The main purpose of this study is to examine how preschool children experience dance. Starting from the child's experiences and perceptions, I also want to investigate in which manner the child's creativity and learning are promoted through dancing. A qualitative approach was chosen to the study and the information was gathered through observations and open interviews with participating children. In order to understand and interpret children's experiences, a hermeneutic and phenomenological stance was taken. Data were analysed using Vygotsky's, Winnicott´s and May´s theory of play and creativity together with Dewey’s theory of experience and learning as points of view. The results indicate that dance created a forum and an opportunity for children to act out and express their creativity and learning. The children's curiosity was awakened by body movement, which allowed them to develop their creative and practical skills in an expressive, aesthetic manner. Dance enabled the children to establish a sensitive relationship and intensive interaction with each other and the surrounding world.

The problem of this study was to ascertain the degree and kind of relation which might exist between a) certain measured indices of general creativity, ingenuity, and artistic judgment, and b) teacher judgments of artistic creativity within a senior high-school art population. One of the major purposes of this study was to identify a test or tests of creativity which might be used with senior high-school students to find those students with artistic potential who either should be counseled into art classes or for whom particular kinds of teaching procedures should be developed.

The problem was to investigate the relationships between the incidence of figures of speech in selected types of pupils' compositions and pupils' divergent thinking.

The major purpose of the research was to determine whether the curiosity levels of children would be increased and whether gains would be made in children's reading comprehension when selected questioning procedures were used. The study was confined to teacher-directed instructional situations where children were engaged in reading acts. More specifically, answers were sought to the following questions: 1. Does the use of selected questioning procedures produce a significant increase in curiosity over the use of regular classroom procedures? 2. Does the use of selected questioning procedures produce a significant gain in reading comprehension over the use of regular classroom procedures?

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between each of three variables of creativity — Verbal Fluency, Verbal Flexibility, Verbal Originality — and each of nine measures of sensory perception. The nine sensory measures included three visual, three auditory, and three tactual tasks.

The impulse to resolve and interpret messages drives creativity and understanding. As graphic designers, we may try to communicate familiar ideas in an unfamiliar way - unfamiliar, but unique, memorable, and engaging. By utilizing the theory and practice of psychology and the cognitive processes involved in assigning influence, importance, recognition and associations with signifiers in the mind, we can strengthen visual communication. Theoretical and applied psychological techniques and models will provide the basis for an exploration and development of new methodologies and tools that will enhance the creative process for graphic designers.

Research indicates that gifted learners have a heightened sense of responsibility to use the knowledge they acquire in the classroom in a purposeful way. Realizing this fact, art service learning experiences were designed to offer gifted middle school artists opportunities to use their knowledge and skills beyond the classroom setting in an attempt to experience real-world situations and to share their artworks in ways that benefit their community. Students participated in 2 community-directed projects in an effort to educate, inspire, and help others. Art products include decorative benches created as a traveling exhibit for environmental awareness and note cards rendered from student paintings that support the rejuvenation of the Elizabeth River.

This study intended to develop a theoretical framework for understanding children's collaborative creativity in music. The focus was on creative interactions and on how early primary children interact when they engage in creative group music making. Related questions were on: 1) the different communicative media employed, 2) the component aspects of group work influencing children's creative endeavours, 3) the meanings that children attribute to their creative experience, and 4) the educational and ethical values of creative interactions. The study was carried out in a private music school in Rome, Italy. A group of eight 5-7-year-old children participated over eight months in 30 weekly sessions of group creative activities in music and movement. I was the teacher researcher and worked with a co-teacher. This exploratory, interpretive inquiry was framed by sociocultural perspectives on learning and creativity. A qualitative research methodology was adopted, which combined methodological elements derived from case study research, ethnographic approaches, and practitioner research. Data collection methods included participant observation, video-recording of sessions, documentation, and strategies for eliciting children's meanings. Thematic analysis, both theory-driven and data-driven, was conducted in order to identify relevant issues. The findings of the study suggest that in creative collaborative work in music bodily interactions and musical interactions have a stronger significance than verbal interactions. A conceptual distinction was made between 'cooperative' vs 'collaborative' which helped to characterise the different degrees of interactivity in the group's creative work. The study identified a range of component aspects which influenced the quality and productivity of children's collaborative interactions. These included: children's characteristics, context and setting, pedagogical approach, task design, collaboratively emergent processes, underlying tensions in creative learning, reflection on and evaluation of creative work, and time. Children actively gave meaning to their group creative music making mostly in terms of imagery and narrative, though they were gradually shifting towards more purely musical conceptualisations. Creating music in groups had the potential to enhance their sense of competence, ownership and belonging, and supported ethical values such as promoting the person, freedom, responsibility, a multiplicity of perspectives, and democracy. Three meta-themes run throughout the findings of the study, which are in line with sociocultural perspectives: i) a systems perspective as necessary to gain a more comprehensive view of collaborative creativity; ii) creativity as an inherently social phenomenon, and iii) creativity as processual and emergent. The implications for pedagogical practice highlight the importance of including creative collaborative activities in the music curriculum.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Environmental Design and Planning / Stephanie A. Rolley / Creativity is vital to the design professions although there is a not a common understanding among designers about the nature of creativity. Designers need a model of creativity that helps place the importance of creativity in the design process and informs educators about how to better enhance creativity in their students. Merrill’s Model of Creativity in Design (Merrill & Rolley 2012) was developed by the researcher and served as the framework for exploring the effect of an academic intervention on the creativity of college freshman design students in order to answer the question: Does participating in an academic intervention affect the creativity of first-year, three-dimensional design students, as measured by the Figural Torrance Test of Creative Thinking? A mixed methods approach allowed development of a rich field of data for analysis as well as a body of student work and experiences. Design students were taught creativity techniques in addition to completing short exercises during a one-hour weekly seminar class, Design Thinking and Creativity. These students were compared to a control group of students utilizing a modified Solomon four-group non-equivalent control group quasi-experimental research design, adapted from Campbell and Stanley (1966). A paired t-test compared post-test scores between the treatment group (n=70) and the control group (n= 18). Qualitative data was also collected including a demographic survey, a Creative Self-Assessment, and interviews. The treatment group, on average, (M=113.53, SE=1.82) scored significantly higher than the control group on the post-test administration of the FTTCT (M=104.78, SE=3.41), t(84)=-2.22, p<.05, r=.06). An analysis using Spearman’s Rho determined a significant correlation between individual participant’s scores on three assessments of individual student creativity, which focused on the individual’s creative cognitive abilities; however, there was no significant correlation with the final creativity project. These findings show that deliberate creativity education coupled with creativity exercises allowed students to slightly raise their creativity while the creativity of their peers dropped. Analysis of qualitative data revealed high student confidence and commonalities in defining creativity. This study demonstrates that an academic intervention can improve the creativity of beginning design students and provides a theoretical framework for future creativity research and teaching.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Laurence A. Clement / There can be no design product without a design process to achieve it; how we design is just as important as what we design. If landscape architects engage creative activities at work, they may be able to achieve flow, "an optimal and positive state of mind during which key individuals are highly motivated and engrossed" (Fullagar, Knight, and Sovern 2013, 236). Individuals experiencing flow find themselves in situations with challenge/skill balance, intrinsic motivation, and empowering self-confidence. The methods used for this master's project and report evaluated three art-making techniques in terms of the flow state and the design solutions they inspired. Watercolor, printmaking, and digital drawing were each incorporated into three simple design projects and filmed for peer-review. Fellow landscape architecture students reviewed segments of the film and completed a survey to measure the author's flow state. Additionally, they provided a critique of the art-making processes based on their perceptions of the filmed design processes and resulting design solutions. The peer assessment, accompanied with the author's self-reflection of art-making as ideation, provide insights into creativity and "good" design. Art - as concept, craft, and communication - are integral and evident in every part of the project. The findings show how design processes that include different art-making media affect and facilitate a flow state that leads to responsive design concepts. Landscape architects should incorporate art-making into their professional practice as a means of facilitating creativity without spending excessive amounts of time or resources in the conceptual stage of a design process.