Fostering Flexible Minds: The Effect of Probing Questions in Enhancing Divergent Thinking in Geography

Developing students' divergent thinking abilities is an educational imperative for nurturing 21st century skills. Geography education lends itself well to embedding divergent thinking pedagogies by examining interconnected human-environment systems through varied spatial and cultural lenses. This study experimentally evaluated the efficacy of integrating structured probing question interventions to foster divergent thinking in secondary-level geography education. By using the experimental design, participants were 60 students divided into an experimental group receiving probing question training over nine sessions, and a control group receiving standard geography instruction. The experimental group demonstrated significantly higher divergent thinking scores across all components compared to controls at post-test. These improvements were maintained at follow-up, underscoring the durability of the probing intervention's effects. Findings empirically validate structured probing techniques as a promising pedagogical approach for purposefully cultivating flexible reasoning, creative ideation, and innovative geographic problem-solving capacities. This study contributes an empirically-grounded divergent thinking instructional framework that can empower students' abilities as engaged global citizens adept at grappling with the complexities of our interconnected world. This study pioneers an empirically-grounded instructional framework for purposefully cultivating divergent thinking skills through structured probing question within geography education. The findings contribute to the scholarly discourse on evidence-based strategies for nurturing essential 21st century competencies across the curriculum.