The Cognitive Spiral: Creative Thinking and Cognitive Processing

Defining and measuring the construct of creative thinking has proven to be an elusive task. As Clark (1979) has pointed out, the term creativity is used as if there is general agreement as to what the construct means. Yet the fact is that research has taken many routes, and definitions are more often specific to the particular author than a matter of consensus. However, when applying creative thinking to instructional design and presentation, it would be prudent to have a concise definition which separates out potentially confounding elements. The Cognitive Spiral model conceptualizes creative thinking as an integral component of all cognitive processing. This article details the synthesis of a definition and the structure of a model of cognitive processing.