Children's Divergent Thinking Research Articles

Measuring child-level originality through the strategic use of incubation periods during divergent thinking assessment

Divergent thinking, which can be described as the ability to conceive of and express a variety of novel solutions to open-ended problems (Gibson et al., 2009), is one of the most commonly studied constructs related to creative thinking. There is considerable evidence that divergent thinking is predictive of later creative behavior and achievement. However, current methods depend heavily on social comparison as a means for operationalizing children's divergent thinking outcomes, which may diminish the ability to detect key indicators of creative potential, such as child-level originality. The current study introduces a child-level, “personal-originality” approach to scoring children's performance in common divergent thinking tasks. While originality is often assessed in terms of statistical rarity or subjective ratings, personal-originality scoring captures divergent thinking at the child level through the strategic use of incubation periods. That is, children demonstrate personal originality by producing new ideas after time away from the task. The current study explored the effects of a 2 min incubation period on 42 three- to six-year-olds’ divergent thinking performance. Results indicate children do, indeed, produce original ideas after time off-task. Moreover, the personal-originality outcome measure introduced in the present study demonstrated strong evidence of convergent validity.

When a spoon is not a spoon: Examining the role of executive function in young children's divergent thinking.

Research with adults suggests that executive function (EF) might play a role in the development of divergent thinking, a key component of creativity, by helping children override canonical knowledge. We examined this possibility in two experiments, by manipulating the familiarity of objects used in the Alternate Uses test of divergent thinking both between-participants (Experiment 1: N=53 4-year-olds and 50 6-year-olds) and within-participants (Experiment 2: N=74 5-year-olds). We found evidence that younger children generated more and/or more original ideas for novel than familiar objects. However, this effect disappeared with age and did not depend on child EF. Further, EF was inversely associated with divergent thinking, controlling for age, intelligence, and income. These results call into question a simple executive account of children's divergent thinking and suggest that, among predominantly White, socioeconomically advantaged 4-6-year-olds, divergent idea-generation might be a primarily bottom-up process that can be hindered by top-down thinking.

Children's divergent thinking and bilingualism

Most children in the world grow up bilingual, and bilingualism has been linked to a range of linguistic and other cognitive skills. One such skill is creativity, which is thought could be increased in bilinguals due to enhanced executive functions or more diverse cultural experiences. However, extant literature with children has produced mixed results, perhaps due to methodological limitations. In this study, bilingual and monolingual children (N = 111, 60% bilingual) sampled from the same British schools completed three measures of divergent thinking, alongside measures of nonverbal intelligence, vocabulary, and exposure to English. No differences were found between monolingual and bilingual children across any of the divergent thinking tasks or measures, either before or after controlling for possible confounds, and effect sizes were negligible to small. This well-powered, pre-registered study provides no evidence for a bilingual advantage in the divergent thinking component of creativity amongst children, suggesting that previous mixed results may have been due to a high prevalence of false positives. Thus, while bilingualism has many benefits for children, divergent thinking is not one of them.

Stimulating Primary School Children's Creativity

Stimulating primary school children’s creativity is appointed as one of the essential keys to the educational system 's progress. The main purpose of the paper arrives from the necessity for different fields of the current society to stimulate primary school children's creativity, who are bound to lead to original and creative solutions. This subject highlights the importance of stimulating primary school children’s creativity in the context of current education. The approach in the debate deals with the link between creative thinking and creative problem solving alongside the importance of stimulating primary school children's creativity. A great experience for primary school education development includes creative thinking and creative problem solving. Creativity involves the process of divergent thinking that includes the beginning of wonderful ideas, creating new connections, expanding the limits of knowledge and split of ideas, which are old. When the children's divergent thinking is boosted, it enormously helps to maintain children's motivation for extended learning.. In the same way, encouraging primary school children to keep on generating original and new ideas fosters their creative-thinking abilities. Personal characteristics of a child can influence a certain grade in stimulating the creativity. Children develop quite complex skills when they begin to be familiar with problem solving skills and develop creative thinking. Therefore, their creative characteristics should be developed and in the same way, provide creative learning opportunities and inspiring, original lessons. A variety of studies that contained creativity included stimulating primary school children’s creativity. This aspect represents global educational progress to society and the current study provides a better view of creativity.

Individual differences and age-related changes in divergent thinking in toddlers and preschoolers.

Divergent thinking shows the ability to search for new ideas, which is an important factor contributing to innovation and problem solving. Current divergent thinking tests allow researchers to study children's divergent thinking from the age of 3 years on. This article presents the first measure of divergent thinking that can be used with children as young as 2 years. The Unusual Box test is a nonverbal and nonimitative test in which children play individually with a novel toy and novel objects. Divergent thinking is scored as the number of different actions performed. Study 1 shows that the Unusual Box test is a valid measure of divergent thinking as it correlates with standard measures of divergent thinking in 3- and 4-year-olds. Study 2 indicates that the test can be used with 2-year-olds, as it shows high test-retest reliability, demonstrating that 2-year-olds can think divergently. Across both studies, individual differences and age-related changes were found, indicating that some children are better at divergent thinking than others and that children's divergent thinking increases with age. This test will allow researchers to gain insight into the early emergence of divergent thinking.

Motor Activity in the Development of the Individual’s Divergent Thinking and Self-esteem

Movement is a biological need wh ich fro m early childhood plays a fundamental role in proper functional, physiological and mental develop ment. It has been widely shown that independence at the level of action leads to individual's achievement and impacts upon cognitive and affective behaviour, enforcing autonomy and self-esteem. The aim of this paper is to verify the effect of motor activ ity on the develop ment of children's divergent thinking and self-esteem by using an experimental study. This study was carried out within a project investigating creativity, fantasy and movement in nursery school children, and is based on a so-called ludic motor approach. The experiment was designed in the context of laboratory activities , help ing to translate knowledge into skills, within the motif of the Peter Pan adventures film. Referring to educational research methodology, we observed 22 five-year-old children div ided into a working group and a control group. Each experimental session was organized in four stages: contextualization, warm-up, middle stage and cool-down. The children's skills were measured by extensively validated tests, whose results were analy zed by statistical analysis of variance, with a view to ascertaining whether mean scores differ under different conditions. We conclude that the experiment confirms our research hypothesis that motor activity has a positive effect upon divergent thinking and self-esteem.

The relationship between migration and Chinese children's divergent thinking.

The relationship between migration and Chinese children's divergent thinking.

Children's Divergent Thinking Improves When They Understand False Beliefs

This research utilized longitudinal and cross-sectional methods to investigate the relation between the development of a representational theory of mind and children 's growing ability to search their own minds for appropriate problem solutions. In the first experiment, 59 preschool children were given 3 false-belief tasks and a divergent-thinking task. Those children who passed false-belief tasks produced significantly more items, as well as more original items, in response to divergent-thinking questions than those children who failed. This significant association persisted even when chronological age and verbal and nonverbal general ability were partialed out. In a second study, 20 children who failed the false-belief tasks in the first experiment were retested 3 months later. Again, those who now passed the false-belief tasks were significantly better at the divergent-thinking tusk than those who continued to fail. The associations between measures of divergent thinking and understanding false beliefs remained significant when controlling, for the covariates. Earlier divergent-thinking scores did not predict false-belief understanding three months later. Instead, children who passed false-belief tasks on the second measure improved significantly in relation to their own earlier performance and improved significantly more than children who continued to fail. False-belief task performance was significantly correlated to the amount of intraindividual improvement in divergent thinking even when age and verbal and nonverbal skills were partialed out. These findings suggest that developments in common underlying skills are responsible .for the improvement in understanding other minds and searching one's own. Changes in representational and executive skills are discussed as potential causes of the improvement.

Children's creative thinking and color discrimination.

60 children in Grades 3 through 6 from two schools were administered the Farnsworth Munsell 100-Hue Test and teachers provided a measure of different aspects of each child's creative thinking on the Williams Scale of Children's Divergent Thinking. Fluency and imagination scores were positively associated with color discrimination. While other dimensions of creative thinking did not correlate with color discrimination, some correlations suggested thematic connections between color discrimination and other manifestations of creative thinking as evaluated by teachers. Color discrimination was also positively associated with age, as older children differentiated between small differences in colors better than younger children. As intelligence or other variables may be relevant, further study is needed.

Gender differences in children's divergent thinking

Abstract: Block's theory (1984) of gender differences was examined to determine if it could explain inconsistencies in the reports of gender differences and the personality correlates of creativity in children. Additionally, an investigation of 244 gifted children in grades 4 to 8 is described. Two divergent thinking tests, each with a familiar and an unfamiliar item, were used to test cognitive style. The Dependency Proneness Test was used to measure independence, and the Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation‐Behavior Children was used to measure social orientation. No gender differences were found on the measures of personality and cognitive style, and no significant association was found between cognitive style and personality. The results were discussed in light of the moderating influence of sex‐role flexibility and the relative freedom boys and girls experience in peer groups and play.

Lek och kreativitet

Sundell, K. & Nyhammar, M. (1992). Play and divergent thinking. Nordisk Psykologi, 44, 104–115. During the latest years, play has become increasingly associated with children's development. One reason for this is the correlation between socio-dramatic play and different aspects of development, e.g. divergent thinking. Few studies have been able to analyse the results in terms of causal relations. This study was designed to address the issue of the causal relationship between socio-dramatic play and divergent thinking. 54 children, 4 to 6 years of age, were studied. Data were gathered using observations, tests and interviews. The fit between the data and five possible theoretical models describing the relationship between play and divergent thinking was analysed using Structural Equationing Modeling. None of the four models were better in explaining the data, thus indicating that socio-dramatic play has no specific influence on children's divergent thinking. The result was discussed in terms of lacking theoretical clarity concerning the effect of play on children's development.

Maternal teaching techniques and preschool children's ideational fluency

Abstract: As a counterpart to research showing relationships between parental behaviors and attitudes and children's divergent thinking, this study investigated mothers’ teaching techniques and preschool children's ideational fluency, one aspect of creativity. Twenty mother‐child dyads were videotaped interacting in both a warm‐up and structured teaching session. Mothers’ teaching behaviors were assessed with the Maternal Teaching Observation Technique (MTOT) and children's ideational fluency was measured with the Multidimensional Stimulus Fluency Measure (MSFM). Correlational analyses indicated relationships between children's divergent thinking and mothers’ use of verbal negative feedback (r = .51), physical control (r = ‐.40), and visual cues (r = ‐.44).

Sex-Role Stereotyping and Young Children's Divergent Thinking

In two experiments 157 kindergarten and first-grade children were administered the Circles Subtest of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. Boys and girls were given differential instructions to think of ideas typically thought of by members of the opposite sex. The contents of the children's ideas were analyzed and scored according to male- and female-dominant categories. Directions to generate ideas of the opposite sex inhibits performance, and considerable sex-role stereotyping of responses occurs at an early age. Without training on a similar task, however, boys appeared to be less able to follow directions and think of ideas typical of the opposite sex. Results are discussed in terms of the hypothesis that girls are more knowledgeable of the opposite sex-roles than are boys but are inhibited in the expression of this knowledge by cultural expectations.

Flexibility and Originality in Children's Divergent Thinking

Abstract Previous research on the ideational process indicates that original ideas increase in frequency as an examinee works through an open-ended task. In the present investigation, ideational flexibility was evaluated to determine if ideas also become more varied and diverse. Additionally, the relationship of intelligence (IQ) with order effects of both originality and flexibility was investigated. Tests of verbal and figural divergent thinking were administered to 80 intermediate school children. The midpoint of each individual's ideational set was found, and the flexibility and originality scores of each half of the set were compared. Results indicated that flexibility and originality scores were higher in the second half than the first half of the ideational set, but there were significant differences between high- and low-originality subjects and differences between the verbal and the figural tests. The order effect was unrelated to the IQ scores of the subjects. Suggestions are made to integrate i...

The Discriminant Validity of Gifted Children's Divergent Thinking Test Scores

Previous research suggests that the indices drawn from divergent thinking tests (i.e., ideational fluency, originality, and flexibility) lack discriminant validity. This is a serious problem because of the popularity of these tests, and because divergent thinking is probably our most useful model of creative thinking. Still, the research demonstrating a lack of discriminant validity was conducted primarily with nongifted subjects, and the findings may not apply to gifted individuals. The present project evaluated the discriminant validity of gifted children's ( N = 97) divergent thinking test scores with multitrait-multimethod and factor analytic procedures. Results indicated that the indices drawn from the divergent thinking tests did lack discriminant validity in this gifted sample.

The Effects of Simulation Games and Creativity Training On Children's Divergent Thinking

The Effects of Simulation Games and Creativity Training On Children's Divergent Thinking

EFFECTS ON CHILDREN'S DIVERGENT THINKING ABILITIES OF A PERIOD OF DIRECT TEACHING FOR DIVERGENT PRODUCTION

Summary. Teaching procedures designed to improve children's divergent thinking abilities were administered to two classes of 9‐ and 10‐year‐old children, one formal and one informal, for one morning per week over a period of six weeks. Parallel classes covered the same material but without the emphasis on divergent production. The results suggest that appropriate teaching procedures can play a significant part in enhancing children's divergent thinking abilities, particularly verbal abilities. Similar improvements were attained in both types of experimental class.