The ability to generate creative questions is important to students’ creativity (Craft, 2001), which is also of great significance in the field of pedagogy. For example, asking good questions is a critical task in scientific courses (Shepardson and Pizzini, 1991; Chin and Osborne, 2008), which can motivate students’ learning, critical thinking, and achievements (Yu et al., 2015). Creative question generation is also regarded as an important index of creativity (Laius and Rannikmae, 2003).

The combination of remote knowledge is a primary factor for creativity (Ward, 2008). With the wide application of computer and digital technology, the Internet has become an important information source and assistant for students’ creativity (Tang, 2014; Tang and Ding, 2014). Students’ online information searching strategies would potentially influence their creative question generation. A related study is about online information searching and problem-solving performance (Oloruntegbe et al., 2010). They found that information searching is a necessary step of problem solving. For example, to finish ill-structured tasks, information browsing, scanning, learning, and recognition are needed (Belkin et al., 1993; Ellis and Haugan, 1997). Evidence suggests that extensive searches for information and quick scans for information (Brand-Gruwel et al., 2009), use of relevant keywords, selection of appropriate information sources, and extraction of important content will lead to more successful web-based problem solving (Hwang and Kuo, 2011).

In line with the theory of three levels of the cognitive behaviors (Kitchner, 1983), Glaubman et al. (1997) pointed out that qProblems can also be divided into three levels, including surface problems that rely on memory, problems that require comprehension, and complex problems that are based on higher-order thinking. To ask a question, students need to identify the key elements of the question, the relationship between the elements, and the goal to be achieved (English, 1997). During the process of questing, students need to reflect on the information received, and refine and transform the information into its personally meaningful form (Bangert-Drowns et al., 2004). Generating creative questions is an “ill-structured” work characterized by low verifiability, vague standards, and a lack of absolute definition (Chi et al., 1981). It needs abilities of information browsing, thinking, integration, identifying and clarifying alternative opinions, positions, and perspectives (Jonassen, 1997), and “revising and integrating” [which means part of the text will gain more attention and linkages among sections will be figured out, Rouet et al. (2001)]. That is, the search for online information for the purpose of generating creative questions is a cognitive process (Kitchner, 1983). The positive side of the abundance of online information is that it will bring a variety of information or perspectives that will benefit students’ creativity. However, with distracting online information, students will generate cognitive load, which will lead to cognitive inhibition and reduce students’ creativity. It is likely that the effect of online information searching on the generation of creative questions will be influenced by students’ need for cognitive closure (NFCC). NFCC is an epistemic motivational tendency to seize and freeze on ideas that come to mind early and easily (Webster and Kruglanski, 1994). NFCC consists of four facets: preference for order, predictability, intolerance of ambiguity, and close-mindedness. It is likely that the effect of information searching strategies on question posting will be moderated by students’ NFCC. High NFCC students have the tendency of choosing an adherent solution rather than seeking out alternative solutions or exploring diverse perspectives (Chirumbolo et al., 2004) and preferring to conform to the dominant norms (Manchi Chao et al., 2010). This will reduce the likelihood that students with high NFCC will gain diverse perspectives on the Internet by using different keywords. Therefore, high NFCC reduces the contribution of keyword search strategies to students’ creative question generation. On the other hand, because a lot of online information will cause cognitive load and inhibit higher-order thinking, thus it will be detrimental to creativity. However, students with high NFCC tend to make decisions quickly, so they are less distracted. Furthermore, it was found that, when people with high NFCC are told that uncreative ideas are not the target, they will exert more effort to persistently search for alternative solutions to find their perceived normative creative solutions (Ong and Leung, 2013). This will motivate them to read more information and access more diverse information online. As such, their browsing of more online pages will help them generate creative questions.

So far, the co-influence of information searching strategies and cognitive properties on creative question generation is neglected by scholars. To fill this gap, the study will introduce NFCC into a relationship between online information searching strategies and creative question generation. The findings of this study will contribute to question generation and students’ creativity theory in the digital world.

The structure of the rest of the paper includes: the second part is literature review and hypotheses generation; the third part is the introduction of quasi-experimental design; The fourth part is the data analysis steps and the results; and the last part is to discuss the theoretical contribution, limitations of this study, and research issues for future studies.

Creative question generation (question finding, question posting, and question asking) refers to forming and raising questions in the process of thinking activities. According to literature in the creativity research field, creative question generation is positively correlated with diverse and flexible thinking (English, 1997; Brown and Walter, 2005). The ability to ask creative questions is regarded as an index of students’ creativity (Laius and Rannikmae, 2003). The main evaluation methods include Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT), in which the participants are asked to post questions as much as possible for the given pictures. The outputs are evaluated in terms of originality, fluency, etc. (Torrance, 1966). Another evaluation method is to ask students generate questions about their school or daily life, and analyze the number and novelty of their questions (Runco and Okuda, 1988). In pedagogy, students’ question-generation ability was positively correlated with their learning achievements in courses (Yu et al., 2015). Generating questions is used as an instructional method to motivate students’ critical thinking, hypothesis building, and analysis of diverse online sources. There is evidence that when the students began their research project with an open question instead of a research topic, the quality, depth, and breadth of the research and writing improved dramatically (Haefeli, 2016). Taken together, fostering students’ ability of creative question generation will stimulate the development of their creativity and learning.

According to Glaubman et al. (1997), the quality of questioning can be divided into three levels: low-level questions, which are practical and surface level, ask for an individual’s memorization; medium-level questions ask for the ability of understanding; and more integrative and complicated high-level questions ask for in-depth reasoning, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. In order to generate high-level or creative questions, higher-order thinking skills are required. English (1997) points out that the cognitive task of asking questions mainly includes determining the key factors of the problem and how they are related to each other and the goal to be achieved. During the process of generating questions, students need to reflect on the information received and elaborate and transform the information into personally meaningful forms (Bangert-Drowns et al., 2004). The process is affected by the habitual state of constructing personal knowledge and employing various cognitive and metacognitive strategies (Yu and Liu, 2009). Taken together, generating creative questions requires information, knowledge, and higher-order thinking.

With the wide application of computer and digital technology, students can easily obtain rich information on the Internet. It was found that searching professional knowledge from the Internet enhanced students’ creativity (Tang, 2014; Tang and Ding, 2014). Students’ online information access depends on their strategies of searching information. Scholars pointed out the seven strategies of online information searching: “number of keywords,” “maximum depth of exploration,” “total number of web page exploration,” “revisited web pages,” “total time for browsing the result pages,” “total time for browsing web pages for less than 7 s,” and “total time for browsing web pages for more than 7 s” (Tsai et al., 2012). They can be measured by analyzing the recording of students’ information searching behaviors (Hwang et al., 2008; Thatcher, 2008; Tu et al., 2008). For instance, Tu et al. (2008) recorded students’ online searching behaviors by a screen capture software called “Camtasia Recorder.”

Among them, using keywords is a widely used strategy of searching online information (Hwang and Kuo, 2011). Keywords are the basic components of concepts and relationships. Using appropriate keywords in information searching positively predicted eighth graders’ (14-year-olds) web searching performance (Tu et al., 2008). “Number of keywords” means the number of different keywords used in searching information on the Internet. When searching with different keywords on the Internet, a variety of online information will be browsed, which will lead to a broad thinking space for students? As such, students will be more likely to gain diversified information. Considering that there is a close relationship between external diversified information and creativity (Tang and Ye, 2015), “number of keywords” will benefit students’ creative question generation.

We also suggest that another frequently used strategy “number of Web page exploration” will benefit creative question generation. One reason is that it brings the chance to read more online information. In addition, according to the Dual-Path theory of creativity (Nijstad et al., 2010), which argues that creativity—the generation of original and appropriate ideas—is a function of cognitive flexibility and cognitive persistence, and that dispositional or situational variables may influence creativity either through their effects on flexibility, on persistence, or both. In this study, “number of web page exploration” stands for the cognitive persistence students spent for completing the task which, in turn, benefits their creativity. Hence, we put forward the hypotheses as below:

The NFCC is an epistemic motivational tendency to seize and freeze on ideas that come to mind early and easily. Individuals with high NFCC tend to oppose uncertainty, ambiguity, or confusion (Webster and Kruglanski, 1994). NFCC consists of four facets: preference for order, predictability, intolerance of ambiguity, and close-mindedness. NFCC is associated with a lower creative capability (Ip et al., 2006). Because high-NFCC individuals rely more on conventionalized norms and established knowledge, and prefer to believe that their chosen solutions are correct rather than seek out alternative solutions or explore diverse perspectives. Thus, their ideational fluidity is restricted and which, in turn, leads to fewer ideas (Chirumbolo et al., 2004).

The NFCC is likely to influence students’ online information searching process. The theory of information searching as learning points out that searching not only satisfies the need of getting information but also brings forth learning outcomes because the searching process is accompanied by iterative, reflective, and integrative sessions that facilitate critical and creative learning (Rieh et al., 2016). Considering the close relation between NFCC and learning outputs, the effectiveness of the cognitive process of online information searching would be influenced by the students’ NFCC.

It was found that individuals with high (vs. low) NFCC would select more decision-supportive information and less decision-challenging information for viewing (Hart et al., 2012). Compared to low NFCC, high NFCC individuals need a smaller amount of information to make a final choice (Choi et al., 2008). In addition, high NFCC would be more likely to conform to the dominant norms (Manchi Chao et al., 2010). As such, high NFCC prevents students from taking full value from diversified knowledge searched by the strategy of “numbers of keywords” and thus decreases their creative question generation. Hence, we point out the following hypothesis:

On the other hand, NFCC also has a positive effect on creativity (Ong and Leung, 2013) and creative question generation. According to Treisman’s (1964) Attenuation theory, students’ attention to online information will be selective in order to prevent the information processing system from becoming overloaded (McLeod, 2008). Students of high NFCC tend to make quick decisions and prefer the perception of epistemic security vs. remaining in a state of uncertainty. Their heuristics decision-making styles ask for simple cues and readily available information (Roets et al., 2015), and are less likely to consult more information (Hiel and Mervielde, 2002). So they are likely to shut out irrelevant distractions and noise, and their cognitive activities will demand less cognitive resources (Chirumbolo et al., 2004). As such, students of high NFCC are likely to avoid cognitive load caused by the large amount of online information searched by “number of web page exploration.” Moreover, compared with low NFCC, people with high NFCC cognizant realized that uncreative ideas are consensually invalid solutions; they will exert more effort to persistently search for alternative solutions to find their perceived normatively prescribed creative solutions (Ong and Leung, 2013). The persistence pathway of creativity can generate creative solutions through hard work and constant systematic probing of alternative ideas (Nijstad et al., 2010). Online information from different web pages is often controversial, which may arouse their persistency. Hence, we put forward the following hypothesis:

The participants of this study were 90 students belonging to five classes of Grade 7 and Grade 8 in a public middle school located in Beijing, China with a good reputation for its education quality. The school’s principal agreed to help us in this academic study. She then invited the two teachers of the Information Technology course to join us. They were informed that it was an academic study; all the data would be presented anonymously. All data on students, such as their names and scores, will be kept confidential and converted into code. The quasi-experimental activity will be completed in computer rooms of the middle school.

In selecting the students’ grades, their computer operation skills are an important consideration due to their influence on the performance of Internet searching (Lazonder et al., 2000; Tu et al., 2008). Therefore, the participants would be able to search information on the Internet, and their computer operation ability would be similar. After discussing with the principal and the teachers, five classes of Grade 7 and Grade 8 students were selected. These students all had gained several basic computer courses, and their computer operation skills can satisfy the requirement of the experimental activity. In addition, their teachers introduced that their computer operation skills were similar according to their performance in the computer courses. Therefore, no observable difference of their computer skills was expected in this study.

A total of 90 students were selected to participate in this study. Among them, 35 were boys, 38.9% and 55 were girls, 61.1%. In total, 2.2%, were 11 years old, 42.2% were 12 years old, 50% were 13 years old, 4.4% were 14 years old, and 1.1% were 15 years old.

The activity was carried out in their self-study class in the afternoon when they had finished the days’ course learning; it lasted for three afternoons. The whole process of the quasi-experiment lasted 40 min. The process of activities was as follows: students of each class came into the computer room of the school. All the computers there had been installed with the screen capture software named “Screen Video Experts” by researchers in earlier days. Thus, each student’s information searching behaviors on the Internet were recorded by “Screen Video Experts.” In the computer room, there were two researchers and a teacher. In the first 10 min, the teacher presented to the whole class that the purpose of this study was to practice creative question generation through using the computer to search information on the Internet. They were instructed and demoed the detailed steps of opening the software “Screen Video Expert.” They were given 15 min to complete the task: “Please search information in the Internet to raise a creative question related with terracotta warriors and horses with less than 100 words.” The task was co-designed by three middle school teachers and researchers of this study. The task was believed appropriate to be completed by students of Grade 7 and Grade 8. During the process, no other instruction was offered, and discussion was not allowed. After finishing the task, the students were asked to fill out a questionnaire with items of NFCC, their demographical information, and other variables not used in this study. The detailed quasi-experimental process is reported in Supplementary Appendix 1.