺的角色，一方面引導大眾脫離貧困與無知，另方面復為社會的未來指出發展方向。今日世界，雖科學昌明，工商鼎盛，但環境污染、能源缺乏、糧食不足、財富不均等關乎人類前途的社會問題，仍然存在，更有日益嚴重之勢。人類若不欲忍受日趨低下的生活品質，不願放棄大同世界的理想，則惟有寄望於社會上此等優秀人才，能發揮其創造潛力。職是之故，全球各國不論其為民主、為極權、為先進、為落後，均不遺餘力於開發民眾之創造潛能。教育為促進社會進步最有效的途徑，同時又具有選拔及培育優秀人才的社會功能，所以在此一全球性的努力中，其所占地位的重要性實不言可喻。惟以我國目前情形而論，雖政府與民間均已注意到此一問題，但迄今各種科技領導人才，仍無法由國內教育機構獨立培養，而常需乞靈於歐美日本。由此可見，國內教育對具有科學創造潛力青年的發掘與培育，猶有缺失。同時這種缺失對社會進步的阻礙，已經嚴重到無法坐視的地步。

The purpose of this study were to construct instruments for measuring creativity and scientific aptitude of Chinese junior high school students and to investigate environment factors influencing the development of creativity and scientific aptitude.The sample consisted of 3826 seventh and eighth grade students drawn from twenty─four junior high schools in Taipei City， Kaohsiung City and Taiwan Province. Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking， Scientific Aptitude Tests， Biographical Inventory， Home Inventory， School Inventory， and Value Scale were constructed or revised， and administered to the subjects. The obtained data were statistically treated by analysis of variance， multiple regression analysis， and factor analysis.The main findings of the study were as follows：1. Evidence of the reliability and validity of the instruments was provided.2. In fluency， flexibility and originality aspects of creative thinking， mathematics， physical science， and biology， boys performed significantly better than girls；eighth graders superior to seventh graders；urban students better than rural students， too.3. Measures of academic achievement， scientific aptitude， biographical inventory， and home inventory together significantly accounted for 8.59% of the variance in creativity of junior high school students.4. There were seven main factors obtained by factor analysis of all measures included in this study. The first factor was performance in cognitive domain of school work；the second， creative thinking ability；the third， biographical data；the fourth， scientific aptitude；the fifth， physical science achievement；the sixth， value judgment；the seventh， intelligence.