Stimulating creativity and grit of high school students with creative STEM activities: an RCT with noncompliance
Veronica Ballerini (),
Alice Dominici (),
Martina Francesca Ferracane (),
Fiammetta Menchetti () and
Silvia Noirjean ()
Additional contact information
Veronica Ballerini: University of Florence
Alice Dominici: European University Institute
Martina Francesca Ferracane: Teesside University
Fiammetta Menchetti: University of Florence
Silvia Noirjean: University of Florence
Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, 2025, vol. 59, issue 1, No 24, 605-634
Abstract:
Abstract Creativity and grit are widely recognized as vital components for the success and prosperity of individuals, even more so for younger people who will have to deal with the complex challenges connected to the digital era. Yet, whether these skills can be learnt or are innate traits is still subject to debate, which is further complicated by the difficulty of defining and, in turn, assessing these concepts. In this study, we challenge the idea that creativity and grit cannot be learnt and show that creative pedagogy activities, such as those offered by FabLabs, are powerful tools to enhance these non-cognitive skills. We conduct a randomized controlled trial in which 710 students from five Italian high schools are randomly assigned to creative STEM courses. The courses are delivered by FabLabs, small-scale workshops that offer access to tools for digital fabrication and employ a hands-on pedagogical approach expected to impact students’ creativity and grit positively. Assignment to the courses is at the class level: only students in classes randomly selected to join the Fablab activities can participate, and they may decide whether to enrol or not on a voluntary basis. We address noncompliance by adopting an instrumental variable approach. We use two modalities to measure creativity: a self-assessment through the Short Scale of Creative Self and an assessment made by an independent expert using an index of creativity developed by the authors. While the effect on self-assessed creativity is not significant, results show that the external, independent assessment of students’ creativity can capture a significant effect of Fablabs’ courses. It also emerges that FabLab activities have a positive significant effect on students’ grit, measured through the Duckworth scale. The encouraging results obtained for a relatively small sample of students should prompt a replication of the experiment on a broader scale.
Keywords: Causal inference; Creative pedagogy; FabLabs; Instrumental variables; Noncompliance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11135-024-01992-w Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:qualqt:v:59:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1007_s11135-024-01992-w
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11135
DOI: 10.1007/s11135-024-01992-w
Access Statistics for this article
Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology is currently edited by Vittorio Capecchi
More articles in Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().