Non‐Cognitive Constructs and Self‐Reported Creativity by Domain

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which non‐cognitive constructs (personality, thinking styles, motivation, and psychological well‐being) would predict self‐reported creativity across different domains among 266 college students. Consistent with hypotheses, openness, legislative thinking styles, and intrinsic motivation were significant predictors of overall self‐reported creativity and across several domains. Extraversion was also a key predictor. Some other relationships consistent with past research (such as disagreeableness and math/science creativity) were also noted.     

Exploring the Assessment of and Relationship Between Elementary Students’ Scientific Creativity and Science Inquiry

The purposes of this study were to (a) develop and validate instruments to assess elementary students’ scientific creativity and science inquiry, (b) investigate the relationship between the two competencies, and (c) compare the two competencies among different grade level students. The scientific creativity test was composed of 7 open-ended items designed to assess divergent creativity and 2 open-ended items to assess convergent creativity. The science inquiry tests were composed of an open-ended inquiry (O-inquiry) test and a multiple-choice inquiry test (M-inquiry). The aforementioned instruments were verified with satisfactory validities and reliabilities in a pilot study. A total of 321 elementary students from grades 3, 4, 5 and 6 participated in the study to determine the performance differences detected by these instruments. It was found that both convergent and divergent creativity were significantly (p < .001) related with O-inquiry and M-inquiry. Analyses of variance revealed that there were significant grade-level main effects for scientific creativity and science inquiry. Post-hoc pair-wise comparisons revealed significant gaps between the 3rd graders’ performances on scientific creativity and science inquiry and the performances of 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. Implications for curricular design and science teaching are discussed.     

Theology in a Dynamic Universe

According to recent astrophysical evidence, the present universe has been forming for the past 14 billion years. New kinds of objects have emerged even recently. The reverse side of this creativity is the observed and predicted decay of all objects. Will new structures form in the future? This is a question of hope, which is not a scientific term but originates from experience on the level of personal and religious perceptions requiring participation. Anticipating the future, science and theology of creation meet, and the tension between practical knowledge and visionary hope enters a constructive dialogue.     

Confucian Ideology and Creativity

The study examines an important philosophical root for the Chinese notion of creativity, that is, the Confucianism, and concludes that the Confucian ideology has shaped how Chinese have viewed creativity in the past, and may still have a great impact on how contemporary Chinese perceive creativity.     

科学创造力与艺术创造力:启动效应及领域影响

如何有效地提升创造力,是创造力研究和实践领域的核心问题之一.而对创造力表达及其影响机制的把握则是创造力提升的必要前提.本研究计划通过实施科学创造力及艺术创造力的启动实验,以不同专业大学生为被试,来探索科学创造力和艺术创造力表达的个体心理机制,及外部影响的作用模式,从而厘清在动机启动、样例启动和自我启动之间,究竟何种启动模式对创造力的表达最为有效;进而,通过对来自理工科和艺术专业领域评分者对科学创造力及艺术创造力作品的评分比较,来考查两种创造力模式间可能存在的领域影响.经由以上的探究,试图为科学与艺术创造力的发展与促进提供科学依据和建构理论框架.     

Formulation of Policy and Strategy in Developing Creativity Education in Four Asian Chinese Societies: A Policy Analysis

The present study sought to compare and contrast educational policies on creativity education in four Asian Chinese societies, namely mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. It establishes five criteria on creativity education policy, including policies regarding legislation on creativity education, definitions of creativity, standard implementation, explicit identification of special populations of creative students, and creativity education in the community. Among the four societies, Taiwan has an official document — the White Paper on Creative Education published in 2003 — whereas in Hong Kong and Singapore, creativity has been identified as an ability to be nurtured in students of all levels in their national curriculum reform. In mainland China, innovation is regarded as a synonym for creativity. Definitions of creativity have at times not been clearly defined, although multiple levels of creativity development (individual, school, societal, industrial, and cultural) have been discussed in Taiwan. In Hong Kong, creativity has been defined as a generic skill in various key learning areas (e.g., language education, mathematics education, science education, etc.) in the school curriculum. In Singapore, creativity is a learning outcome to be developed in students. None of these societies use standard creativity assessment tests as evidence of creative competence in students. When creativity has entered the central stage in the curriculum reform and creativity education is made available to every student, efforts have been made to identify highly creative students and provide them enrichment opportunities, mainly using performance assessments and performance in creativity competitions in these societies. But mainland China, Hong Kong, and Singapore do not sufficiently emphasize creativity education in the larger community.     

Creative Justice? The Relationship between Prospective Teachers' Prior Schooling Experiences and Perceived Importance of Promoting Student Creativity

Prospective teachers (N = 117) enrolled in an introductory educational psychology course completed questions measuring their perceptions of past schooling experiences, current views regarding the importance of promoting student creativity, and their perceived ability to promote creativity. Statistically significant differences were found between the low importance and high importance groups. Prospective teachers who viewed promoting creativity of students as highly important were significantly less likely to indicate that they enjoyed school. In addition, prospective teachers in the high importance group indicated significantly lower levels of experiencing belongingness (relatedness) and significantly lower self‐judgments of their past ability to be successful in school (competence). Judgments regarding the choices afforded in school (autonomy) were mixed, but favored prospective teachers who placed less importance on promoting student creativity. Finally, prospective teachers who viewed promoting student creativity as highly important were significantly more likely to indicate that they had the ability to promote student creativity. A creative‐justice hypothesis was derived from these results. This hypothesis posits that individuals committed to promoting creativity are driven by their own past experiences with creativity diminishing environments. These individuals then seek out opportunities to transform the experiences of new inhabitants in similar environments.     

From STEM to STEAM: How to Monitor Creativity

Creativity is a broad and complex construct, difficult to define and to quantify, assumed to introduce new impulses into science education (STEM), and leading to better acceptance of science by adolescents. Therefore, increasing efforts are being undertaken to integrate traditional creativity (Arts), in modifying STEM to STEAM. Consequently, a valid way of empirically quantifying of creativity of adolescents is needed. In this study, part of a European initiative (CREATIONS), an 8-item Likert-scale questionnaire quantifying individual creativity was administered to a sample of 2,713 students, aged 11–19 (M ± SD = 15.71 ± 2.24; 54.7% females), revealing two subscales: one, labelled Act, covering conscious and trainable cognitive processes; the second, named Flow, contained items describing elements of flow experiences, a mental state of creativity. Analyses indicated that there were no gender differences and that younger students’ creativity scores were higher than those of older students. Recommendations for implementation in STEAM lessons are discussed.     

Camp Invention®: A Creative,Inquiry‐Based Summer Enrichment Program for Elementary Students

Camp Invention® is a hands‐on creativity and science day camp run in partnership with more than 400 schools nationwide. The curriculum integrates science, history, mathematics, the arts, and fun — promoting creative learning and teamwork through interactive activities. In 2001, the Center for Creative Learning conducted an extensive nationwide evaluation of the camp's effectiveness and impact, surveying 17,526 participants, including campers, parents, and staff. The results strongly supported the positive impact of Camp Invention, for both girls and boys in urban and suburban settings, on attitudes towards creativity, active learning, and exploration. Camp Invention's innovative curriculum blends many important aspects of science and invention with the challenge of stimulating children's creativity and imagination.     

From STEM to STEAM: Cracking the Code? How Creativity & Motivation Interacts with Inquiry-based Learning

STEM subjects enriched with Arts (STEAM) are assumed to enhance science lessons and making them more attractive. A multidisciplinary STEAM module integrating inquiry-based learning was implemented to a sample of 160 students (11–12 years; 43.1% females). In a four-hour lesson, dealing with scientific phenomena surrounding bird flight, students learned at self-explanatory workstations that allowed space for creativity and a high level of autonomy. An arts facet was employed, using collaborative handicraft artwork. A workbook offered guidance, while the teacher’s role was of a passive tutor. A pre-/post-/retention-test design monitored knowledge, motivation, and two factors associated with creativity (Act and Flow) two weeks before, immediately after and six weeks later. The intervention produced long-term knowledge and built stable scores of intrinsic motivation, but self-reported aspects of creativity were not affected with a single STEAM intervention. Thus, it seems obvious that regular training in an adequate sociocultural setting is needed to develop creativity sustainably. Nevertheless, this study monitored the correlation of knowledge motivation and creativity in a science education setting for the first time. The findings indicate that fostering creativity, for example in STEAM environments, is a promising starting point for research into promoting motivation and creativity in educational settings.     

The Language of Creativity: Evidence from Humans and Large Language Models

Recent developments in computerized scoring via semantic distance have provided automated assessments of verbal creativity. Here, we extend past work, applying computational linguistic approaches to characterize salient features of creative text. We hypothesize that, in addition to semantic diversity, the degree to which a story includes perceptual details, thus transporting the reader to another time and place, would be predictive of creativity. Additionally, we explore the use of generative language models to supplement human data collection and examine the extent to which machine-generated stories can mimic human creativity. We collect 600 short stories from human participants and GPT-3, subsequently randomized and assessed on their creative quality. Results indicate that the presence of perceptual details, in conjunction with semantic diversity, is highly predictive of creativity. These results were replicated in an independent sample of stories (n = 120) generated by GPT-4. We do not observe a significant difference between human and AI-generated stories in terms of creativity ratings, and we also observe positive correlations between human and AI assessments of creativity. Implications and future directions are discussed.     

Advancing Creativity Theory and Research: A Socio-cultural Manifesto

This manifesto, discussed by 20 scholars, representing diverse lines of creativity research, marks a conceptual shift within the field. Socio-cultural approaches have made substantial contributions to the concept of creativity over recent decades and today can provide a set of propositions to guide our understanding of past research and to generate new directions of inquiry and practice. These propositions are urgently needed in response to the transition from the Information Society to the Post-Information Society. Through the propositions outlined here, we aim to build common ground and invite the community of creativity researchers and practitioners to reflect up, study, and cultivate creativity as a socio-cultural phenomenon.     

Toward a transcendental account of creativity. Kant and Merleau-Ponty on the creative power of judgment and creativity as institution

Several works published in the last decades defend the claim that the concept of creativity should be demystified. With the aim of showing that creativity is not an obscure power owned by only few individuals and free from constraints, authors working at the intersection field between philosophy and cognitive science have notably focused on the structure and evolution of cognitive mechanisms underlying our creative capacities. While taking up the suggestion that we should try not to mystify creativity, this article argues that what is required for such demystification is primarily a transcendental and phenomenological inquiry. Kant’s and Merleau-Ponty’s works are here discussed in order to develop such a transcendental inquiry into creativity. Both Kant and Merleau-Ponty bring to the fore the conditions of possibility for creative acts, and highlight fundamental role of creativity itself in the formation of meaningfulness. The keystone of both philosophers’ inquiries is the emphasis on the interdependence between creativity and rules. Yet, due to the different approaches to the transcendental, Kant’s and Merleau-Ponty’s accounts do not fully converge, but should rather be considered as complementary.     

Ecological and Dynamical Study of the Creative Process and Affects of Scientific Students Working in Groups

Although creativity has drawn the attention of researchers during the past century, collaborative processes have barely been investigated. In this article, the collective dimension of a creative process is investigated, based on a dynamic and ecological approach that includes an affective component. Dynamic means that the creative process is no longer considered as sequential, and ecological, that the individuals were observed in their normal place of creation. This study was conducted with science students that were required to carry on a research project during 15 weeks in small groups. The results tend to confirm the hypothesis of a nonlinear process, with important variations of the affects depending on the stage. Moreover, each group creative process seems to be specific. The relation between the social functioning of the group and the process is also discussed. Finally, because it is a part of any teamwork, verbalization is proposed as a new powerful tool to investigate creative process.     

Extent of psychological differentiation and creativity.

Among the extensive array of studies relating Witkin's construct of psychological differentiation to many psychological functions and variables, none seem to have adequately tested its relationship to creativity, although these two variables have personality traits and development characteristics in common and require similar skills for effective performance. Eighty-five male high school students were separated according to Embedded Figures Test, and the extreme groups tested for creativity by eight factorially pure tests developed by Guilford, and by Schaefer and Anastasi's Biographical Inventory. Statistical procedures included analysis of covariance, analysis of variance, and a matrix of intercorrelations. With intelligence controlled, field-independent persons performed significantly better than field-dependent persons on measures of visualization, spontaneous flexibility, adaptive flexibility, and creativity in mathematics and science but not significantly better on the other six creativity tests.     

The Optimal Age to Start a Revolution

Previous research on the relationship between age and creativity has shown that career age, rather than chronological age, correlates best with longitudinal changes in creative productivity. Recently, Dietrich (2004) proposed a new theoretical framework that integrates cognitive neuroscience with the findings of creativity research. By identifying distinct neural mechanisms that might underlie different types of creative mentation, this framework makes empirically testable predictions about the relationship between age and creativity. In this paper, we report the results of such a test and question the concept that creativity is a function of career age for a special, but crucial instance. In the case of revolutionary science or significant innovative discoveries, as opposed to paradigmatic science, discoveries are almost exclusively made by individuals who are young, both in terms of career and chronological age. These results remain robust even when taking into account the proportion of young scientists in the population of scientists. Neuroscientific data shows that a decline in prefrontal cortex function due to aging causes perseveration, the antithesis of creativity. Consequently, we interpret our findings that paradigm‐busting ideas occur overwhelmingly to people in their 20's and early 30's, as indication that a nimble prefrontal cortex, and thus chronological age, is a critical factor.     

Examining Gender with General Creativity and Preferences for Creative Persons in College Students within the Sciences and the Arts

The purpose of the research was to investigate gender similarities and differences in general creativity constructs with their preferences for creative persons. Data were collected from 247 participants (87 engineering, 24 psychology students with a psychology major, 51 psychology students with a major other than psychology, 30 English, and 55 music students) from a large Mideastern Big 10 university. All participants completed measures of general creativity (creative personality, creative temperament and cognitive risk tolerance) and a demographic questionnaire with the request to list 10 creative persons and their given field. Results indicated that males and females tended to have similar levels of general creativity, yet the most frequently listed creative eminent persons tended to be male. The most frequently listed creative person selections were in science and art, with the three most frequently selected eminent persons being in the science domains. The most frequent creative person selections, consistently selected by at least 10 participants, were Caucasian males.     

Recent Transformations in China's Economic,Social, and Education Policies for Promoting Innovation and Creativity

The purpose of this study is to review major Chinese policies related to creativity education. We first identify and describe the role of innovation and creativity in economic and social development policies over the past 20 years, then analyze how the call for enhanced Chinese innovation and creativity was actualized in corresponding education policies. The article concludes with an analysis of issues surrounding Chinese education policy toward creativity and several directions for future research in this area.     

The Emergence of Student Creativity in Classroom Settings: A Case Study of Elementary Schools in Korea

This research explores the emergence of student creativity in classroom settings, specifically within two content areas: science and social studies. Fourteen classrooms in three elementary schools in Korea were observed, and the teachers and students were interviewed. The three types of student creativity emerging in the teaching and learning process found in this research were: (a) heuristic creativity when the students express their thoughts about a new concept based on their experience, (b) interpretive creativity when the students explain the meaning of materials based on students' knowledge, and (c) integrative creativity when students generate new solutions or make new products based on their internalized knowledge. The study results will challenge teachers to find instances of student creativity in their teaching and learning situations and to facilitate student creativity when the students interpret data or materials related to the contents of the curriculum.     

The Relationship Between Creativity and Attention in Adults

Creativity is a valuable attribute that involves the generation of original ideas; attention is a vital function that facilitates information selection. There is some evidence that creative people may have poorer attention and are generally more distracted than others, and this distractibility is thought to enable the production of novel ideas. Previous research has largely supported this relationship between creativity and attention, yet they are both multifaceted constructs that can be measured in numerous ways. Using multiple measures of each construct, the aim of this study was to examine which features of creativity and attention might be related in a group of 100 adults (18–80 years, M = 26.9, SD = 11.5). Figural divergent-thinking (DT) originality was positively related to self-reported concentration; yet no other relationships were found. Results suggest that there is no consistent relationship between creativity and attention, and past studies that linked creativity to attention, having used just one or two measures, may be premature in their conclusions.