Creative thinking

This dissertation examines the Arthur & Mata Jaffe Center for the Book Arts
(JCBA) at Florida Atlantic University, focusing on creativity. Sixteen artists whose
artwork is collected by the center were chosen to provide an overview of the creative
process of book artists: Susan Allix, Julie Chen, Béatrice Coron, Johanna Drucker,
Timothy Ely, Karen Hanmer, Linda K. Johnson, Marie Marcano, Bea Nettles, Matthew
Reinhart, Robert Sabuda, Susan Joy Share, Keith Smith, Beth Thielen, Carol Todaro, and
Marshall Weber. The artists and the JCBA were selected for this study not only because
these artists‘ books provide a unique opportunity to explore the creative processes of their
makers, since many points of creative decision must be made, but also because artist‘s
books by definition are often conceived, written, designed, printed, and bound by an
individual artist. The list contains several artists who have been important to the historical
development of the artist‘s book or pop-up publishing fields. Their influence ranges in scope from the historical to the international, national, and local, especially in terms of
the JCBA.
This dissertation should be useful to creativity researchers and students of the
book arts because it is the first study to use qualitative research and creativity studies as a
lens to investigate the artifacts and creative processes of artists in the book arts genre, as
well as the first to use the case study approach to examine a book arts center and its
educational practices with the focus of creativity research.
With these goals in mind, concept maps were first created to document the artists‘
internal and external processes of creation, while master composite maps were compiled
to facilitate a meta-analysis of their experienced creativity. The JCBA was then profiled,
and its educational programs, practices, and policies were documented in order to
describe and demonstrate how it encourages the creativity of book artists, as well as how
its creativity-enhancing practices are established and traced into associated organizations.
A model of how the organization does this is proposed and discussed with the intention
of enhancing this effect at the JCBA and in other book arts organizations.

As an undergraduate journalism student, I was taught the “little person, big picture” reportage technique – in essence, using an individual’s story to illuminate a larger issue. In this collection, in which I aim for honesty and relatability, I position myself as the “little person” in essays meant to convey one individual’s experiences and thoughts in hopes of touching another individual who’s gone through similar experiences or had similar thoughts.

This study attempted the answer to two primary questions: (a) Are strategic thinking skills possessed by college students prior to university matriculation related to their academic success in college, and (b) How does the predictive accuracy afforded by these skills compare to that from high school grade point average or standardized test scores?

This study extends and partially replicates an investigation by David W. Courtney, titled The Self-Examination: A Learning Methodology, conducted in 1974 with two groups of students enrolled in an interdisciplinary art course. The original study was adapted to an art appreciation course. The purpose of this study was to reexamine the efficacy of the self-examination (SE) to promote creative thinking and aesthetic perception as well as a favorable student attitude toward the course. The study was conducted with two groups of students enrolled in an art appreciation course at Palm Beach Community College North in the Fall semester of 1989. The experimental group wrote two SEs and the control group wrote one comparison paper and took a multiple-choice examination. Both groups also took multiple-choice quizzes and final examinations. Pretest-posttest analyses of the test for creativity and aesthetic perception, using t-tests, and of the course evaluation, using multivariate tests of significance, indicated no significant difference between the experimental and control groups.

This study analyzed the relationship between brain dominance, gender, and improvement in creative thinking skills. The creative skills studied were fluency, originality, abstractness of titles, elaboration, resistance to closure and the creativity index. In addition to investigating the possible relationships between brain dominance, gender, and improvement in creative thinking skills, the question of whether or not improvement occurred was also examined. Brain dominance was determined by a self-report instrument. This instrument was based upon brain dominance research. The subjects were 63 high school students in grades 9 through 12. These subjects were enrolled in three separate classes. The subjects' ages ranged from 14 to 19 years of age. Subjects were administered the Human Information Processing Survey, a self-report learning style instrument, and the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking, a test of creative thinking skills. The scores on the Human Information Processing Survey were used to determine the subjects' brain dominance. The Torrance Test of Creative Thinking was used in a pretest and posttest design as a measure of improvement of the creative thinking skills. The results of this study indicated a significant improvement for selective creative thinking skills following a four week series of special activities. Significant relationships with brain dominance and gender were found between specific creative thinking skills.

Problem. The problem of this study was to investigate the effects of an administrative plan for excellence in creative arts experiences on the development of creativity in first graders. For purposes of this study, an administrative plan for excellence in creative arts experiences for first graders was developed and implemented. Procedures. A pretest of the Torrance Figural Tests of Creative Thinking was administered to the first grade population of Northboro Elementary School prior to implementation of the ten-week administrative plan for excellence in creative arts experiences. A Torrance post-test was administered upon completion of the creative arts experiences. To determine the significance of mean gain score differences on the dimensions of fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration of thinking, the data were subjected to one-way analysis of covariance. The .05 level of significance was selected on which to evaluate the results. Two covariates, the Torrance pretest and the Otis-Lennon School Ability Test, were used in the design. Findings. The mean gains in originality and elaboration of thinking, based on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, of children participating in the creative arts experiences and children not participating in the creative arts experiences differed significantly during the ten-week period. No mean gains in fluency and flexibility of thinking, based on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, were made by the experimental group or the control group during the ten-week period. Recommendations. An administrative plan for excellence in creative arts experiences encompassing an entire school year could be developed. An in-service program designed to raise the level of awareness regarding the significance of developing children's creative thinking skills could be offered for teachers and administrators. A replication of this study at the same grade level or at another primary grade level could provide useful input to be utilized in the planning of arts programs which contribute to the development of creativity in children. An administrative model which would promote the combining of the creative arts with the other disciplines could be developed.