Creative thinking is a popular and ambiguous ability but so far we have limited knowledge about how creativity work within history education. The purpose of this study was therefore to investigate how individual creativity and a historical thinking with a focus on continuity and change relate to each other within history education. Data was collected with the help of an authentic history assignment and analyzed with qualitative content analysis and statistical correlations. A constructivist framework with a specific focus on the The Geneplore Model of Creativity and Historical thinking was chosen to guide the analysis. Results point to several similarities between creativity and historical thinking on continuity and change, with both concepts focusing on constructing new and meaningful knowledge. Here, the strongest correlation was found between creative thinking and reflections about change through history. The analysis also pointed to cognitive processes with a particularly promising potential to develop both creative and historical thinking, namely divergent thinking with the purpose to generate several alternative answers, and janusian thinking with the purpose to generate contradictory perspectives. Further, the analysis also revealed some differences between creativity and historical thinking on continuity and change. Here, thinking creatively with help of distant analogical thinking was particularly difficult since those conclusions seldom were rooted in historical facts. In fact, many of the creative conclusion identified in this study showed a potential to develop students understanding of the past, but were still in an undeveloped stage. These results indicate a need for a continued critical exploration of creative answers after initially being generated. In sum, the identified similarities and differences between creative and historical thinking on continuity and change demonstrate that creativity could play a role in the development of students historical understanding and points to a promising direction for future research interested in creative comparisons over time.

Bibliography: leaves 182-200. / The aim of this study is to determine whether an awareness of unconscious processes, as elicited by a dreamwork technique, will increase creative potential. In the present investigation, 54 undergraduate students were randomly divided into three groups. Each group was tested for creativity on two measures: (1) The Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, and (2) The Rorschach Test (movement response). For three weeks all subjects completed a dreamwork assignment, which was systematically varied across the three levels of the independant variable. The experimental group recorded their dreams daily, and answered questions on a dreamwork questionnaire designed to stimulate associations and amplifications to dream imagery (Group A). One control group recorded their dreams and performed a logical task on their content (Group B), while the other control group collected dreams from other people, and performed the same logical task on their content (Group C). It was hypothesized that those subjects who had an opportunity to work with and amplify the unconscious imagery occurring in their dreams would be more likely to increase in their creative potential, than those subjects who did not have this opportunity. Each subject met weekly with the experimenter for supervisory and motivational purposes. At the end of the study all subjects were retested with a parallel version of the Torrance and the Rorschach. Scoring on the Torrance yielded ten different measures, and six measures on the Rorschach. Using a two-way analysis of variance of repeated measures, no significant changes occurred on the Rorschach scores, but on the Torrance Tests, highly significant changes took place in Figural measures of Fluency, Originality, Elaboration and Figural Totals, as well as highly significant increases on all four verbal measures of Fluency, Flexibility, Originality and Verbal Totals. Since no interaction occurred, t-tests were performed, to discover that the increases in creativity on the Torrance occurred not only to experimental subjects in Group A, but also to subjects in Group C. These findings are discussed in relation to previous theoretical and empirical work on the creative process, and it is suggested that the increase in creativity, as measured by a divergent thinking test battery (Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking), was produced, not by the actual content of the tasks involved, but by the establishment of a problem-solving mind set.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between the facilitation with language and imagery as a function of deafness and age. It is argued that imagery and language are two independent, although interacting aspects of thought (Bovier 1970, Paivio I969, Furth I966, Piaget I962) , and that imagery is a potent factor in learning and memory (Bower 1970, Paivio I969). Subject populations may differ in absolute terms, i.e. one population may be more or less proficient with language or imagery or both when compared with another population. And populations may differ in their relative facilitation with one code as compared, to another code. It is hypothesized that the variables of deafness and age do affect the absolute as well as the relative proficiencies with imagery and language.

No description available.

This thesis attempts to answer a central question in the field of creativity: what creativity looks like in various domains of activities ? Finding a satisfying answer to this question involves answering what 'creativity' is. Therefore, the first chapter is dedicated to establishing a shared understanding of the term creativity. Following this, determining what creativity looks like in various domains is answered in that same chapter with a new theory of cognition, called the Cognitive Space Theory. This theory organizes the content of domains according to ten fundamental cognitive spaces. These cognitive spaces cover a broad range of human creative expressions. In the second chapter, a questionnaire based on the theory is developed and validated. This questionnaire assesses the exploration and mastery of the ten cognitive spaces postulated in the theory. The results of two studies are reported to demonstrate the psychometric properties of the questionnaire. The third chapter uses the latter questionnaire to predict the creative activities and creative achievements of university students in eight different domains ranging from sport to science. Finally, the fourth chapter discusses the implications of the theory applied to education. The chapter concludes with future avenues of research in neuroscience, cognition, and artificial intelligence.

Accidently sent an old version of chapter 4 -- this is the final version of the manuscript and thesis / Background: Creativity is the generation of effective and useful ideas, and it has played an integral role in the field of surgery: new techniques, technologies and practices in surgery originate from generation and implementation of creative ideas. Creativity also plays an important role in clinical problem-solving. It is therefore an important ability in the surgical profession. However, despite its importance, literature on creativity in surgery is limited. Research Question: What is the current state of the literature on creativity in medicine, and how creative are surgeons, as measured by a divergent thinking tool? Study Design: Scoping review & survey with semi-structured interviews. Primary Outcome: Divergent thinking (as measured by the Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults [ATTA]) Study Setting: McMaster University Medical Center Participants: Surgeons and surgeon trainees in the Department of Surgery Analysis: Descriptive statistics and regression analyses to explore factors associated with divergent thinking. Discussion: We found only 54 primary studies on creativity in medicine, 3 of which were conducted in surgery. Most of the creativity research was conducted in the field of nursing. Our survey of divergent thinking found that while surgeons had an average level of divergent thinking, they struggled to produce original ideas whilst displaying high levels of fluency and flexibility. Being male was significantly negatively associated with divergent thinking. Surgical experience was marginally negatively associated with divergent thinking, suggesting that the training process may be stifling the ability to generate original ideas. Surgeons reported a stifling of creativity in the surgical training process, which corroborated our findings. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / Creativity is an important ability in medicine. We found that creativity is being understudied in the field of medicine –only 3 studies on creativity have been conducted in surgery. Thus, we designed a survey of divergent thinking, a process used to generate creative ideas, in surgeons and surgeon trainees at the McMaster University Medical Center. We use an abbreviated version of the Torrance Test for Creative Thinking (TTCT), the most widely use measure of creativity in the world. We found that surgeons and surgeon trainees have similar divergent thinking levels to the average adult but struggled to come up with original ideas. Being male was linked to lower divergent thinking scores. Years of surgical experience trended towards a negative link with divergent thinking, suggesting that the training process may be stifling the ability to think originally.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University.