Digital creativity in STEM education: the impact of digital tools and pedagogical learning models on the students’ creative thinking skills development

This paper investigates the impact of digital creativity educational practices on the improvement of academic performance and creative thinking development of Chinese high school students. The study defined the importance of the concept of STEM learning in the development of modern skills needed to live and work in a digital socio-economic change caused by the development of Industry 4.0. An educational experiment involving 60 9th grade Chinese students evaluated the impact of digital creativity learning practices on the development of students' creative thinking on such indicators as fluency, flexibility, originality, detailing, and metaphoricity. The impact of digital creative learning practices on the performance of students in the control group and the experimental group was assessed. The analysis of the results of practical research on the impact of digital tools and pedagogical models of learning on the acquisition of students' creative thinking skills was conducted, which proved that the digital environment is the optimal place for students' creative manifestations and provides opportunities to improve creative thinking skills by implementing learning practical activities using innovative tools for the manifestation of digital creative skills.