“The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind—creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers and meaning makers. These people—artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big picture thinkers—will now reap society’s richest rewards and share its greatest joys.” —Dan Pink, A Whole New Mind
introduction
Survival in the 21st century marketplace often depends on the creativity of organizational employees (Beckett, 1992; Hermann, 1993; Johnson, 1992; Kanter, 1982). Many historians attribute the emergence of the United States (US) as a twentieth century superpower to the creativity of its population (Florida, 2005; Ehrlich, 2007). They warn that the United States may be losing its dominance due to declines in the ability to attract and sustain human capital including the creative talent critical for innovation (Florida, 2004; Florida, 2005; Ehrlich, 2007). In his Harvard Business Review article, America’s Looming Creativity Crisis, Richard Florida of Carnegie Mellon describes the importance of creativity to the wealth of a society: “Today, the terms of competition revolve around a central axis: a nation’s ability to mobilize, attract and retain human creative talent.” In other words, nations and their citizens depend on the creativity of their residents to ensure their economic prosperity.
Due to the criticality of creativity, it is imperative that educational institutions help their students to maximize their creative potential. Unfortunately, critics contend that many teachers, in the US and other nations, actually inhibit the creativity of their pupils (Fleith, 2000) and some relate US K-12 education to a demise in student creativity (Craft, 2005). To help students, organizations and nations succeed in an increasingly competitive international arena; educational programs must find ways to help their students realize their creative potential.
This article reports the results of a study using quick, low cost remote creativity training that could be easily used by educational programs to enhance student creativity. Since the study was conducted on the Internet, the creativity training could be readily adopted for the online environment. The study results provide a preliminary indication that implementing a simple, inexpensive, online creativity tutorial might improve student creativity in the online distributed learning environment (McNair, 2008).
background
For decades, academics in the IS field have researched using information systems to improve group creativity and productivity (Couger, 1995; Couger, Higgins, & Mclntyre, 1993). However, not much research has focused on using information technology to maximize individual cognitive processes (Elam & Mead, 1987; Young, 1983, Nunamaker, Applegate & Konsynski, 1987; Nunamaker, Dennis, Valacich, Vogel, & George, 1991).
Studies in the information systems field on individual creativity have examined the impacts of several types of creativity training on the creative performance (Mead and Elam 1990, Marakas and Elam, 1997, Massetti, 1996, 1998). Some studies have focused on the effects of problem-solving process training (Marakas and Elam, 1997). Other studies, such as the one reported in this paper, have focused on the effect of providing creativity training, including general information on creativity and on problem solving (Massetti, 1996, 1998, McNair, 2008).
In her 1996 and 1998 studies, Massetti provided respondents with generic training about creativity by lecture to a MIS class. The lecture explored the importance of creativity to business decisions, included examples of how organizational creativity has allowed them to be more successful, described the creative process, and warned of creativity bias along with tips for overcoming it. Following the lecture, exercises in brainstorming and elaboration were given to the participants. Massetti did not control for either the effects of creative abilities, or for the effects of use of a creativity tool (brainstorming and elaboration).
increasing student creativity using a tutorial
Researchers have found that creativity can be expressed in distinct ways and to varying degrees by almost anyone (Nickerson, 1999). While a person’s natural creative potential is biologically set early in life, this innate creativity as a trait without reinforcement varies little over time in its affect on his or her creative performance (Amabile, 1991; Cox, 1983; Torrance, 1988). However, through creativity training, an individual’s creative performance can be enhanced (de Bono, 1983; van Gundy, 1992; Walberg, 1988). Creative training evokes the individual’s past knowledge and developmental history concerning his or her creative behavior (Couger, 1995; Finke et al., 1992; Jacobs, 1989).
Marakas and Elam’s (1997) research proved additional evidence of the effect of problem solving training and the use of software technology. Modified treatments from the Elam and Mead (1990) study included using software and the use of problem-solving process training to increase creativity performance. The software with creativity training produced results judged most creative, while the no-software/no-training produced results were judged least creative (Marakas and Elam 1990). The results indicated that creativity training was the more critical determinant of creative performance than the choice of software. When people receive training about creativity benefits, accessing past knowledge and development history along with training about the software technology assigned, IS personnel, even those with limited creative potential, can enhance their creativity through training (Marakas and Elam).
Figure 1. Model of creative performance. Adapted from “An Empirical Examination of the Value of Creativity Support Systems on Idea Generation,” by B. Massetti, 1996, MIS Quarterly, 20(1), p. 85.
The goal of this study is to determine if a creativity tutorial that provides general information on the benefits of creativity enhances creative performance. The study builds on the work of Massetti’s (1996, 1998) and uses her model (Massetti, 1996) of creative performance (see Figure 1). The model posits that providing respondents with general information about creativity in a creativity tutorial, (the independent variable) will actually improve creative performance (dependent variable). The model also posits that the type of software technology (ICSS, Word Processing, and Text Boxes) will have a mediating effect on creative performance. Individual Creative Ability is posited to have a moderating effect on creative performance.
The study used a similar methodology to that of Massetti (1996) but used a larger sample, accessed through email, to obtain a more varied demographic. It also utilized a generic creativity training tutorial, updated software technology, and a decision task that allowed both divergent and convergent thinking for a fully developed creative response. Results of the study were that the use of generic tutorial was effective in increasing creativity performance for those individuals with the perceived lowest creative abilities as supported by descriptive statistics. No change in creative abilities was observed for those individuals who had the highest or average levels of perceived creative abilities. The results for the effectiveness of the tutorial for those in the lowest creative ability perception group was independent of the Software technology used in generating a improved creative response.
future trends
Before definitive conclusions can be made about the effectiveness on creative performance of creativity training, in the form of providing general information on training, research with larger samples is needed. On the other hand, providing information on creativity is inexpensive and takes little time for respondents to absorb. Collaborative sites like Wikipedia can facilitate the generation of this material as the one used in this study. Thus, it is probably worth trying in light of the findings of this and prior studies (Couger, 1995; Finke, et al., 1992; Jacobs, 1989, de Bono, 1983; van Gundy, 1992; Walberg, 1988) that indicate it may have a beneficial effect on individual’s creativity.
Not only are studies with larger samples needed, an even distribution of the training among participants at different levels of creativity is needed. To understand, the impacts of creativity training, the effects on individuals with different levels of self-assessment and experience with prior creativity reinforcement need more study. One possibility arising from this study is that a person’s creativity reinforcement prior to the study may have had an impact on the study’s results. This would make sense in light of the prior research that creativity reinforcement can improve creativity performance (Couger, 1995; Finke, et al., 1992; Jacobs, 1989, de Bono, 1983; van Gundy, 1992; Walberg, 1988). The individuals with low creativity self-assessment scores may be the ones who had no prior exposure to creativity reinforcement while those in the other groups may have felt more creative due to prior creativity reinforcement. If so, those with no prior exposure may have benefited most from the creativity training due to its novelty. More research is needed to determine if this prior reinforcement made a difference. In addition, it is also important to conduct more research on the specific components of the creativity tutorials in order to identify the main factors that have greater influence on creativity performance.
In order to determine the true impacts of the creativity reinforcement accomplished by the training, researchers must find ways to measure respondents’ creative reinforcement over time. Measuring prior reinforcement as part of a larger longitudinal study could provide significant information on the true impacts of the generic creativity training. In summary, larger studies, which measured prior reinforcement and studies in which training was evenly distributed among levels of creativity, would help us to better understand the impacts of creativity training on creative performance.
conclusion
Educating students with techniques and methodologies that enhance their creativity and help them maximize their creative potential is essential. The importance of enhancing student creativity is critical to the success of nations, organizations, and students. In the words of Florida (2007), “Because wherever creativity goes—and, by extension, wherever talent goes—innovation and economic growth are sure to follow.” (Florida 2007).
This study reported the potential of a simple, inexpensive, quick online methodology that may help students to be more creative. It could be easily implemented by distance education programs and may provide significant rewards for students that go well beyond their personal success. Based on the results of this and prior research, educational programs would do well to adapt creativity training programs.
KEY TERMS
Creative potential: Ability to raise expression of individual creative abilities and creative performance through creativity training.
Creativity: Unconventional thinking over a considerable span of time on a vague or ill-defined problem in which the results is an “eureka” moment and can be expressed in novel ways, producing a result that has application value.
Distance Education: Learning situations in which the students and instructor are located in different localities for at least a portion of the class.
Distributed Learning: Learning situations in which the students and instructor are in different localities. A bit broader than distance education, as it can be used to refer to both education and training.
Eureka Moment: A sudden and unexpected flash of insight, in which the results provide a clear understanding of how to solve a problem.
Generic creativity tutorial: A rudimentary nonspecific instrument tutorial about creativity general knowledge and its benefits.
Innate creativity: Natural ability to express individual creativity in varying degrees by various methods.
Innovation: The recombination of past ideas, artifacts, and people in a creative manner,
Khatena Torrance Creative Perception Inventory (KTCPI): A combination of the Torrance What Kind of Person are You (WKOPAY) and the Khatena Something About Myself (SAM) test, has been used in a variety of settings to identify the innovative self perception of individuals (Khatena and Torrance, 1998). Respondents were categorized as “low”, “medium”, or “high” in creative self-perception based their KTCPI scores.
Online Learning: Learning situations in which the students and instructors communicate via the Internet and World Wide Web usually using an integrated learning environment.
