Creativity is a cognitive process that results from trying solutions to problems. It involves producing something new and useful. The creative process includes preparation, incubation, insight, evaluation, and elaboration. Tests like Guilford's Alternate Uses Task and Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking assess divergent thinking skills like fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration. Characteristics of creative individuals include openness to experience and cognitive disinhibition. Fostering creativity requires encouraging self-expression, rewarding novel ideas, and adopting innovative teaching methods.

1. CREATIVITY
DR SHIVA SHUKLA,
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
CENTRAL UNIVERSITY OF PUNJAB, BATHINDA

2. CREATIVITY : HOW IT WORKS
• Creativity - measurable cognitive process that results from trials on finding
solution to a problem
• Comes in form of an idea and hence a cognitive process
• Creative idea comes as a result of trying to find a solution to a problem
• Involves producing something new and of value
• Extends till solution to a problem is not achieved
• Creative idea is always a) useful, and b) purposeful
• Creativity can be of a) an intangible, or b) a physical product
• Creativity is NOT inventing and producing ideas out of a vacuum but building
up on existing ideas and replacing them
• Both hereditary and environmental factors effect an individual’s Creativity
• It can be developed in a conducive environment

3. CREATIVE PROCESS: DEVELOPMENT OF AN
IDEA
• Preparation: becoming familiar and gathering relevant material that is of area
of interest, would include activities like a) perceiving the idea, b) modifying the
problem and, c) suspending the judgement
• Incubation: allowing ideas to grow in the mind giving it proper thought and
process
• Insight: moment of awareness when the problem starts to makes sense and
then
• Evaluation: a) taking time to make sure that the insight provides sufficient
value to outweigh the various costs involved in implementation, b) sticking with
the idea, and c) selecting the best conclusion
• Elaboration: creating a plan to implement the solution and following it through
and accepting the uncertainty of the results

4. DIVERGENT THINKING
• Coming up with as many ideas as possible
• Thinking Divergently is ability to generating large number of alternative responses
including original, unexpected and unusual ideas, giving multiple truths to a reality
• Guilford (1967) Alternate Response Test
• Divergent thinking is flow of ideas that are open-ended and that lead in many
directions (Torrance, 1992; Kim, 2006)
• Divergent thinking is stimulated by open-ended questions i.e. questions with many
possible answers, such as the following:
How many possible uses can be of a coffee mug ?
How unusually can one use a construction brick ?

5. REFLECTING ON CREATIVITY
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6. GUILFORD’S
ALTERNATE USES
TASK FOR
CREATIVE
RESPONSES (1966,
1974)
Fluency of Ideas:
How Many
Originality:
Unusual Uses
Flexibility: Types
Elaboration : Detail

7. GUILFORD’S ALTERNATE USES TASK CREATIVE
RESPONSES
• Four aspects of divergent thinking:
1. Fluency: The total number of interpretable, meaningful, and relevant
ideas generated in response to the stimulus
2. Flexibility: the number of different categories or shifts in responses
3. Originality: the number of unusual yet relevant ideas and the
statistical rarity of the responses
4. Elaboration: The amount of detail used to extend a response

8. TORRANCE TEST OF CREATIVE THINKING
• Torrance (1962) grouped the different subtests of the Minnesota Tests of Creative
Thinking (MTCT) into three categories.
a) Verbal tasks using verbal stimuli: unusual uses task, impossibilities task, consequence
task, just guess task, situation task, common problem task, improvement task, Mother-
Hubbard problem, imaginative stories task, cow-jumping problems
b) Verbal tasks using non-verbal stimuli: Ask and guess task, product improvement task,
unusual uses task
c) Non-verbal tasks: incomplete figure task, picture task, circle and square task, creative
design task
• 3rd edition of TTCT(1984) eliminated the Flexibility and added Resistance to
Premature Closure and Abstractness of Titles as two new criterion
• 1) fluency, 2) originality, 3) elaboration, 4) abstractness of titles, and 5) resistance to
premature closure

9. TORRANCE
TEST FOR
CREATIVE
THINKING (1962)
Fluency of Ideas:
How Many
Originality:
Unusual
Flexibility: Types
Elaboration : Detail

10. TTCT (1984)
• Fluency: The number of relevant ideas, represented as ability to produce a number of
figural images
• Originality: The number of statistically infrequent ideas; shows an ability to produce
uncommon or unique responses. The scoring procedure counts the most common
responses as 0 and all other legitimate responses as 1. The originality lists have been
prepared for each item on the basis of normative data, which are readily memorized by
scorers.
• Elaboration: The number of added ideas, demonstrates the subject’s ability to develop and
elaborate on ideas
• Abstractness of Titles: The degree beyond labelling, based on the idea that creativity
requires an abstraction of thought. It measures the degree a title moves beyond concrete
labelling of the pictures drawn
• Resistance to Premature Closure: The degree of psychological openness, based on the
belief that creative behaviour requires a person to consider a variety of information when
processing information and to keep an “open mind”

11. CREATIVE STRENGTH : TORRANCE
Thirteen criterion-referenced
measures:
1. Emotional Expressiveness
2. Story-Telling
3. Articulateness
4. Movement or Actions
5. Expressiveness of Titles
6. Synthesis of Incomplete
Figures
7. Synthesis of Lines or of
Circles
8. Unusual Visualization,
9. Extending or Breaking
Boundaries
10. Humour
11. Richness of Imagery
12. Colourfulness of Imagery,
and
13. Fantasy

12. TEST FOR CREATIVITY
•Minnesota/Torrance Test of Creative Thinking
•Remote Association Test
•Unusual Uses Test
•Consequence Test
•Anagram Test

13. CHARACTERISTICS OF CREATIVE PERSON
• High in Openness to Experience on Big
Five Personality Test
• Cognitive Disinhibition: allows a person
to see what others overlook
• Big-C (creativity considered to be
great) : Creativity have a gestation
period, needs to be taught and nurtured
e.g. Einstein had to learn physics and
mathematics
• Creative thinkers are highly
individualistic, independent and
inventive (Mackinnon,1962)
• Interest in new and complex ideas and
less control over impulses
• Creativity have a positive correlation
with sense of humour
• Intelligence is necessary but not
sufficient condition for creativity
• Creative thinkers are more self
assertive than the norm and display
dominance due to presence of high
logical ability
• Score high for Divergent Thinking

14. Creative
Personality
Checklist-
Gough (1979):
Out of 300
traits in the
checklist only
these 30 were
marked

15. NEED FOR CREATIVITY
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16. SKILLS TO SURVIVE 21ST CENTURY
•Think Divergently: generating large number of
alternative responses including original, unexpected
and unusual ideas, multiple truths
•Think Creatively: generating ideas that are new as
well as useful, productive, and appropriate
•Think Critically: generating ideas that are clear and
rational about what one believes in

18. FOSTERING CREATIVITY
Co-operation
Collaboration
Critical Thinking
Communication
Creativity

19. TEACHING TO ENABLE CREATIVITY
• Encourage Self-Expression
• Reward new and innovative ideas
• Do not refrain from controversial ideas and open dialogue in the class
• Make learner’s cognizant about the original idea and theoretical and conceptual background
• Provide space to the learner to manipulate tangible(products) and intangible(idea) items
• Adopt new and innovative methods within the classroom transactions
• Sensitize and aware learners of all the stimulus
• Build capacity of constructive criticism
• Suggest techniques to overcome inhibitions and negative experiences
• Encourage to materialize their ideas
• Aware complete implications of their ideas

20. SUGGESTED BEHAVIOUR TO FACILITATE
CREATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING
Defining the Problem : have three parts- an initial statement, solution path and goal
Categorizing problem solving: 1) knowledge lean problems 2) knowledge rich problem,
3) well-defined problem, 4) ill-defined problem, 5) semantically lean problem, 6)
semantically rich problem, and 7) insightful problem
Understanding the problem: question the assumptions, concept mapping, taking varied
views in consideration, specific knowledge
Seeking different perspectives: different disciplines, culture, gender
Creative Strategies: brain storming, creative problem solving, negative brain storming,
association techniques, mind mapping, cause and effect analysis, taking notes,
doodles etc.

21. ATTRIBUTIONS
• https://www.flickr.com/photos/stefras/10618132223/in/album-
72157637207627304/
• https://www.flickr.com/photos/stefras/10618235054/in/album-
72157637207627304/
• http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zBXTpK8OrHo/ULDetBZ0e1I/AAAAAAAAA-
8/QmDi98_mgfI/s320/create.jpg
• https://c.pxhere.com/images/13/5d/fa91e2624012d0dd6acbfbd29791-
1457917.jpg!d