Fostering students' creative thinking skills by means of a one-year creativity training program.

Simone M Ritter,Maurice Crijns,Peter Biekens,Xiaojing Gu,Dongtao Wei

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0229773

Simone M Ritter, Maurice Crijns + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0229773

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Abstract

Creative thinking is among the most sought-after life and work skills in the 21st century. The demand for creativity, however, exceeds the degree to which it is available and developed. The current project aimed to test the effectiveness of a one-year creativity training program for higher education. The creativity of students following the training was measured before, halfway, and after the training. In addition to the within-subjects comparison across time, performance was compared to a matched control group. At each of the measurement points, different versions of seven well-validated creativity tasks (capturing divergent and convergent creative thinking skills) were employed. The creativity training increased students’ ideation skills and, more importantly their cognitive flexibility. However, no difference in originality was observed. Finally, an increase in performance was observed for one of the convergent creativity tasks, the Remote Associate Test. Implications for educational settings and directions for future research are discussed.

Highlights

From the first wheel to the latest microprocessor creativity has continuously enriched our lives
Creativity—the ability to generate original and useful ideas [7,8,9]—drives us forward, and it is among the most sought-after life and work skills in our complex, fast-changing world
The results showed good intraclass coefficients (ICC) for Originality (.893), Creativity (.898), and Usefulness (.822)

Summary

Introduction

From the first wheel to the latest microprocessor creativity has continuously enriched our lives. It plays a vital role in science, innovation, and the arts [1,2,3]. Creativity—the ability to generate original and useful ideas [7,8,9]—drives us forward, and it is among the most sought-after life and work skills in our complex, fast-changing world. On average our future generation of employees will change jobs more than 10 times before they reach the age of 50 [10]. Whereas for decades content knowledge was a prerequisite for work, in the era of google we need individuals who are capable to creatively use and generate knowledge.

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