From Tinkering to Thinkering. Tinkering as Critical and Creative Thinking Enhancer

Education research interest in Tinkering, as an informal method to engage students with STEM subjects, has been growing and growing in the last few years. Recent research has highlighted that Tinkering could be adopted not only to develop students’ scientific knowledge but also to support thinking processes such as Critical Thinking and Creative Problem Solving. Despite these assumptions, there is still limited empirical research evidence concerning the impact of Tinkering on the development of the 21st Century skills. That is why the Centre for Museum Studies - University of Roma Tre investigated the influence of Tinkering activities on Critical and Creative thinking skills enhancement in museum educators and teachers involved in STEM education. To fill in the above gap of empirical evidence, the Centre for Museum Studies carried out a pilot study at “Città della Scienza” Science centre (Naples), where 30 participants (museum educators and STEM teachers) were involved in a two-day workshop on collaborative Tinkering activities. During the workshop, participants were required to take two kinds of pre and post-tests with the aim of assessing Critical and Creative thinking skills development. On one hand, in the Creative Thinking post-test participants showed significant improvement. On the other hand, despite there were no statistical differences concerning Critical Thinking assessment, a slight improvement in the post-test could be quantified. The data collected support follow up research, where the sample of the study could be enlarged and further measures for Critical and Creative Thinking assessment employed.