DONALD J. TREFFINGER

STUART M. SPEEDIE

WA YNE D. BR UNNER

Improving Children's Creative

Problem Solving Ability:

The Purdue Creativity Proiect*

Can pupils' creative thinking and problem-solving abilities beimproved through direct educational efforts? This questionhas stimulated interest among educational and psychologicalresearchers for more than two decades. It has also led to thedevelopment of a number of programs and methods for thefacilitation of creativity (Treffinger and Gowan, 1971), as wellas to many investigations of their effectiveness (Torrance,.1972). Purdue Creativity Training Program (PCTPi Feldhusen,Treffinger, and Bahlke, 1970) and the Productive ThinkingProgram (PTPi Covington, Crutchfield, Davies, and Olton,1972), have been the focus of considerable research with ele­mentary school children and were employed in the presentstudy.

The PCTP consists of 28 audio-taped presentations andstories, each accompanied by printed exercises for the develop­ment of creative thinking and problem-solving abilities. Thepresentations convey a brief message concerning effectivethinking, followed by stories which focus on historical persons(inventors,. discoverers, and national and world leaders) andfamous events in history. The exercises provide opportunitiesfor the use of fluency, flexibility, and originality in writing anddrawing, Previous research has shown that the PCTP and itsspecific components have been effective in fostering creativethinking, problem solving, and related attitudes among ele-

.. This research was conducted at Purdue University and was supportedby the United States Office of Education, Grant Number OEG-5-70-0029­(509). The authors acknowledge with appreciation the assistance of Dr.John F. Feldhusen and Ms. Rita R. Culross in the project.

20 Volume 8 Number 1 First Quarter

SPECIALPROBLEMS"

RESEARCH ONCREATIVE PROB­

LEM SOLVING

The Journal of Creallve Behavior

mentary school pupils (Feldhusen, Bahlke,· and Treffinger,1969j Feldhusen, Treffinger, and' Bahlke, 1970j Feldhusen,Treffinger, and Thomas,'1971j Shively, Feldhusen, and Treff­inger, 1972).

The PTP is a programed instructional sequence, consistingof 16 units designed to foster creative problem-solving abilitiesand related attitudes among fifth- and sixth-grade pupils. Thesubject is presented with a series of mystery or detective prob­lems, which are used as a vehicle to introduce a number of"guideposts" for creative thinking and problem solving. Theprogram has been described in greater detail by Olton (1969),and has also been the focus of a number of research studies,'which have been reviewed by Olton (1969), Treffinger andRipple (1971), and Torrance (1972).

Although research studies have, in general, supported theeffectiveness of the peTP and the PTP, there are several majorunsolved problems concerning their utilization and effects.Treffinger and Ripple (1971) identified three main areas inwhich further research was needed:

1) What influence does active teacher participation have onthe effectiveness of the programs?

2) What influence does distribution of training have on theeffectiveness of the programs?

3) By what criteria are the programs' effects to be judged?

In any investigation of creative problem solving in educationaland psychological research, special problems arise involvingthe selection and use of criteria: First, there is a need to iden­tify criteria which are valid, reliable, and relevant. Second, thecriterion measures must be sufficiently distinct from the train­ing materials to constitute an appropriate test of the training'seffectiveness, rather than an extension of' the training, per se.Third, the measures should be sensitive to change (Harris,1963).

Most measures of creative problem solving, however, haveserious limitations. First, the tests used at present require workto be done within rigid time limits, even though creative think­ing is commonly typified by periods of intense application andperiods of inactivity. Second, conventional test proceduresfrequently rely on arbitrary, contrived, artificial problemswhich bear little resemblance to material creative individualsmight choose to work on. Third, the highly formalized testsmeasure specific skills separately without measuring the degreeto which an individual coordinates and manages those skills(Covington, in press).

21

OBJECTIVES OFTHE RESEARCH

SAMPLE

Improving Children's Creative Problem Solving Ability:

In summary, the appraisal of creative thinking requires tech­niques which reflect as fully as possible the rich complexity ofthe creative process and allow for the distinctive dispositionsand styles of the creative individual, but at the same time per­mit a reasonable degree of standardization and the opportunityfor objective scoring.

Because they have been used widely in other research studiesinvolving elementary school children, and appear to be themost satisfactory instruments for use with such groups, theTorrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT; Torrance, 1966)were selected for inclusion as criterion measures in this study.In the light of the problems which we recognize are involvedin the assessment of creativity, however, other criteria were,also considered necessary (cf., Treffinger, Renzulli, and Feld­husen, 1971). The several other criterion measures also em­ployed in this study included The Old Black House Problem,which was developed for' the Berkeley Creativity Project", andseveral other problem-solving measures developed and utilizedin earlier studies (Treffinger and Ripple, 1969 i Shively, Feld­husen, and Treffinger, 1972).THe specific objectives of the Purdue Creativity Project were:

1). To evaluate the effectiveness of the PTP and the PCTPunder conditions of self-instructional use by pupils, comparedwith utilization which incorporated active teacher participation.

2) To compare the effectiveness of the PIP and the PCTP,in relation to each other as well as to uninstructed controlgroups, under two distributions of instruction: Massed (com­pletion of instruction in four weeks) and distributed (comple­tion of instruction in eight weeks).

3) To compare the effectiveness of the two instructionalprograms, in each of the conditions specified above, in classestaught by teachers who are themselves high or low in diver­gent thinking ability.

4) To assess the effectiveness of the programs, under theconditions specified in objectives one through three, with respectto several criteria of creative thinking and problem solving.Seven hundred ninety-three pupils and their teachers partici­pated in the project. The subjects came from 36 fifth-gradeclassrooms in two public school systems, one in northern andone in central Indiana.

1 We. acknowledge with thanks the cooperation of Dr. Martin V.Covington of the University of California at Berkeley. Dr. Covingtonprovided permission for us to use this test. We also wish to thank' Dr.Robert Olton, also of Berkeley, for assistance in interpreting and usingscoring criteria.

22

The Journal of Creative Behavior

PROCEDURES The design of the project is illustrated in Figure 1. The TTCTwere administered to all teachers to determine their level ofdivergent thinking ability. On the basis of their compositefluency, flexibility; and originality scores, the teachers wereassigned either to a high group (above the median) or a lowgroup (below the median). Two classes in each group werethen randomly assigned to experimental arrangements (PCTPor PTPi 4-week or 8-week; Discussion or Non-discussion).

Teachers in Discussion groups were asked to participateactively with their pupils in the creativity instruction, andto initiate activities which would provide applications of theinstruction to other classroom lessons. They were also givensuggestions for bulletin boards, games, role playing, and otheractivities which would relate the instructional program's con­tent to other school situations.

In Non-discussion groups, teachers were asked to distributethe creativity materials, answer pupils' routine questions, andsupervise their classrooms, but not to discuss specifically thecontent of the programs or otherwise make any special attemptsto encourage creative thinking among their pupils. Four cO'ntrolgroups received no special instruction; nor were these groupsstratified by level of teacher's divergent thinking ability.!

FIGURE 1 Design of the study.

PcrP PTPPROGRAM PROGRAM

4-wk. s-wk. 4-wk. s-wk,TeacherLevel

Discussion 39· 41 43 49HIGH

No Discussion 47 40 47 39 CONTROL

Discussion 36 40 50 47 89"

LOWNo Discussion 48 53 46 39

• The number indicates the number of students in each group; eachgroup is comprised of two classes, except the control group, in whichthere are four classes.

.. The control group was not stratified on program, time, teacher'slevel, or discussion; the design foIlows the single control group designdescribed by Winer (1962).

2 The design employed was, therefore, a factorial design (2x2x2x2)with a single control group statistical procedures followed, Winer(1962). A complete description of the method of analysis is given inTreffinger (1971).

23

Improylng Children'. Creatlye PR)blem SolYlng Ability:

Next, all pupils were pre-tested with the TTCT. Followingpre-testing, instruction began for the 8-week groups. For the4-week groups, the beginning of training' was delayed so thatall experimental groups would complete the instructional pro­grams at the same time (in order to prevent problems whichmight have arisen had post-tests been administered at differenttimes to various experimental groups).

INSTRUMENTS The following instruments were administered to all pupils inthe experimental and control classes:

,1) Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. All pupils weregiven, five sub-tests from Form B of the TTCT, as a pre-test,and five comparable subtests from Form A as post-tests. Threesub-tests (Product Improvement, Unusual Uses, and Just Sup­pose) involved verbal content and two (Picture Completion andIncomplete Figums) involved figural content. The tests wereadministered using the standard procedures and -time limits'described by Torrance (1966). They were administered in theclassrooms by trained members of the Purdue Creativity Projectstaff; teachers remained in their classrooms, but were askednot to examine pupils' responses. For each pupil, six scoreswere derived for both pre- and post-tests: verbal and figuralfluency, flexibility, and originality; the scores in analyses weresimple gain scores. The tests were scored by trained staffmembers, and acceptably high levels of interscorer reliability(all greater than .90) were obtained.

2) The Old Black House Problem. The Old Black House isa programmed problem-solving task which was developed atthe Berkeley Creativity Project and has been used in otherstudies of the effectiveness of the PTP. The children weregiven, as a post-test, a brief story involving a detective in searchof an old black house. He finds the house and retires shortlybefore sunset, only to arise the next morning and find that thehouse has disappeared. The children were asked to write downall their ideas for explaining the disappearance, and were alsoasked to list any odd or puzzling facts about the story. Througha series of questions, opportunities for written responses, andfeedback, the students were gradually given more and moreInformation about the problem, and were led step by steptoward the solution. Four scores were derived from the OldBlack House Problem: solution of the problem (yes or no);number of discrepancies noted; number of ideas for explainingthe disappearance; and, rated quality of ideas, using criteriadeveloped by the authors of the test (cf., Olton et al.,1967).

3) Real-Life Problems. Two real-life problems, entitled"Fighting on the Playground" and "Life at School", were pre-

24

RESULTS ANDDISCUSSION

TIle Journal 01 Creative Behavior

sen ted as post-tests to all pupils. In the first problem, pupilswere asked to list as many ways as they ,could think of toprevent fighting on the playground at school. Similarly, theywere asked in the second problem to list as many ways as theycould think of to make school more relaxing or more com­fortable. Both tests were scored for the number of solutionsgenerated.

4) Other problems. Finally, all pupils were also given twoverbal problem-solving tasks. The first was a multi-solutionsanagram task in which the pupils were given a list of commonwords with their letters scrambled. The students were asked tounscramble the letters into as many words as possible. Thesecond- problem, a word generation task called "Antelopes",involved trying to form as many words as possible from theletters of the exercise's title. Each problem was scored for thenumber of solutions produced.The results of the project were very complex, because severaldifferent factors were involved in the study: that is, both in­structional programs were used at two different rates (four andeight weeks), by teachers high and low in divergent thinking,and with or without active teacher participation," As a result,there were many significant interactions (combined effects ofmore than one factor) which had to be considered.

No single factor yielded significant results which wereuniform across all experimental conditions. Thus we cannotsay that one program is "better" than the other, that one rateof presentation is always preferable to the other, or that eitherprogram will always be more effective with high- or low-rateddivergent thinkers or as a function of teacher participation.The effects of these factors combined in a variety of ways, sothat we could not conclude that the consequences of variationsin one factor would be the same under several combinations ofthe other factors. This suggests, of course, that our originalexpectations were much simpler than reality.

We must recognize, however, that the' influence of theteacher, the program, and the method and rate of presentationmay combine to facilitate pupil creativity in a variety of ways.This points to the futility of the belief that we can"identify anyone way to nurture creativity among all students. Rather thanseeking sweeping generalizations about comparisons of pro-

8 For each analysis, only results which were significant (p .0,5) arereported. Post hoc comparisons were conducted only after significantinteractions and differences from control means had been established.Procedural details and statistical tables have been reported by Treffinger(1971).

25

DIVERGENTTHINKING

MEASURES

THE OLD BLACKHOUSE TEST

Improving Children'. Cr.atlve Problem Solving Ability:

grams, teacher characteristics, or teacher par.ticipation, there­fore, we must look more closely at the specific results of thestudy. After examining the significant results in detail, we shallattempt to interpret these findings in a more general psycho­logical context, and explore some directions which appearnecessary for future research.

The results of the study indicated that divergent thinkingabilities, particularly verbal abilities, were significantly en­hanced by instruction with the PTP or PCTP. In addition, thefollowing specific conclusions were reached concerning thedivergent thinking criteria:

1) Among teachers high on divergent thinking, instructionwith the PCTP tended to be effective with or withoutdiscussion,and more effective over an eight-week period than a four-weekperiod. FO,r teachers hig~ on divergent thinking, the best resultswith the PCTP were obtained when there was active teacherparticipation and an eight-week period of instruction.

2) The four-week presentation was most effective whenused by teachers loto on divergent thinking, especially whenthe PTP was used.

3) The PTP seemed less influenced by variations of rate,teacher participation, and teacher's divergent thinking than didthe PCTP.This finding confirms some of the original intentions.of the developers of the programs. The PTP was intended orig­inally as a self-instructional course, although additional mate­rials have now been developed for teachers to supplement theprogram. (These, however, were not available for utilization'at the time this project was conducted.) By contrast, the PCTPwas developed initially with teacher participation in mind, and,in previous research studies, had been used at slower rates ofpresentation and over longertime periods.

Since this test was originally developed as an attempt to dealwith some of the problems associated with the assessment ofcreative problem solving, it seemed appropriate to includeit as an instrument in the study. However, since the problemwas originally developed by the authors of the PTP than tothose of the PCTP. The results in fact indicate that both PTPand PCTP groups were superior to controls on number of ideasproduced; but PTP groups were also superior to PCTP groupsfor attainment of solution and rated quality of ideas.

The effects of time, discussion, and teacher's level of diver­gent thinking were less clear-cut. For number of ideas, thePCTP appeared to be most effective in the 8-week presentation,especially when that arrangement was combined with discus-

26

OTHER PROBLEMS

GENERALSUMMARY

OF RESULTS

THE RESULTSIN CONTEXT

The Journal of Creative Behavior

sions led by teachers rated high in creative thinking. The PTPwas most effective when used over a 4-week period.

For attainment of solution, all the four-week groups and theeight-week PTP group were superior to controls. The leasteffective combination appeared to be eight-week groups led bylow-scoring teachers.

For quality of ideas, four-week groups were superior toeight-week groups, although both, were superior to controls.Of the three remaining problems, only one, the multi-solutionanagram problem, gave significant results. Th results of thistask were very complex. For the PCTP groups, however, meanscores were significantly greater than control means for thenon-discussion, 4-week groups led by low-scoring teachers,whereas for PTP groups, the means were significantly greaterthan controls for both rates of presentation and at each levelof teacher divergent thinking ability. The results of the real-lifeproblems and the word generation task were not significant.Perhaps the problems which were presented were so much dif­ferent or more general than the content of "the instructionalprograms that the pupils' performance was not significantlyinfluenced. The tasks may have comprised a very difficult cri­terion of transfer of learning from the instructional programs.The results of this study may be summarized as follows:

1) Both the PCTP and the PTP have been shown to effectsignificant enhancement of fifth-grade children's divergentthinking abilities (particularly verbal abilities).

2) Both programs have been shown to be associated withsuperior performance by fifth-grade pupils, in comparison withcontrols, on several criteria of creative problem solving.

3) When the programs are utilized in as short a period oftime as 4 weeks, superior performance seemed to be associatedmore frequently with non-discussion and with teachers ratedlow in divergent thinking.

4) The PTP, originally designed as a self-instructional pro­gram, appeared to be less influenced by variations in rate ofpresentation, teacher participation, and teacher's level of diver­gent thinking. For the PCTP,however, there was some evidencethat as the rate of presentation became slower (Le., involveda longer period of instruction), the role of discussion and thepositive effects of high divergent thinking ability in the teacherincreased.The results provided further evidence that some creative think­ing and problem-solving abilities of fifth-grade pupils can bepositively influenced by deliberate instructional efforts. Theresults concerning the influence of the teacher's level of diver-

27

DIFFICULTIESOF DEFININGTREATMENTS

VALIDITY OFTEACHER DIVER·GENT THINKING

SCORES

COMPLEXITY OFTHE CONSTRUCT

QF CREATIVITY

Improving Children's Creative Problem Solving Ability:

gent thinking ability, active teacher involvement and the dis­tribution of the instruction were much less clear. It seemsappropriate, then, to discuss at this point problems whichdeveloped in the study.The first problem is one very commonly encountered in educa­tional research: It is difficult to. define with accuracy thespecific "treatments" in the study and to verify the extent towhich they actually occurred. Consider the example of teacherinvolvement. One can hardly know without extensive class­room observation that the teachers took an active part in dis­cussion groups, or that this activity was Significantly differentfrom the activity of teachers in the non-discussion groups. Norcan there be any assurance that some of the latter teachers didnot unknowingly and unintentionally engage in behaviorwhich constituted "participation."The use of TTCT test scores for assessing the divergent think­ing abilities of teachers also involved some problems. First ofall, there are no well-validated norms for elementary schoolteachers for these tests. Therefore, it is really not possible toknow whether our high low groups would correspond to highlow groups in the teacher population in general.

In addition, it' was assumed. in the development of thisproject that teachers who score high on measures of creativethinking are needed to facilitate creative development in theirpupils. Thus, it was thought that a high-scoring teacher wouldenhance the effects of instruction. It has become clear, how­ever, that the relationship between teacher's abilities andpupils' abilities is much more complex.

It may be that a fifth-grade teacher who scores high onmeasures of divergent thinking and a fifth-grade teacher whofosters creativity in her pupils are two very different people.Thus, even if divergent thinking scores do distinguish moreteachers who are gifted in divergent thinking from those whoare less so, they may not distinguish those who foster creativityin children from those who do not.Finally, it is necessary to point out that the total amount ofinstruction provided constitutes only a very small part of thepupils' school experience. This raises several questions: Howmight creative thinking and problem-solving abilities of pupilsbe enhanced if such "training" constituted a greater part of thepupils' school experience'[ How might such instruction be inte­grated with .other instructional programs or innovations in theclassroom? What new kinds of "training" can be developed toinclude affective, social and even psychomotor aspects ofcreative thinking as well as cognitive ones?

28

RECOMMENDA­TIONS FORRESEARCH

REFERENCES

The Journal of Creative Behavior

On the basis of this project, the following recommendationsare offered:

1) New measures of creative abilities and problem solvingneed to be developed.

2) Research should be conducted which involves affectiveand psychomotor aspects of creative problem solving aswell as cognition aspects.

3) Research should be conducted to examine the possibledistinction between creative people who teach andteachers who foster creativity.

4) Research should be done on the integration of creativitytraining with other classroom instructional programs.

COVINGTON, M. V. New directions in the appraisal of creative think­ing. In Treffinger, D. J. (ed.). Readings on creativity in education.Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, in press.

COVINGTON, M. V., CRUTa-IFIELD, R. 5., DAVIES, L.& OLTON,R. M. The productive thinking program: Columbus: Charles E. Merrill,1972.

FELDHUSEN, J. F., BAHLKE, 5.' J. & TREFFINGER, D. J. Teachingcreative thinking. Elementary School loumal, 1969, 70, 48-53.

FELDHUSEN, J. F., TREFFINGER, D. J. & BAHLKE, 5. J. Developingcreative thinking: the Purdue Creativity Program. Journal of CreativeBehavior, 1970,4,85-90.

FEtDHUSEN, J. F., TREFFINGER, D. J. & THOMAS, S. J. Global andcomponential evaluation of creativity instructional materials. Buffalo:Creative Education Foundation, 1971.

HARRIS, C. W. (ed.), Problems in measuring change. Madison: Univer­sity of Wisconsin Press, 1963.

OLTON, R. M. A self-instructional program for developing productivethinking. skills in fifth- and sixth-grade children. Journal of CreativeBehavior, 1969, 3, 16-25.

OLTON, R. M., WARDROP, J., COVINGTON, M. V., GOObWI~, W.,CRUTCHFIELD, R. S., KLAU5MEIER, H. J. & RONDA, T. The devel­opment of productive thinking skills in fifth-grade children. TechnicalReport No. 34, Research and Development Center for Cognitive Learn­ing. Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1967.

SHIVELY, J. E., FELDHUSEN, J. F. & TREFFINGER, D. J. Effects ofcreativity instructional programs and teacher influence on pupils'divergent thinking abilities and related attitudes. Journal of Experi­mental Education, 1972, 41, 63-69.

TORRANCE, E. P. Torrance tests of creative thinking, Princeton: Per­sonnel Press, 1966.

TORRANCE, E. P. Can we teach children to think creatively? Iournal ofCreative Behavior, 1972, 6, 114-143.

TREFFINGER, D. J. Improving children's creative problem-solvingability: the effects of distribution of training, teacher involvement,and teacher's divergent thinking ability on instruction. Final report ofUSOE Project Number 0-£-086, Grant Number OEG-5-70-0029(509).West Lafayette, Purdue University, December 1971.

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Improving Children'. Creallve Problem Solving Ability:

TREFFINGER, D. J. & GOWAN, J. C. An updated representative list ofmethods and educational programs for stimulating creativity. Journalof Creative Behavior, 1971, 5, 1Z7-139.

TREFFINGER, D. J., RENZULLI, J. 5. & FELDHUsEN, J. F. Problems inthe assessment of creative thinking, Journal of Creative Behavior,1971,5,104-112.

TREFFINGER,D. J. & RIPPLE,R. E. Developing creative problem solvingabilities and related attitudes through programmed instruction. Journalof Creative Behavior, 1969, 3: 105-110, 127.

TREFFJNGER, D. J. & RIPPLE, R. E: Programmed instruction in creativeproblem solving. Educational Leadership, 1971,28,667-675.

WINER, B. J. Statistical principles in experimental design. NYC: Me­Craw-Hill, 1962.

Donald J. Treffinger, Chairman, Educational Psychology &Research Department. .Address: University of Kansas, Bailey Hall, Lawrence, Kansas 66045.

Stuart M. Speedie,iComputer Technology Program.Address: Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory,710 SW Second Avenue, Portland, Oregon 97204.

Wayne D. Brunner, Graduate Student, Educational Psychology &Research Section.Address: Purdue University, South Campus Courts G,West Lafayette, Indiana 47907.

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