The Creative Process: The Effects of Domain Specific Knowledge and Creative Thinking Techniques on Creativity

As we move further into the 21st century there are few processes that are more important for us to understand than the creative process. The aim of this thesis is to assist in deepening that understanding. To achieve this a review of the literature is first undertaken. Combining the many different streams of research from the literature results in the development of a four-stage model of the creative thinking process. The four stages are problem definition, idea generation, internal evaluation, and idea expression. While a large range of factors influence the various stages in this model, two factors are identified for further analysis as their effect on creativity is unclear. These two factors are domain-specific knowledge and creative thinking techniques. The first of these factors relates to the first stage of the creative thinking process (problem definition), specifically the extent to which informational cues prime domain specific knowledge that then sets the starting point for the creative combination process. The second factor relates to stage two of the model (idea generation), and the proposition by some researchers and practitioners that creative output can be significantly improved through the use of techniques. While the semantics of these techniques differ, fundamentally all techniques encourage the use of divergent thinking by providing remote associative cues as the basis for idea generation. These creative thinking techniques appear to result in the opening of unusual memory categories to be used in the creative combination process. These two potential influences on the creative outcomes of individuals: 1) domain specific knowledge, and 2) creative thinking techniques, form the basis for an experimental design. Qualitative and quantitative research is undertaken at two of the world's leading advertising agencies, and with two student samples, to identify how creative thinking techniques and domain-specific knowledge, when primed, influence creative outcomes. In order to measure these effects a creative thinking measurement instrument is developed. Results found that both domain-specific knowledge and creative thinking techniques are key influences on creative outcomes. More importantly, results also found interaction effects that significantly extend our current understanding of the effects of both primed domain-specific knowledge and creativity techniques on different sample populations. Importantly, it is found that there is no 'one size fits all' for the use of creative thinking techniques, and to be effectively applied, creative thinking techniques must be developed based upon the respondent's current domain and technique expertise. Moreover, the influence of existing domain-specific knowledge on individual creativity is also dependent upon how that information is primed and the respondent's knowledge of cognitive thinking strategies

Forming Stable Coalitions: The Process Matters

Players are assumed to rank each other as coalition partners. Two processes of coalition formation are defined and illustrated: i) Fallback (FB): Players seek coalition partners by descending lower and lower in their preference rankings until some majority coalition, all of whose members consider each other mutually acceptable, forms. ii) Build-up (BU):Same descent as FB, except only majorities whose members rank each other highest form coalitions. BU coalitions are stable in the sense that no member would prefer to be in another coalition, whereas FB coalitions, whose members need not rank each other highest, may not be stable. BU coalitions are bimodally distributed in a random society, with peaks around simple majority and unanimity the distributions of majorities in the US Supreme Count and in the US House of Representatives follow this pattern. The dynamics of real-life coalition-formation processes are illustrated by two Supreme Court cases.Coalition dynamics, Fallback bargaining, Manipulability, Legislatures, US Supreme Court

Improving the creative process: Analysis of the effects of divergent thinking techniques and domain specific knowledge on creativity

Although creativity may be a subjective construct that we can not evaluate independently of the domain, we may be able to objectively measure a person’s creative thinking processes. The difficulty is that current tests are unable to provide consistent evaluations of individual creative thinking abilities with strong external validity. It is contended that this may be due in part to the measurement constructs being a measure of cognitive processing strategy choice rather than inherent creative thinking abilities alone. Additionally, domain specific knowledge factors may influence creative thinking processes and measures. This article combines a review of the literature with the findings of qualitative research undertaken at two of the world’s leading advertising agencies to identify whether creative thinking techniques, and domain specific knowledge when primed, are key factors influencing creative outcomes. Finally, it develops a creative thinking research instrument that incorporates the findings. Factor and regression analyses were undertaken on the quantitative data with 10 variables loading onto two factors and accounting for more than 60% of the variance explained. Further findings and implications are discussed in the article

ELF: The electronic learning facilitator

As the world‐wide computer network becomes ubiquitous, new tools have been developed, such as the World Wide Web (WWW), for the delivery of multimedia hypertext‐based documents. Similarly, there has been an explosion in the amount of email, bulletin boards, and Usenet News available. This has led to a major problem of information overload: we are slowly but surely being overwhelmed by the amount of information available to us

Single-Peakedness and Disconnected Coalitions

Ordinally single-peaked preferences are distinguished from cardinally singlepeaked preferences, in which all players have a similar perception of distances in some one-dimensional ordering. While ordinal single-peakedness can lead to disconnected coalitions that have a "hole" in the ordering, cardinal single-peakedness precludes this possibility, based on two models of coalition formation: ¥ Fallback (FB): Players seek coalition partners by descending lower and lower in their preference rankings until a majority coalition forms. ¥ Build-Up (BU): Similar to FB, except that when nonmajority subcoalitions form, they fuse into composite players, whose positions are defined cardinally and who are treated as single players in the convergence process. FB better reflects the unconstrained, or nonmyopic, possibilities of coalition formation, whereas BU-because all subcoalition members must be included in any majority coalition that forms-restricts combinatorial possibilities and tends to produce less compact majority coalitions. The "strange bedfellows" frequently observed in legislative coalitions and military alliances suggest that even when players agree on, say, a left-right ordering, their perceptions of exactly where players stand in this ordering may differ substantially. If so, a player may be acceptable to a coalition but may not find every member in it acceptable, causing that player not to join and possibly creating a disconnected coalition.COALITION FORMATION; SINGLE-PEAKEDNESS; LEGISLATURES; ALLIANCES

The Definition, Current Knowledge and Implementation of Welfare for Farm Animals--A Personal View

Being humane to farm animals (welfare) must include (1) having a sound knowledge of their normal and anomalous behavior responses in a farm context and heeding this in a practical way and (2) adopting handling procedures which elicit minimal distress in the species concerned. Building up an ethogram of predictable responses and recording the patterns of behavior during key events, mating, birth, and care of the young are essential. There are still gaps in the recorded ethograms offarm animals. Objective measurements of distress, including an index of its seriousness, are also a priority. The results from animal preference tests can provide some answers on which to base practical husbandry in the areas of housing design, optimal temperatures, the need for companions, factors which elicit aggression, acceptable feeds, and species\u27 sensory capacities. Handling preference tests could also be undertaken. Overcoming inertia is a problem for both the owners and the animals if changes are to be made within established systems of production. Gross cruelty can be countered by legislation, but the motivation for ongoing good welfare of farmed animals must come from within the workers/owners on the site. Trying to force it by legislation may be counter-productive. A five-point program for promoting practical animal welfare is outlined

A five-year review of quality of reporting of research using clinician surveys in high-ranked dermatology journals

Surveys of clinicians play a pivotal role in dermatology research, including to determine expert opinion, identify areas of uncertainty in clinical practice, define research priorities, investigate feasibility and explore areas of clinical equipoise. Despite the commonality of research involving surveys distributed to dermatologists, we previously identified the issue of poor‐quality survey design and lack of sufficient validation prior to distribution. Furthermore, a review of postal surveys of healthcare professionals from 1996 to 2005 has shown declining response rates, introducing potential non‐responder bias. To support stronger methodological quality and reporting of clinician survey, we developed a checklist for authors, based on our experience and published literature

Sharing the construction of assessment rubrics with students: A Model for collaborative rubric construction

Traditionally, rubrics were used simply as grading tools to provide marking frameworks that were transparent to students. More recently, rubrics have been promoted as educational tools to inform students of good practice with the assumption that they engage with these rubrics to guide their learning. However, some tensions arise from this approach, including the assumption that students actually engage with assessment rubrics and, most notably, whether students understand the purpose of rubrics and the language used within. In response, this paper promotes the practice of teachers involving their students in the co-construction of rubrics by presenting a Model of Collaborative Rubric Construction. This Model was informed by an extensive literature review, advice from international assessment experts, and both qualitative and quantitative data from students and teachers who worked in partnership to co-construct and use assessment rubrics across three higher education institutions. The Model, structured as three-tiers, offers background information about rubrics and their co-construction, strategies to guide collaboration in the rubric co-construction process, and shared scholarship associated with the project (i.e., research methods, recommendations for practice, and relevant references and publications) in which the Model was developed