This study was undertaken among teachers in different schools of Sweden and among several teachers with experience in teaching drama during February and March 2006. The aim was to explore what the beneficial aspects of working with drama outdoors are and simultaneously to examine any problems that may appear and what kind of activities the teachers believe are more conducive to outdoor settings. Qualitative research methods were used for this study. An open questionnaire was sent to eight drama teachers for their opinion on doing drama activities in outdoor environments. Also, activities recommended for using in outdoor settings were prepared and send to several teachers, some of whom had previous experience working outdoors. They were asked later in an open questionnaire to evaluate the relative success of the activities they managed to do and the positive aspects and problems they encountered in doing the activities in outdoor settings. Additionally, some unstructured observations of two different groups took place in two elementary schools. The research reveals that in general terms, the teachers encountered many beneficial outcomes of using drama activities in outdoor environments and they encountered some problems as well. This study demonstrates the relative success and benefits of drama activities in outdoor environments and addresses some common problems that may appear. It contains a variety of drama activities that can be useful to teachers who are interested in working with drama in the outdoors. The discussion includes some recommendations for teachers.

Educators have an importance for the pupil’s progress, where the individual adjustment tutoring is varying. The pupil’s self-confidence is also individual and can be affected by the humans in the society. To find every pupil’s knowledge and enjoy creating and learning is a big part of an educator’s work. A working method that can rise pupils’ self-confidence and give a zestful tutoring is the aesthetician.    The purpose with this study is to look at the educators’ views on the meaning of aesthetic for self-confidence and how they work with aesthetic in their teaching.   I based my study on qualitative interviews to get an enlarge meaning if aesthetics has an influence the pupils’ self-confidence. The results give a picture of how the educators would like to work with aesthetic in their teaching because pupil’s self-confidence is getting stronger. But the aesthetic has a low value, and therefore there is a reduced selection by the aesthetic in school, which will be at the expense of the pupil.

A review of the literature in several domains reveals that moral imagination plays a role in how we deliberate about moral issues and what motivates us to act in a moral way. This study begins by outlining an operational definition of moral imagination based largely on Dewey’s model of dramatic rehearsal (Dewey, 1922), along with an explication of the role of image schemas, metaphor, empathy, and narrative in moral imagination (Johnson, 1993) and an examination of how moral imagination develops through the lifespan. A review of the research of the components of moral imagination is included, especially in the literature of moral development, problem solving, and creativity, as well as a proposal of an avenue of research to advance the understanding of this vital and complex human capacity. The study continues with an investigation of a curriculum designed to foster the cognitive processing of empathic emotions stimulated by viewing film clips from Hollywood-produced films. The curriculum stimulates moral imagination by offering situations in which participants can place themselves and then discuss possible moral outcomes. The curriculum is thought to aid in the development of moral expertise by exposing participants to a perspective-taking script from childhood (Hoffman, 2000) and making that script chronically accessible to the participant (Lapsley & Narvaez, in press). Three hundred sixty-six students (grades third through eighth) enrolled in after-school programs in two rural Georgia counties were randomly assigned to either an intervention or control group. The content of the intervention was delivered in a 3-week period in one county and in a 9-week period in the other. Results indicate that the longer intervention produced more gains in moral theme recognition (MTI; Narvaez, Gleason, Mitchell, & Bentley, 1999) compared to the shorter intervention. Participants in the shorter intervention demonstrated an attraction to moral theme statements reflecting higher stages of moral reasoning after the intervention than before compared to a control group from the same county. While further study is warranted, it appears the curriculum initiated a transition to higher stage reasoning in some of the participants.

För att organisationer ska klara av att möta nutidens stora omställningar samt den ökandeglobala konkurrensen bör de eftersträva en kontinuerlig utveckling och ett systematisktarbete med innovation. Idag talas det om att den kreativa kapaciteten hos individen ochorganisationen utgör grunden för innovation och att organisationer idag är mer beroende avsina kreativa förmågor än sina materiella tillgångar. För att utveckla individens kreativitetkrävs stimulering av expertis, kreativ förmåga och motivation.Syftet med denna studie var att ta reda på hur Volvo CE industriarbetare kanstimuleras för att uppnå en ihållande kreativ idégenerering. Vi har försökt besvara fyraforskningsfrågor för att kunna uppfylla syftet. För att kunna besvara dessa har vi gjortdatainsamlingar genom enkät och gruppintervju. Vi fann att industriarbetarna med fördelkan stimuleras genom inre motivation, att de bör erbjudas utbildning för att utveckla denkreativa förmågan samt att erbjuda ett större utrymme för explorativt arbete.Industriarbetarna bör även tillåtas generera kreativa idéer som har ett högre nyhetsvärde.

Perceptually-seductive technology (PST) is introduced as a way of designing IT environments that can help support everyday creativity. This is done in part by using sensory stimulation, seclusion and other perceptual components to seduce an individual towards creative insights that would not occur on the basis of conceptual thought alone. Everyday creativity is characterised as the combination of novel solutions in addressing everyday problems, and learning, indicating endurance over time. Everyday creativity is sometimes referred to as personal creativity, since it concerns what is novel to an individual, not to society as a whole. As in exceptional or historical creativity, in everyday creativity the novelty arises from the individual concerned, not from outside. Literature reviews of learning and memory, emotion and creativity set the scene and provide the basis for introducing PST. The relation of the individual to the technology, and with the world through the technology, is also considered. A model of the design space for PST is proposed and related to a proposed view of the creative process. It is suggested that to stimulate and support the creative process, IT environments should encourage both presence (perceptual or experiential mental activity) and absence (conceptual or reflective mental activity), which are seen as end points of a continuum comprising the Focus dimension. Similarly, the importance of both conscious and unconscious activity (the Sensus dimension) is emphasised, as is the role of emotion in mediating the balance between the two. The Locus dimension refers to the real-virtual distinction. In PST, virtual realisations are used to represent real world things and events and in so doing support the memorisation and reflection that are essential to everyday creativity. Four different examples of designing and implementing PST are presented. The first is a media production within a novel environment called the Interactive Tent, and is a demonstration and validation of theoretical ideas behind the PST concept. Three educational PST environments and their formative evaluations are then presented. These are first steps towards designing PST for particular kinds of application, in this case as environments for memorisation. Taken together, these examples lead to design recommendations and suggestions for future work, including the application of PST in education, stress management and for the elderly and disabled. / digitalisering@umu

This arts-based study will discuss using a sketchbook journal to enhance creativity and promote the cultivation of the artist’s visual voice. The paper attempts to define creativity, as well as the usefulness of the sketchbook as a creative tool. The results of this study will demonstrate how the effectiveness of the sketchbook journal in the development of the artist can also transcend to usefulness when considering the sketchbook as a curriculum tool in elementary art education.

With theories of creativity and aesthetic learning processes as a basis, this study explores the usage of the concept of creativity in the curriculum for the Swedish compulsory school (Lgr11) and in the various syllabi’s commentaries and the assessment guidelines for the subject of Sloyd produced by the Swedish National Agency for Education. The purpose of the study is, to examine to which extent an education and assessment that is directed towards the development of creativity among pupils in the subject of Sloyd, is underpinned and supported for in these texts, and furthermore how these wordings relate to the various other subjects’ wordings about creativity. Creativity is a concept around which there is no proper consensus. Therefore, a qualitative text analysis, grounded in discourse analysis, was chosen as the method to explore how this concept and phenomena is handled and which meaning and place it is given in the examined texts. The analysis reveals many similarities, but also significant differences, between the usage of the concept of creativity in the analyzed texts and in the research and between the various subjects’ wordings. Creativity is portrayed as being the main benefit from the subject of Sloyd and is primarily connected to an employment discourse. The analysis also shows that the criteria for assessment of creativity in Sloyd differ from what the research provides.

Syftet med studien var att undersöka priming med exempels påverkan på skapelsers kreativitet. Effekterna av priming skulle testas i formen av egenskapspriming såväl som konceptuell priming och mätas utifrån både en användbarhetsaspekt och en originalitetsaspekt. Ett delsyfte var också att undersöka sambandet mellan intresset för att ta fram en skapelse och en skapelses grad av originalitet samt användbarhet. Primingeffekterna prövades genom ett experiment där 36 studenter delades in i 3 grupper som fick i uppgift att ta fram IT-lösningar för kollektivtrafiken. 2 av grupperna primades med var sitt exempel på hög originalitet respektive hög användbarhet. Effekterna av egenskapspriming undersöktes sedan genom en jämförelse mellan grupperna över hur stor andel av de framtagna lösningarna som innehöll egenskaper från exemplen. För att undersöka effekterna av konceptuell primingen gjordes en jämförelse av originaliteten och användbarhet hos dessa gruppers lösningar jämfört med de framtagna av en kontrollgrupp utan tillgång till exempel. Lösningarnas originalitet och användbarhet bedömdes av en expertgrupp bestående av forskare inom kreativitet och branschaktiva inom området. Denna expertgrupp bedömde även sitt intresse för att ta fram de olika lösningarna. Denna bedömning tillsammans med de två tidigare användes för att undersöka sambandet mellan intresset för en lösning och lösningens originalitet respektive användbarhet. Resultatet av studien visade på ett signifikant positivt samband hos båda grupperna av bedömare mellan en lösnings användbarhet och intresset för att ta fram lösningen. Ett signifikant positivt samband gällande en lösnings originalitet och intresset för denne kunde dock endast uppvisas hos forskare medan de branschaktiva visade på ett osignifikant negativt samband mellan de två. Resultatet av egenskapspriming och konceptuell priming visade inte överlag på några signifikanta skillnader mellan grupperna. Studien anses vara av vikt då den visar på hur en ökning av kreativiteten på skapelser inom en organisation inte behöver betyda en ökning av organisationens kreativitet p.g.a. ointresset i att omfamna och satsa på dessa lösningar. Vidare visar studien på hur primingeffekter är svåra att skapa i situationer som i högre grad ska efterlikna de i verkliga livet och hur vidare forskning behövs på området för att kartlägga variabler som påverkar priming och primings begränsningar. / The aim of the study was to examine priming with example’s impact on ideas creativity, regarding usability and novelty both as a result of targeting priming and conceptual priming. A subsidiary aim was to examine the relationship between an idea’s degree of originality and usefulness and the interest in pursuing the idea. The effects of priming were tried in an experiment involving 36 students who were asked to develop IT solutions for public transport. The students were randomly divided into two experimental groups and one control group. The members of the experimental group were primed with an example with high originality respectively usability. The solutions were given two indexes on how many of the properties of respective examples were found in the solutions. Their degree of originality and usefulness were also assessed by a group of experts. This group also assessed their interest in the respective solution. The study revealed a significant positive correlation between a solution's usability and interest of the solution. A positive significant correlation could also be seen between a solution's originality and the interest of the solution, but only in the group of analysts consisting of scientists. Among the industry-experts the results instead pointed toward a negative relationship between originality and interest, although a non-significant relationship. There were no significant differences between the group’s solutions regarding their degree of originality and usefulness nor the frequency in which features from the example was found in the solutions. The study is of importance because it shows how increases in the creativity of solutions produced by individuals and employees not necessarily lead to an increase in the creativity of an organization, due to lack of interest in embracing and invest in these creative solutions. The study also reflects the difficulties in transferring priming effects discovered in a lab environment to situations that more closely resembles those in real life. Further research is necessary to broaden the knowledge regarding variables that affects priming and the limits between which priming exist.

For as long as computers have been around, people have looked for ways to involve them in music. Research in computer music progresses in many varied areas: algorithmic composition, music representation, music synthesis, and performance analysis to name a few. However, computer music research, especially relating to music composition, does very little toward making the computer useful for artists in practical situations. This lack of consideration for the user has led to the containment of computer music, with a few exceptions, to academia. <br /><br /> In this thesis, I propose a system that enables a computer to aide users composing music in a specific setting: soundtracks. In the process of composing a soundtrack, a composer is faced with solving non-musical problems that are beyond the experience of composers of standalone music. The system I propose utilizes the processing power of computers to address the non-musical problems thus preventing users from having to deal with them. Therefore, users can focus on the creative aspect of composing soundtrack music. <br /><br /> The guiding principal of the system is to help the composer while not assuming any creative power and while leaving the user in full control of the music. This principal is a major step toward helping users solve problems while not introducing new ones. I present some carefully chosen tasks that a computer can perform with guidance from the user that follow this principal. For example, the system performs calculations to help users compose music that matches the visual presentation and allows users to specify music, using the idea of <strong>timed regular expressions</strong>, so that a computer can fill arbitrary amounts of time with music in a controlled manner. <br /><br /> A prototype application, called <strong>EMuse</strong>, was designed and implemented to illustrate the use and benefits of the proposed system. To demonstrate that the system is capable of serving as a tool to create music, two soundtracks were created for two sample animations. It is beyond the scope of the work presented here to evaluate if the system achieves the goal of being a practical tool for composers. However, the innovations herein discussed are analyzed and found to be useful for soundtrack composition and for future user-centered computer-music research.

Denna studie syftar till att ta reda på vilka element som höjer det innovativa klimatet i företag och organisationer. Utifrån dessa element har författarna skapat kriterier som heter ”Soft innovation”. Visionen är att framtiden skulle kunna standardisera dessa kriterier. En abduktiv metod har använts. Metodvalet har motiverats med att kriterierna lättare accepteras om de är socialt konstruerade. Man kan påverka innovationsklimatet i företag, då det tar kortare tid än att förändra organisationskulturen. Dock antas att organisationsklimatet på sikt kan påverkar organisationskulturen. Kriterierna ska ses som vägledande riktlinjer för att stimulera ett innovativt klimat. Teori och empiri visade på många gemensamma faktorer som påverkar innovationsklimatet i företag. Resultatet av teori och empiri visade att de viktigaste faktorerna för att uppmuntra till kreativitet hos medarbetare var ett bra ledarskap, uppmuntran, belöning av kreativt beteende och misslyckande, projektgrupper som driver idén till verklighet och strukturer för hur kreativiteten ska hanteras.