While there is evidence of early creativity in children’s colorful drawings, original stories, and elaborate games of pretense, conducting research on the topic of children’s creativity can be challenging. In particular, the most commonly used measures of creativity have been shown to be problematic, particularly with young children. Therefore, an important goal of this dissertation was to develop appropriate laboratory tasks for assessing children’s creativity. At Time 1, 75 4- and 5-year-old children (38 boys, 37 girls) were asked to complete two new measures of creativity – a storytelling task and a drawing task. In addition, the children were interviewed about whether they engaged in elaborated role play (i.e., pretending in which children imagine and act out the part of a character on a regular basis). The results indicated that the laboratory measures of creativity were both related to engaging in elaborated role play as well as related to each other (independent of age and language ability), suggesting that the measures were effective in assessing young children’s creativity, and that they were specifically associated with elaborated role play. Another goal of this dissertation was to examine the continuity of individual differences in creativity from preschool age to middle school age with a longitudinal follow-up assessment of the children from Time 1 approximately eight years later when they were 11 to 14 years old. 41 children (21 boys, 20 girls) participated at Time 2 and completed a large battery of creativity measures, including tasks similar to the laboratory measures at Time 1 as well as additional measures that varied in whether they included social content. Contrary to hypotheses, laboratory measures of creativity at Time 1 did not predict any of the measures of creativity at Time 2. However, the creativity ratings of the role play characters from Time 1 were related to all of the indicators of creativity eight years later. In addition, having an imaginary companion at Time 2 was concurrently related to several measures of creativity. These results suggest that elaborated role play might be particularly relevant for children’s developing creativity. This dissertation includes previously published co-authored material.

Abstract This survey can be seen as quite multidisciplinary research. The basis for this study has been inapplicability of different CAD user interfaces in architectural design. The objective of this research is to improve architectural design from the creative problem-solving viewpoint, where the main goal is to intensify architectural design by using information technology. The research is linked to theory of methods, where an internal approach to design process means studying the actions and thinking of architects in the design process. The research approach has been inspired by hermeneutics. The human thinking process is divided into subconscious and conscious thinking. The subconscious plays a crucial role in creative work. The opposite of creative work is systematic work, which attempts to find solutions by means of logical inference. Both creative and systematic problem solving have had periods of predominance in the history of Finnish architecture. The perceptions in the present study indicate that neither method alone can produce optimal results. Logic is one of the tools of creativity, since the analysis and implementation of creative solutions require logical thinking. The creative process cannot be controlled directly, but by creating favourable work conditions for creativity, it can be enhanced. Present user interfaces can make draughting and the creation of alternatives quicker and more effective in the final stages of designing. Only two thirds of the architects use computers in working design, even the CAD system is being acquired in greater number of offices. User interfaces are at present inflexible in sketching. Draughting and sketching are the basic methods of creative work for architects. When working with the mouse, keyboard and screen the natural communication channel is impaired, since there is only a weak connection between the hand and the line being drawn on the screen. There is no direct correspondence between hand movements and the lines that appear on the screen, and the important items cannot be emphasized by, for example, pressing the pencil more heavily than normally. In traditional sketching the pen is a natural extension of the hand, as sketching can sometimes be controlled entirely by the unconscious. Conscious efforts in using the computer shift the attention away from the actual design process. However, some architects have reached a sufficiently high level of skill in the use of computer applications in order to be able to use them effectively in designing without any harmful effect on the creative process. There are several possibilities in developing CAD systems aimed at architectural design, but the practical creative design process has developed during a long period of time, in which case changing it in a short period of time would be very difficult. Although CAD has had, and will have, some evolutionary influences on the design process of architects as an entity, the future CAD user interface should adopt its features from the architect's practical and creative design process, and not vice versa.

Against the background of reports such as the Global entrepreneurship monitor (Foxcroft, Wood, Kew, Herrington&Segal 2002) and the World competitiveness report (2003), indicating that South African small businesses lag behind their counterparts worldwide with entrepreneurship, the research questions driving this study were: · What is unique about creativity in the entrepreneurship domain i.e., can creativity as a concept be uniquely delimited in order to contribute towards the development of the concept of entrepreneurial skills? · What are the perceptions among South African small business owners of their own creativity and their application of it? · What are the implications of the above for the development of entrepreneurs? A literature study of the entrepreneurship theory pointed to a number of unique concepts considered as crucial to venture growth, namely, sustained opportunity exploitation and maximisation which could be regarded as the “creative” activities of the entrepreneur. The entrepreneurial process was investigated to establish the entrepreneurial tasks and processes underlying opportunity exploitation and venture growth maximisation. Apart from depicting activities such as opportunity identification, development and refinement of the business concept, assessment and acquiring of the necessary resources and implementation, the literature seemed vague and referred more often to skills required for the above tasks, such as entrepreneurial skills and management skills. It was established that entrepreneurial skills include, inter alia, creativity, visioning, risk taking and role modelling. The creative process activities were linked with those of the entrepreneurial process to establish whether there are unique entrepreneurial applications of creativity. The following “creative acts” were identified as critical in the entrepreneurship domain: · “creation of a business/opportunity”, · “synthesis” i.e., the putting together of systems/resources and even opportunities, and · “modification” i.e., the adapting, changing of processes, etc., to realise growth. The current situation pertaining to entrepreneurship training and development was investigated to establish whether the above was addressed in the existing training models and learning contents of the domain. It was concluded that despite great advancement having been made in the training and development of creativity and innovation in the entrepreneurship domain, the experiential element of applying the activities of creation, synthesis and modification in order to obtain sustained venture growth is difficult to address in formal learning programmes. Against the background of research (Jung, Ehrlich, Noble&Baik 2001:42) that found that there were positive relationships between an individual’s level of self-efficacy and performance, South African small business owners’ perceptions of their own creativity, their businesses’ innovativeness and their implementation orientation was tested empirically. It was found that South African small business owners perceived themselves to be creative and their businesses to be reasonably innovative but that there was a negative relationship between these two perceptions and the implementation orientation. The high esteem of own creativity and innovation versus a lower implementation orientation is indicative of a need to develop experiential training programmes focused on the implementation of creative activities i.e., commercialisation of products and application of innovation in businesses. In view of the high esteem South African small business owners have of their own creativity, the question is posed as to whether they would be willing to undergo training because they might think they do not need training in this field. In view of the difficulties of incorporating experiential learning content in formal training programmes it is proposed that the possibility of integrated learning be investigated and developed to include business information centres, networking, linkages, mentoring and tutoring. Copyright / Thesis (PhD (Entrepreneurship))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Business Management / unrestricted

The present study is somewhat exploratory in nature in that it is interested in determining some of the factors which correlate with creativity. The study will limit itself to investigating the factors measured by Cattell's Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire as they relate to creativity among high and low Creative art majors and non-art majors. To this end, it is hypothesized that a difference will be found among the mean scores of the three groups for at least thirteen of the sixteen factors.

The purposes of this study are as follows: 1) to investigate the similarities and differences in the temperaments of a higher creative group and a lower creative group and 2) to investigate the effectiveness of the Guilford-Zimmerman Temperament Survey in identifying higher creative individuals and lower creative individuals, as measured by the AC Test of Creative Ability.

archives@tulane.edu / The “creative city” is a cross-disciplinary concept with competing and contradictory meanings and applications. This dissertation responds to scholarly calls for situated analyses of creative city making and contributes to collective understanding of how multiple conceptualizations of the creative city manifest, collide, and intertwine in practice within a specific place and time: New Orleans in the decade following Hurricane Katrina and the federal levee failures (2005-2015). In the wake of disaster, every resident was called upon to “be creative” in rebuilding the city, yet stakeholders understood and operationalized creativity in different ways. The primary research question asks: what happens in the transmutation of the creative city as it morphs between theoretical concept, rhetorical ideal, and practical strategy? The study design is a multi-method qualitative analysis using document analysis and interviews. I first describe the role of creativity in rebuilding efforts as understood and expressed by elected officials, artists, cultural producers, activists, and rebuilding professionals. Findings from this part of the analysis demonstrate significant differences between stakeholder groups, but also surprising moments of coalescence. Within this broader inquiry, I then focus on an embedded case study of the 2012-2014 Lots of Progress pitch competitions, a program spearheaded by New Orleans Redevelopment Authority (NORA) in partnership with the nonprofit incubator Propeller, in which vacant lots were offered as the prize for the most creative concepts for their reuse. Here, I answer the research question: when the offer to remake the city through creativity is left open to all, what ideas and values are brought forth? The case study is an example of the powerful and contradictory discourse of creativity. Program organizers and participants were generally aligned in their dual understanding of creativity both as resistance to an unsatisfactory status quo, and as the ability to transform social problems into development opportunities to be solved through entrepreneurship. In the concluding chapter, insights take the form of recommendations and some thoughts on future praxis in the field: (1) rethinking the pitch competition format and purpose, (2) planning and policy to support New Orleans’ cultural ecosystem, and (3) implications for the evolving field of creative placemaking. / 1 / Heidi Schmalbach

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University / The purpose of this study is (1) to explore the theological significance of Berdyaev's idea of human creativity and to determine its relation to a Christian doctrine of salvation, and (2) to identify the major theological presuppositions which undergird this idea, compare them with the thought of Paul Tillich and L. Harold DeWolf, and evaluate them. The study engages the thought of Berdyaev at its most inclusive and determinative point--his dualism of spirit and nature. It then narrows to an investigation of the content and meaning which is given to the idea of "spirit." On the basis of theological meanings which appear, the preliminary conclusion is drawn that the main theological concern of Berdyaev's teaching on human creativity involves the problem of a particular understanding of man's relationship to God Following a study of Berdyaev's doctrines of God and man, and an identification of the marks of the creative experience of God and its cosmic consequences, the conclusion is dram that Berdyaev, in his teaching on human creativity, seeks to give an interpretation of the meaning of Christian salvation. [TRUNCATED]

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / The research focused on an experimental study dealing with a teaching method for developing creative thinking in a business management classroom and the use of standardized creativity tests for measuring the effect of such training through pre/post testing of subjects. The treatment, creative training, is the independent (predictor) variable in the study which involved the deliberate and exaggerated use of imagination particularly Connection-Making and Synectics. The creativity measures were the Torrance Tests Of Creative Thinking (TTCT) and Remote Associates Test (RAT). Both of these creativity measures formed the dependent (criterion) variables in the study. The sample for this study consisted of 65 undergraduate students of both genders. Integrative complexity, a control variable, was operationalized as abstractness scores on Tuckman's Individual Topical Inventory. Perceptual style, a second control variable, was operationalized as field-dependence-independence on the Group Embedded Figures Test. The study included the analysis of covariance procedure to determine the effect of the training and a correlational study to determine the effect of conceptual levels (integrative complexity) and field dependence-independence on Creativity as measured by the TTCT and RAT. The analysis of covariance clearly demonstrated a siginificant improvement effect on creative thinking of subjects resulting from the training. Subjects did not demonstrate behavior consistent with theoretical propositions for integrative complexity and for perceptual style by responding more creatively at higher conceptual levels and field independence. The current development of education for creativity was highlighted in the study. Methods for encouraging creativity in Management were formulated and disclosed. / 2031-01-01

Music making is generally considered a creative activity; however, in performance ensembles, it is the conductor who makes most of the creative decisions. Many believe that creative thinking is strongest in music during composition. Leaders in the field of music education have continually articulated a vision for music education that includes a variety of ways to experience music including composition. Despite this broad vision of what music education should be in theory, in practice, American band programs have traditionally focused almost exclusively on the performance of the music of others. The purpose of this study was to examine an exemplary high school performance-based band program in which composition was taught as part of the curriculum and to determine the impact that composition had on stakeholders, including the teacher, students, and alumni. Data were collected from direct observation of ten composition lessons taught over the 2016–2017 school year, supporting documents, and interviews. Interview data came from guided conversations with various stakeholders including the band director, seven current students, and two alumni. Several themes for discussion were delineated from the data including the importance of early creative experiences, the practical application of composition, a lack of continuity between lessons, and the apparent benefits of composition in a band setting. Participants in this case reported enjoyment during composition activities, did not perceive that time spent composing compromised the band’s ability to perform, and also reported growth in their overall musical understanding, particularly in the role of listener. These themes highlight how composition and performance activities can be used in tandem to reinforce musical concepts and develop creative thinking in all music students.

The problem of this thesis is the question of whether appreciation of humor is characteristic of adult creatives. Also, can the humor factor be a significant factor in the prediction of creative individuals? As a consequence of the theory and experimental evidence associated with the relationship between humor and creativity, the following hypothesis is formulated for further study: there is a significantly positive relationship between humor appreciation and creative ability.