In this article, I highlight some of Arthur Cropley's work that has been the most influential to me as a scholar. Cropley's work has continually pushed the boundaries by exploring what creativity is and isn't, squashing myths, and not making assumptions. I specifically discuss Cropley's research and theory on the importance of convergent thinking,…

This article studies the relationship between students' perceptions of teaching and learning in a multidisciplinary honours programme and their impact on graduate attributes acquisition. The study, conducted among 73 honours students in a Dutch research university, evaluates perceived improvement in graduate attributes through annually collected…

The Undergraduate Leadership Teaching Assistant (ULTA) experience offers students a high-impact opportunity to develop, practice, and evaluate their leadership knowledge, skills, and abilities. The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine outcomes of the ULTA experience as a high-impact practice for students studying leadership. Weekly…

Creative posters in the classroom can inspire students to become engaged and motivated in learning art. Within the classroom, there are many places to put posters so that students can read them (especially when they get bored in the classroom) - on the cabinets, near the chalkboard, on the teacher's desk and any spare space on the wall. There is…

Art educators are concerned with exposing their students to contemporary art making practices. They aim to create fresh lessons that expand their understandings of art in today's world while highlighting the importance of imagination. With a personal interest in performance and street art (art forms that have gained popularity in recent years),…

Psychologists studying problem solving have, for over 100 years, been interested in the question of whether there are two different modes of solving problems. One mode--problem solving based on analysis--depends on application of past experience to the problem at hand and proceeds incrementally toward solution. The second mode--problem solving…

Constraints often inhibit creative problem-solving. This study examined the impact of training strategies for managing constraints on creative problem-solving. Undergraduates, 218 in all, were asked to work through 1 to 4 self-paced instructional programs focused on constraint management strategies. The quality, originality, and elegance of…

Discussing various perspectives of artists' influences and experiences can develop students' divergent thinking skills. Fostering students' divergent thinking skills is integral to developing creativity, and the Arts are a ripe forum for this. In contrast to convergent thinking, which focuses in on one "correct"…

Video analysis of 2-D collisions is an excellent way to investigate conservation of linear momentum. The often-desired experimental design goal is to minimize the momentum loss in order to demonstrate the conservation law. An air table with colliding pucks is an ideal medium for this experiment, but such equipment is beyond the budget of many…

What the ultimate goal for education is to help students develop their capabilities and in turn to maximize their potentials into practical uses in everyday life. In fact, teachers are critical resources at their disposal to facilitate maximum students learning experience and to release students' potentials in classrooms. It is believed that…

Too often, psychological debates become polarized into dichotomous positions. Such polarization may have occurred with respect to Campbell's (1960) blind variation and selective retention (BVSR) theory of creativity. To resolve this unnecessary controversy, BVSR was radically reformulated with respect to creative problem solving. The reformulation…

The purpose of this article is to identify the factors which affect students' creative thinking in problem solving. The research which was performed was quasi-experimental. It used one experimental group and two control groups from three second-grade high school classes. They received either traditional, active or heuristic problem-solving…

This supporting document sets out the content analysis technique and detailed findings that underly part of the research conducted for the report titled "VET for secondary school students: acquiring an array of technical and non-technical skills." That report is the first in a set of studies that aims to understand the value of…

Although creative achievement is a subject of much attention to lay people, the origin of individual differences in creative accomplishments remain poorly understood. This study examined genetic and environmental influences on creative achievement in an adult sample of 338 twins (mean age = 26.3 years; SD = 6.6 years). Twins completed the Creative…

Increased international recognition of the value of supporting creative thinking suggests the value of development of approaches to its identification in children. Development of an observation-led framework, the Analysing Children's Creative Thinking (ACCT) framework, is described, and a case made for the validity of inferring creative thinking…