Fostering Children’s Creative Thinking Skills with the 5-I Training Program

Abstract

Creative thinking is an important 21st century skill. To prepare children for our complex and fast-changing world, it is essential to cultivate their creative thinking skills. The objective of the current study was to develop and examine the effectiveness of a brief, domain-unspecific creativity training program: the 5-I training program. Children (N = 172)aged 7–12 years participated in the training, which consisted of eight creativity exercises performed in a training session of two hours. The effectiveness of the training on stimulating children's creative thinking skills was assessed by means of a pretest and posttest comparison using three creativity tasks (Alternative Uses Task, drawing task and guessing task). For each task several measures of creative performance were examined (e.g., fluency, flexibility, infrequency, elaboration). Following the creativity training, improvements were observed on the three creativity tasks. The effectiveness of the 5-I training program was found for all measures of creative performance, except for flexibility. Implications for educational settings are discussed.

Full text

Fostering Children’s Creative Thinking skills with the 5-I Training Program
Fostering Children’s Creative Thinking Skills with the 5-I Training
Program
Xiaojing Gua*, Ap Dijksterhuisa, & Simone M. Rittera
aBehavioural Science Institute, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to:
Xiaojing Gu, Radboud University, Montessorilaan 3, 6525 HR Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
E-mail address: x.gu@bsi.ru.nl
Declarations of interest: none
To cite: Gu, X., Dijksterhuis, A., & Ritter, S. M. (2019). Fostering Children’s Creative
Thinking Skills with the 5-I Training Program. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 32, 92-101.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2019.05.002

Fostering Children’s Creative Thinking skills with the 5-I Training Program
Abstract
Creative thinking is an important 21st century skill. To prepare children for our complex
and fast-changing world, it is essential to cultivate their creative thinking skills. The objective
of the current study was to develop and examine the effectiveness of a brief, domain-
unspecific creativity training program: the 5-I training program. Children (N = 172) aged 7 -
12 years participated in the training, which consisted of eight creativity exercises performed
in a training session of two hours. The effectiveness of the training on stimulating children’s
creative thinking skills was assessed by means of a pretest and posttest comparison using
three creativity tasks (Alternative Uses Task, drawing task and guessing task). For each task
several measures of creative performance were examined (e.g., fluency, flexibility,
infrequency, elaboration). Following the creativity training, improvements were observed on
the three creativity tasks. The effectiveness of the 5-I training program was found for all
measures of creative performance, except for flexibility. Implications for educational settings
are discussed.
Keywords: Creativity, divergent thinking, training, 4Ps theory, 5-I training program

Fostering Children’s Creative Thinking Skills with the 5-I Training Program
1. Introduction
1.1 Importance of creativity
Creativity is generally defined as the ability to generate novel and useful ideas or
products (e.g., Amabile, 1996; Sternberg & Lubart, 1995). In a time of rapid change and
increasing competition, creativity is important in various domains. On a societal level,
creativity has become the driving force for artistic creation, technical innovation and scientific
discovery (Hennessey & Amabile, 2010). On a personal level, we frequently engage in
creative activities to cope with everyday problems and challenges (Collard & Looney, 2014;
Newton, 2014; Nussbaum, 2011). Organizations regard creativity as a crucial resource to be
innovative and competitive in the global market (Caniëls & Rietzschel, 2015; Mueller,
Melwani, & Goncalo, 2012; Woodman, Sawyer, & Griffin, 1993). In schools, students need a
creative and flexible mind for learning and integrating new knowledge (Sternberg & Lubart,
1996). Overall, it is essential that we cultivate young learners’ creative capacity in order to be
well-prepared for study, work and personal life.
1.2 Divergent thinking and convergent thinking
Teachers more and more acknowledge the importance of fostering students’ creative
thinking. There are two ways of creative thinking: divergent thinking and convergent thinking
(Guilford, 1967). Divergent thinking is the ability to find many possible solutions by
searching from different directions (Guilford, 1967), whereas convergent thinking is the
capacity to look in all directions to come up with a single correct solution (Simonton, 2003).
Both divergent thinking and convergent thinking are important for creative solutions to
emerge. However, when it comes to the classroom, it seems that divergent thinking is seen as
less important. In many classrooms, the class norms remain structured and people focus on
the standardized tests (Beghetto, 2007, 2010; Runco, 1993). As a result, students are generally
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Fostering Children’s Creative Thinking Skills with the 5-I Training Program
taught to find the single correct solution to a problem, instead of being challenged to explore
freely and think creatively (Beghetto, 2007; Kennedy, 2005).
1.3 The 4Ps theory of creativity
Most researchers agree that creativity has a multifaceted nature (e.g., Lubart, Zenasni, &
Barbot, 2013; Rhodes, 1961; Runco, 2004; Snow, 1994; Sternberg & Lubart, 1995). One
influential theory was the 4Ps theory proposed by Rhodes (1961). According to the 4Ps
theory, creativity consists of four aspects: Person, Process, Press and Product. Person refers
to the personal characteristics or dispositions. Research has shown that personality traits such
as openness to experience (e.g., McCrae & Costa, 1997; Silvia et al., 2008) and tolerance of
ambiguity (e.g., Wiseman et al., 2011) positively correlate with creativity. Process refers to
the cognitive process involved in the creative behavior. When solving creative problems, one
has to perform certain cognitive operations in order to generate many potential solutions. De
Bono developed the CoRT (cognitive research trust) training program to teach different
aspects of thinking, and one was creative thinking (De Bono, 1983). The CoRT consisted of a
series of lessons, and employed mainly a perceptual (cognitive) approach. The CoRT has been
widely used across age groups and in different countries, and has been proved to be an
effective tool to develop students’ creative thinking (e.g., Daher, Tabaja-Kidan, & Gierdien,
2017; Barak & Doppelt, 1999). Press means influence from the environment. There were
many studies suggesting that environmental factors such as culture (Baer, 2003),
organizational setting (e.g., Shalley, Zhou, & Oldham, 2004) or educational setting
(Besançon, Fenouillet, & Shankland, 2015; Thomas & Berk, 1981), has a significant influence
on individual’s creative performance. Finally, Product refers to the creative outcome.
As Rhodes (1961) argued, there is a high interdependency among the four aspects. Usually
the product is forced by a specific situation (press) where a person solves problems by going
through a series of mental processes, whereas the product, in turn, affects the evaluation of the
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Fostering Children’s Creative Thinking Skills with the 5-I Training Program
creative person and the creative process. Hence, a person’s creative capacity is a combination
and interaction of these four aspects, and individual differences on these aspects will influence
their creative performance. In that sense, it is necessary to foster individual’s creative
potential on all these aspects, that is, from a comprehensive approach.
1.4 Creativity trainings based on the 4Ps theory
Substantial evidence has been provided for the effectiveness of single “P” programs (for
reviews, see Ma, 2006; Scott, Leritz, & Mumford, 2004a, 2004b). For example, using a
“person” approach, participants showed significant improvement on divergent thinking after
recognizing a group of ambiguous figures, which improved their tolerance of ambiguity (Wu,
Gu, & Zhang, 2016). Ritter and Mostert (2016) employed a “process” approach to train
students’ domain-unspecific, creative thinking skills. In their study, participants who learnt
cognitive-oriented techniques (e.g., SCAMPER), showed significant improvement in their
creative performance. Other studies focusing on the “press” aspect have shown that students’
creativity benefited from learning in alternative schools such as Montessori and Freinet
schools in which students are exposed to various creative activities, have greater freedom, and
have more opportunities to express themselves (Besançon, Fenouillet, & Shankland, 2015;
Besançon & Lubart, 2008; Thomas & Berk, 1981). Yet other studies showed that the selection
and evaluation of new products can be facilitated using a set of criteria with the particular
context (e.g., how to develop new eco-tourism services in Amazonian region) taken into
account (Gabriel, Camargo, Monticolo, Boly, & Bourgault, 2016).
Although these findings have shown positive effects of single “P” approaches in
enhancing creativity, there are shortcomings in each training approach. As suggested by the
meta-analyses from Scott et al. (2004b), a “person” approach might entail too much personal
exploration and thus fail to provide clear strategies or techniques, whereas a “process”
approach focuses too much on domain-specific knowledge and makes it challenging to
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Fostering Children’s Creative Thinking Skills with the 5-I Training Program
transfer creative techniques to other domains (Baer, 1994, 2010; Kaufman, Beghetto, & Baer,
2010). With regard to the “press” interventions, the findings were inconclusive (Scott et al.,
2004a) as there are many uncontrollable factors involved in the environment. Besides, the
training effectiveness varied depending on what type of creativity (e.g., divergent thinking,
convergent thinking) was measured (e.g., Blanco-Herrera, 2017; Ritter & Ferguson, 2017).
An extensive literature search using PsychoInfo1 revealed that no previous studies related
to creativity training have taken the person, process, press and product aspects into account. In
the current study, we developed a creativity-training program that incorporated the 4Ps of
creativity in one creativity training, and moreover, creative inspiration was added.
1.5 A description of the 5-I training program
The training developed in the current project is called the 5-I training, and consisted of
five components: Inclination, Ideation, Interaction, Identification, and Inspiration.
Inclination focuses on the person aspect. It aims to develop the personality traits that facilitate
creative thinking such as openness to experiences, flexibility and tolerance of ambiguity.
Ideation focuses on the process aspect. It aims to stimulate creative cognition such as a
flexible thinking style, taking multiple perspectives and making remote associations.
Interaction focuses on the press aspect. It aims to make use of the physical and interpersonal
contexts for implementing creative endeavor. Identification focuses on the product aspect. It
aims to train children not only how to generate creative ideas, but also to evaluate and
recognize creative ideas. Inspiration aims to evoke the motivation to be creative, for example,
by observing others’ creations. Creative inspiration is considered as a motivational resource
that supports the creative process (Oleynick, Thrash, LeFew, Moldovan, & Kieffaber, 2014;
Thrash, Maruskin, Cassidy, Fryer, & Ryan, 2010). When providing children with a creativity
1 No articles were found using these search terms : (creativ*)—Title AND (intervention* or
foster* or teach* or train* or promot* or enhanc* or stimulat* or develop* or facilitat* or
support* or encourag* or advanc* or climate or environment or curriculum or condition) —
Title AND {4P / (person and process and press and product)}—All fields
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Fostering Children’s Creative Thinking Skills with the 5-I Training Program
training, it’s necessary to inspire them and hereby motivate their creative thinking. By now,
there are only a couple of studies that investigated the relationship between creativity and
inspiration, but how to trigger creative inspiration has remained unexplored.
The training was designed in a brief and single session, using a variety of exercises
adapted to children. The exercises were carefully selected as a means to foster creative
thinking. Finally, eight exercises were used, each with a specific focus on one or two
components of the 5-I. Each exercise is explained in detail in the “Procedure” section.
1.6 Purpose of the current study
The purpose of the current study was to develop a creativity training program from a
comprehensive approach, and to scientifically test the effectiveness of the training program.
Specifically, the current training program focused on children’s divergent thinking skills, that
is, the ability to generate ideas from different perspectives (Guildford, 1967). Three divergent
thinking tasks (i.e., Alternative Uses Task, drawing task, guessing task) were used to measure
children’s creative performance by means of a pretest and posttest comparison. We
hypothesized that the current creativity training program increases children’s creative
performance from pretest to posttest.
2. Method
2.1 Participants
To determine the sample size required for the current study, we conducted a power
analysis using Shiny Web applications. The effect size used was based on the study conducted
by Garaigordobil (2006), as this study is comparable with regard to age of the participants and
the study design. Power analysis revealed that a minimum sample size of 95 participants
would be required to identify the training effects (statistical power = .80 with p = .05).
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Fostering Children’s Creative Thinking Skills with the 5-I Training Program
The current study included 172 children from two primary schools in the Netherlands.
The sample consisted of 77 boys and 95 girls, ranging in age from 7 to 12 years old (M =
9.62, SD =1.34). The training took place on October 25 and 26, 2017 at Radboud University.
Children took part in one of the three training sessions: a morning session on October 25, a
morning session on October 26, and an afternoon session on October 26. Each session had
four training groups with about 15 children in each group. Parents provided written informed
consent prior to the training.
The current study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Radboud University
(approval code: ECSW-2017-014R1), and the hypothesis, methods, and data analysis plan of
this study were preregistered on Open Science Framework (see
https://osf.io/g9fb7/register/5730e99a9ad5a102c5745a8a).
2.2 Measures
Three creativity tasks were used to measure children’s divergent thinking abilities before
and after the training: The Alternative Uses Task, a drawing task, and a guessing task. All of
these tasks are widely used in studies with children, and the reliability and validity of the tasks
have been shown by various studies (see e.g., Runco, 1991; Sternberg & Lubart, 1999;
Torrance, 1974). To prevent any repetition and order effects, two versions (version A and
version B) of each task were used and counterbalanced among participants in the pretest and
posttest. All the tasks were tested in a paper and pencil form. The creativity measures for each
task were chosen based on the test manual and earlier studies (see e.g., Garaigordobil, 2006;
Guilford, 1967; Lubart et al., 2010; Torrance, 1974).
Alternative Uses Task
The Alternative Uses Task asked participants to think of as many different uses of a
common object as possible. This task was adapted from Guilford’s Alternative Uses Task
(Guilford, 1967). One difference was that we used daily objects that are familiar to children:
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Fostering Children’s Creative Thinking Skills with the 5-I Training Program
in version A the object was a water bottle, and in version B the object chosen was a shoe box.
The time limit to generate and list ideas was 4 minutes. Participants’ responses were assessed
on four creativity measures: (i) Fluency, the total number of ideas listed. Only complete and
clearly described ideas were included. (ii) Infrequency, the statistical infrequency score of an
idea. A score of 2 was assigned if fewer than 2% of the participants generated the idea; a score
of 1 was assigned if 2–5% generated the idea; and a score of 0 was assigned if more than 5%
generated the idea (see also Lubart, Pacteau, Jacquet, & Caroff, 2010). An overall score on
infrequency was calculated for each participant. (iii) Flexibility, the total number of different
categories that a participant’s ideas could be assigned to. Therefore, a predefined list of idea
categories was developed, and each idea was assigned to one of the predefined categories. (iv)
Creativity, how creative an idea was. Each idea was assigned a creativity score on a scale
ranging from 1 (not at all creative) to 5 (very creative). One rater scored all the ideas, and a
second rater scored 30% of the generated ideas. The interrater reliability analysis (two-way
random, interrater consistency) showed that the intraclass coefficient (ICC) was excellent,
ICC = .87. For each participant, the average creativity score was calculated based on all the
ideas generated by this child.
Drawing task
The drawing task was adapted from the “lines/circles” task in the Torrance Tests of
Creative Thinking (TTCT; Torrance, 1974). In version A, participants were asked to make as
many drawings as possible on a paper with circles, and in version B they were asked to make
as many drawings as possible on a paper with diamonds. The time limit was 4 minutes.
Participants’ drawings were assessed on five creativity measures: (i) Fluency, (ii)
Infrequency and (iii) Flexibility were calculated using the same criteria as the Alternative
Uses Task. (iv) Elaboration, the total number of details added to each drawing (see also
Garaigordobil, 2006). 0-3 point(s) was/were assigned based on how many additional details
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Fostering Children’s Creative Thinking Skills with the 5-I Training Program
were drawn beyond what is necessary to express the basic idea. For instance, for a drawing
“face”, a score of 0 was assigned if no additional details were drawn except the basic features
of a face; a score of 1 was assigned if 1 additional detail was added to the face (e.g., with
glasses); a score of 2 was assigned if 2 additional details were added to the face (e.g., with
glasses and a hat); and a score of 3 was assigned if 3 or more additional details were added to
the face (e.g., with glasses, a hat and earrings). An overall score on elaboration was calculated
for each participant. (v) Resistance to premature closure, the degree of participants’
openness when making drawings (see also Garaigordobil, 2006). 0-3 point(s) was/were
assigned based on how a participant finished the drawing. A score of 0 was assigned if a
participant made no drawings/connections outside the circle/diamond; a score of 1 was
assigned if a participant made simple drawing(s) (e.g., lines, dots, faces, squares) or
connections outside the circle/diamond; a score of 2 was assigned if a participant made
complex drawing(s) (e.g., a house and an animal) or connections (e.g., connect several
circles/diamonds) outside the circle/diamond; a score of 3 was assigned if a participant made
both complex drawing(s) and connections outside the circle/diamond. An overall score on
resistance to premature closure was calculated for each participant.
Guessing task
The guessing task asked participants to think of as many different reasons as possible of a
situation depicted in a picture. This task was also adapted from TTCT (Torrance, 1974). In
version A, participants were presented with a picture of a happy boy, and in version B with a
picture of a scared boy. Participants’ responses were assessed on three creativity measures: (i)
Fluency, (ii) Infrequency and (iii) Flexibility that followed the same scoring criteria as the
Alternative Uses Task and the drawing task.
2.3 Procedure
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Fostering Children’s Creative Thinking Skills with the 5-I Training Program
A pre-posttest within-subjects design was used in this study. The pretest was performed
individually and took about 15 minutes. After the pretest, children started the 2-hour training.
In each training group, there were two trainers, one working as the main trainer and the other
assisted. All the trainers had been trained on the theoretical knowledge and the exercise
instructions of the 5-I training program. When providing the training, the trainers were
required to follow the same protocol. The eight exercises were arranged in a logical order that
allowed children to progressively go through the training, from simple and passive exercises
to more complex and active ones. Following the training, children performed the posttest
individually; the posttest lasted about 15 minutes.
2.4 Training exercises
The description of each training exercise is listed below, and an overview is provided in
Appendix A.
Exercise 1: Inspirational video
This video clip consisted of two inventions made by children: a bowl-shaped baby bib
and detachable heels (taken from an episode of TV program Ellen Show; DeGeneres, Hurwitz,
& Leifer, 2011). This exercise aimed to inspire children by watching inventions made by other
children.
Exercises 2: Finding differences
In this exercise, children were presented with five items: a book, skates, a tricycle, a
sledge and a train. They were asked to find the item that differed from the others. Actually,
each of the item can be considered different from the other four items: 1) a book is the only
item you cannot use for locomotion; 2) you need two skaters to be able to skate; 3) a tricycle
is the only item generally used by children; 4) the sledge is the only item that may be used on
snow; 5) the train is the only thing that needs electricity. This exercise was taken from a study
of Meyer (2011). To solve this problem, children had to view the five objects on different
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Fostering Children’s Creative Thinking Skills with the 5-I Training Program
perspectives such as the function, size and shape, and they used flexible thinking. Meanwhile,
from this exercise children realized that there could be more than one “correct” answer to
some questions.
Exercises 3: Figure arrangement
In this exercise, children were asked to make drawings by using a square and a triangle.
No additional rules were provided and children could decide by themselves what and how to
draw. In this way, children could become as imaginative as they could. For example, they
could make drawings with several squares or triangles, or by maximizing or minimizing the
shapes. This exercise was adapted from TTCT (Torrance, Ball & Safter, 1966), but it was
different from the drawing test in the current study.
Exercise 4: Think out of box
In this exercise, we used a paper box that a child could comfortably sit in, and placed it in
the middle of the training room. Each time one child was invited to site either inside or
outside the box, and to explain how he/she feels (e.g., are you comfortable? Do you feel safe?
What is better for your creative thinking, sit inside or outside?). This exercise was adapted
from a study by Leung et al. (2012), which found that sitting outside the box was beneficial to
creative thinking compared with sitting inside the box. Different from their study, here we
didn’t mean to give children the idea that sitting outside is better; rather, the goal of this
exercise was to have children reflecting on what kind of environment favors their creative
thinking. For example, some children might prefer staying alone when thinking about
questions while others would like to collaborate with others.
Exercise 5: Ambiguous figures
An ambiguous figure is a picture that can be interpreted from two or more perspectives.
Research has shown that successful recognition of ambiguous figures is a good predictor of
divergent thinking skills (e.g., Wu, Gu, & Zhang, 2016). In this exercise, children were
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Fostering Children’s Creative Thinking Skills with the 5-I Training Program
presented with several ambiguous figures, and were asked to guess the objects in each figure.
If children had difficulty in perceiving the figures, they were allowed to move and view the
figures from different angles. This exercise aimed to train children to become tolerant of
challenging or ambiguous problems, and to realize that things may look differently if they see
it from another perspective.
Exercise 6: Perspective taking
Perspective taking refers to the ability to perceive and see things from a different
viewpoint (Galinsky, Maddux, Gilin, & White, 2008; Shaffer, 2008). Research has shown that
exposure to others’ ideas helps to establish broader semantic associations and thus leads to
more creative ideas (Fink et al., 2012). One study has shown that children who practiced
perspective taking in daily activities performed better in divergent thinking tasks (Doron,
2017). In the current exercise, a riding-stick horse was hidden inside a box. Without any clue,
children were asked to put one hand into the box (see Appendix B). Every child touched a
different part of the riding-stick horse. Later children were asked to guess what is inside the
box by combining the information that different children had provided. This exercise allowed
children to take other children’s viewpoint into account when solving a problem, as well as
experience and realize the importance of teamwork. This exercise was inspired by the story
six blind and one elephant (Goldstein, 2010).
Exercise 7: SCAMPER
SCAMPER, originally invented by Osborn (1953), relies on a couple of techniques:
substitute, combine, adapt, modify, put to another use, eliminate, and rearrange. In this
exercise, children were asked to improve a teaspoon. Trainers asked questions about the
teaspoon to guide children to go through the seven techniques. For example, to practice
substitute: “Do you know any other materials that does not get hot easily?” which would
encourage children to think of a wooden or a plastic teaspoon. The goal of this exercise was to
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Fostering Children’s Creative Thinking Skills with the 5-I Training Program
provide children with instructed creative thinking techniques for creative problem solving.
Moreover, the teaspoon exercise was used to teach children creative idea evaluation and
selection, and to practice these skills. Creativity not only requires the generation of creative
ideas, but also the ability to recognize and select the most creative ones from a pool of
available options (de Buisonjé, Ritter, de Bruin, ter Horst, & Meeldijk, 2017; Zhu, Ritter,
Müller, & Dijksterhuis, 2017; Ritter & Rietzschel, 2017).
Exercise 8: Random connection
Random connection requires generating solutions by connecting a target object randomly
with an unrelated object (see Ritter & Mostert, 2016). In this exercise, children were asked to
design a new type of sun cream by associating it with a random object in the room. In the
current exercise, the trainer guided the children to use a ballpoint pen. First, children were
asked to list as many characteristics as possible of the ballpoint pen (e.g., writing, color,
roller). After that, children were encouraged to think about how these characteristics could be
applied to a sun cream. For example, they could design a roll-on sun cream, or a colored sun
cream whose color disappears into skin. In this exercise, children learnt to solve problems by
making associations.
3. Results
3.1 Data cleaning
There were 6 children who didn’t take the pre/posttest seriously and made scratches
elsewhere on the paper, 2 children who were not able to write, and 2 children who didn’t
understand the task. These children were not included in the data analysis. One additional
child was excluded from the guessing task because the paper-version of that task was missing.
This resulted in a dataset of 162 participants for the Alternative Uses Task and the drawing
task, and a dataset of 161 participants for the guessing task.
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Fostering Children’s Creative Thinking Skills with the 5-I Training Program
3.2 Data analysis
In the preregistration, it was stated that paired sample t-test would be used to test the
hypothesized increase in children’s creativity from pretest to posttest. One precondition for
using a paired t-test is that the dependent variables between the two related groups should be
approximately normally distributed. However, examination of distribution of paired mean
difference showed non-normal distributions for most of the variables, which violated the
assumption of paired t-test (see Table 1).
Table 1.
Mean difference, standard deviation, range, skewness and kurtosis values for each variable
Variables M
(Post-Pre)
SD Range Skewness
(abs)
Kurtosis
(abs)
Alternative Uses Task (N =162)
Fluency .494 2.72 -8.00 ─ 10.0 1.30 3.07
Infrequency .611 3.98 -14.0 ─ 15.0 0.70 5.56
Flexibility .185 2.22 -5.00 ─ 7.00 .539 .860
Creativity .113 .689 -1.75 ─ 2.25 1.28 0.72
Drawing task (N =162)
Fluency 1.73 .333 -15.0 ─ 15.0 -1.76 8.45
Infrequency .765 .270 -7.00 ─ 13.0 4.37 3.20
Flexibility -.086 .177 -7.00 ─ 6.00 -1.03 1.78
Elaboration .463 .178 -4.00 ─ 14.0 7.52 19.5
Resistance to premature
closure
.722 .250 -7.00 ─ 16.0 8.16 15.6
Guessing task (N =161)
Fluency .385 2.29 -6.00 ─ 8.00 1.36 2.03
Infrequency 1.07 4.21 -11.0 ─ 14.0 2.00 2.31
Flexibility .224 2.20 -7.00 ─ 5.00 -2.47 1.66
Note: abs = absolute z-value. According to Field (2009), the sample distribution is considered
non-normal if the absolute z-value of either skewness or kurtosis is larger than 1.96.
Therefore, nonparametric Wilcoxon signed ranks tests (Helsel & Hirsch, 2002) were
carried out to compare the difference of children´s creative performance on these variables
between pretest and posttest.
Alternative Uses Task
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Fostering Children’s Creative Thinking Skills with the 5-I Training Program
As can be seen in Table 2, there was a significant increase on children’s fluency, z =
-2.29, p = .022, indicating that children produced more ideas from pretest to posttest.
Moreover, marginally significant increase was found on infrequency, z = -1.91, p = .056 and
on creativity, z = -1.80, p = .072, suggesting that children tended to produce more novel and
uncommon ideas after the training. In the posttest, no difference was found on flexibility, z =
-1.12, p = .261, that is, children didn’t come up with ideas from more diverse categories.
Drawing task
The results revealed a significant improvement of children’s performance on fluency, z =
-5.68, p = .000, indicating that children made more drawings after the training. Second, the
training revealed a significant improvement on infrequency, z = -2.57, p = .010, suggesting
that the training program improved children’s capacity to generate more novel and uncommon
drawings. Third, there was a significant improvement on elaboration, z = -2.57, p = .010,
meaning that children added more details to the drawings in the posttest. Moreover, there was
a significant improvement for resistance to premature closure, z = -2.55, p = .011, which
indicated that children completed the drawings with more connections and by using complex
lines. While the number of drawing categories (flexibility) generated by children remained
non-significant, z = -.370, p = .712.
Guessing task
After the training, children came up with more answers to the picture, with significant
improvement on fluency, z = -2.09, p = .037. The results also showed that children improved
significantly on infrequency, z = -2.91, p = .004, suggesting that children produced more
novel and uncommon answers in the posttest. However, as in the other two tasks, no
significant increase on flexibility was found, z = -1.61, p = .107.
Table 2.
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Fostering Children’s Creative Thinking Skills with the 5-I Training Program
Wilcoxon signed ranks test results for each variable between pretest and posttest2
Variables Pretest Posttest
Wilcoxon signed ranks
test results
Effect
size
M±SD M±SD Z p r
Alternative Uses Task (N=162)
Fluency 6.07±2.76 6.56±3.33 -2.29 .022 .127
Infrequency 4.06±3.58 4.67±3.85 -1.91 .056 .106
Flexibility 5.03±1.91 5.22±2.31 -1.12 .261 .062
Creativity 2.08±.594 2.20±.688 -1.80 .072 .100
Drawing task (N=162)
Fluency 6.90±3.99 8.63±4.64 -5.68 .000 .316
Infrequency 2.06±2.18 2.83±3.22 -2.19 .028 .122
Flexibility 3.76±1.97 3.67±1.89 -.370 .712 .021
Elaboration 1.48±1.42 1.94±2.01 -2.57 .010 .143
Resistance to premature
closure
1.96±2.27 2.68±3.14 -2.55 .011 .142
Guessing task (N=161)
Fluency 5.49±2.17 5.88±2.45 -2.09 .037 .116
Infrequency 5.93±3.27 6.99±4.37 -2.91 .004 .163
Flexibility 4.61±1.89 4.84±2.05 -1.61 .107 .090
Note: effect sizes: r = 0.1 for small effect, r = 0.3 for medium effect, r = 0.5 for large effect
(Cohen, 1988).
4. Discussion
4.1 Summary of the findings
In the current study, we developed the 5-I creativity training program which consisted of
five components (Inclination, Ideation, Interaction, Identification, and Inspiration) with eight
exercises employed to train children’s creative thinking skills. The effectiveness of the
training program in fostering children’s creative thinking skills, specifically their divergent
2 When checking the skewness and kurtosis values as well as boxplots, all the variables
contained outliers with cases that were more than 1.5 box lengths from the lower or upper
hinge. Although it was reasonable to attribute these extreme values to the training effect, we
conducted a second statistical analyses without outliers to examine whether the findings
would change.
Paired sample t-tests revealed nearly identical findings as described above, except that (1) in
the Alternative Uses Task, comparison of infrequency became statistically significant, t(157)
= 2.14, p = .034; in the drawing task, infrequency became non-significant, t(148) = 1.47, p = .
143, but the mean score of posttest was still higher than that of pretest; (3) in the guessing
task, flexibility showed marginal significance from pretest to posttest, t(159) = 1.93, p = .056.
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Fostering Children’s Creative Thinking Skills with the 5-I Training Program
thinking skills, was scientifically examined. The results showed significant improvements on
all of the measures (i.e., fluency, infrequency, creativity, elaboration and resistance to
premature closure) in the posttest compared to the pretest, except for flexibility. The current
findings confirmed our hypotheses that a 2-hour training program improves children’s
divergent thinking abilities.
The 5-I training program has several benefits. In all the tasks, fluency was significantly
increased after the training. Following the training, children seemed to become more open and
explorative, and thus generated more ideas and drawings. Importantly, besides the increase on
the number of ideas, the training improved the idea quality. In the Alternative Uses Task,
marginal improvements on creativity and on infrequency were observed. In the guessing task,
children made significant improvement on infrequency, and came up with more novel answers
based on the pictures. Similarly, in the drawing task the significant improvement on
infrequency was also found. Children’s drawings generated in the posttest were evaluated as
more novel and unique. Moreover, the drawings were elaborated with more details such as
circles, lines or figures. In addition, children drew more connections and complex lines
outside the given circles or diamonds, and thus led to the improvement on resistance to
premature closure.
No improvement was observed on flexibility. This is in line with earlier creativity
training studies among children (e.g., Garaigordobil, 2006; Dziedziewicz, Oledzka, &
Karwowski, 2013). One reason could be that the cognitive flexibility only increases after a
longer training period, while in the current study the training was only a one session, 2-hour
training. Another explanation might be related to the topic breadth. People are more likely to
think from different perspectives or categories when provided with a broad topic, whereas
tended to generate ideas more within the same category when the topic is narrow (Nijstad, De
Dreu, Rietzschel & Baas, 2010). In our study, all the creative tasks were based on objects,
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Fostering Children’s Creative Thinking Skills with the 5-I Training Program
shapes or events that are familiar to children, which could somehow constrain children to
associate with remote and “out of category” ideas.
4.2 Limitations
We employed a pretest and posttest within-subjects design, without a control group.
Therefore, we cannot rule out the possibility that the observed effects can be ascribed to the
learning effects. However, this is unlikely as two different versions of each task were used and
counterbalanced between the pretest and posttest. Another confounding variable is motivation.
One may argue that children noticed that they were tested, and therefore displayed higher
motivation in the posttest than in the pretest. While in a creativity training study with training
and control conditions, a decrease in the control group was observed from pretest to posttest
(Hoffmann, 2016). In addition, rather than being motivated, there was a possibility of
depletion given that no break was taken in-between the training and the posttest. Thus,
children were likely to become exhausted after 2 hours’ training. In that case, one could also
expect that children´s creative performance became lower in the posttest. But still, as shown
by the current findings, children’s creative performance was improved after the training.
Besides, future research is needed to investigate the long-term effect of the training program.
For example, a third measurement could be employed to test children’s creativity after a few
weeks or months. If the training effect remains significant compared to the pretest, then it
indicates that a short training is effective in enhancing children’s creative thinking skills.
4.3 Conclusions
Taken as a whole, the current findings demonstrate the effectiveness of the 5-I training
program in the development of children’s creativity. Future research could consider
investigating the long-term effect of the 5-I training program. The current study might have
implications for educational settings. This brief and single session training is neither very time
19

Fostering Children’s Creative Thinking Skills with the 5-I Training Program
consuming nor very costly, which provides the possibility to train children’s creativity in
school settings.
20

Fostering Children’s Creative Thinking Skills with the 5-I Training Program
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Gillis Altman, Lieke van den Boom, Rebecca Kahmann, Michiel
Kiggen, Lisanne van der Kruis, Luise Schlindwein, Iris Verpaalen and Anne Vlaanderen for
their help with providing the creativity training. We would like to thank Madelon Gerrits and
Marjo Mierlo for typing children’s handwritten responses into digital format. Finally, we
would like to thank the children who participated in the training.
Funding
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public,
commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
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Fostering Children’s Creative Thinking Skills with the 5-I Training Program
Appendix A.
The theoretical underpinnings of exercises in the 5-I training program
Inclination Ideation Interactio
nIdentification Inspiration
Inspirational videos * **
Finding differences ** *
Figure arrangement * **
Think out of box **
Ambiguous figures **
Perspective taking ** *
SCAMPER ** **
Random connection ** **
Note: In each exercise, ** means a strong focus on a specific component while * means a less strong
focus.
Appendix B.
Training exercise: Perspective taking
22

Fostering Children’s Creative Thinking Skills with the 5-I Training Program
23

Fostering Children’s Creative Thinking Skills with the 5-I Training Program
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