Weiping Hu

The globalization of science education has increased the need to understand how research communities in diverse linguistic and educational contexts contribute to international scholarship. This study examines the development of international science education research by mainland China-affiliated scholars from 2001 to 2024. Using metadata from 559 Web of Science-indexed articles and the bibliometrix R package, the study analyzed publication trends, citation impact, journal sources, international collaboration, and thematic evolution. Findings identified three broad phases of development: fluctuating growth from 2001 to 2017, steady growth from 2018 to 2022, and rapid growth from 2023 to 2024. Across these phases, recurring and emerging themes included scientific creativity, scientific inquiry, STEM education, technology-supported learning, assessment, and higher-order thinking. Findings provide insight into how international science education research by mainland China-affiliated scholars has developed within English-mediated global knowledge networks and may inform future studies of science education research in other expanding-circle contexts.

The role of cognitive inhibition in creativity remains debated, with evidence pointing to both facilitative and impairing effects. To clarify this relationship, we experimentally manipulated inhibition levels (high, intermediate, low) using a cognitive resource depletion paradigm and examined their effects on creative thinking and its neural mechanisms. Behaviorally, participants with intermediate inhibition outperformed both the high and low inhibition groups in creative thinking. EEG analyses revealed enhanced alpha activity during creative ideation in the intermediate inhibition group, particularly in the frontal, fronto‐central, and temporal regions in the right hemisphere, accompanied by greater cortical differentiation across frontal, central, and parietal areas. In contrast, the high inhibition group showed frontal and parietal activation differences without hemispheric asymmetry, whereas the low inhibition group exhibited neither regional differentiation nor hemispheric effects. The cortical alpha activation pattern of intermediate inhibition may reflect a dynamic balance or flexible shift between top‐down cognitive control and bottom‐up associative processing that optimizes creative ideation. Together, these findings offer a new perspective on the complex relationship between cognitive inhibition and creativity. More importantly, they reveal the cognitive and neural mechanisms through which cognitive inhibition regulates creative thinking, thereby deepening our understanding of the cognitive architecture underlying creativity.

In a rapidly evolving world, grit and creativity in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) are crucial attributes for the future development of adolescent students. However, the psychological mechanisms underlying this relationship remains unclear. This study presents a new theoretical framework that explores how STEM‐specific grit influences STEM creativity. It also examines the roles of positive psychological traits—such as creative self‐efficacy and future time perspective in the STEM domain. A total of 1263 Chinese adolescents in grades 7 to 9 completed measurements of STEM‐specific grit, creative self‐efficacy, STEM creativity, and future time perspective. The results indicated that STEM‐specific grit directly and positively predicted STEM creativity. Furthermore, STEM‐specific creative self‐efficacy was found to positively mediate the relationship between STEM‐specific grit and STEM creativity. Moreover, future time perspective moderated the first half of the mediation model. The findings provide educational guidelines and suggestions for enhancing STEM creativity among adolescent students.