an EduCational ComputEriZEd gamE to train CrEativity FirSt dEvElopmEnt and EvidEnCE oF itS CrEativity CorrElatES Vũ Bích Phượng1 Abstract Creativity, the ability to generate new and useful ideas, is o[.]
AN EDUCATIONAL COMPUTERIZED GAME TO TRAIN CREATIVITY: FIRST DEVELOPMENT AND EVIDENCE OF ITS CREATIVITY CORRELATES Vũ Bích Phượng1 Abstract: Creativity, the ability to generate new and useful ideas, is one of the most desirable employability skills in the twenty-first century Despite this need, creative ideas are scarce because we have a tendency to activate semantically related information and concepts and thus are constrained from producing new, unconventional ideas Thus, we conducted this current study as part of a research project to develop and test a gamification training program that helps the practice of far conceptual combination In this study, a computerized game was programmed in PsyhoPy2, and then validated by correlating 49 participants’ game performances with several creativity measures, including divergent thinking, convergent thinking and insight problem solving The results suggest that divergent thinking is central and necessary for game performance Potential for an effective gamification approach and possible improvements for the game training was finally discussed Keywords: Creative thinking, game training, Divergent thinking, Convergent thinking, Insight problem solving Introduction In the fast-changing and uncertain economic outlook, creative thinking has been one of the top five employability skills of employees that organizations desire (Right Management, 2014) Previous studies have developed several training programs and suggested that creativity can be trained (for example, Feldhusen, Treffinger, & Bahlke, 1970; Im, Hokanson, & Johnson, 2015; McFadzean, 1998; Ritter & Mostert, 2017) Specifically, a meta-analysis on training effectiveness suggested that training programs targeting cognitive components of creativity often yield the best results (Scott, Leritz, & Mumford, 2004a) The objective of this research was to develop a training program that targets the underlying cognitive mechanism of creative thinking In the following paragraphs, the cognitive foundation of this Khoa Tâm lý học, Trường ĐH Khoa học Xã hội Nhân văn - ĐHQG TP Hồ Chí Minh, Email: phuongvu@hcmussh.edu.vn Phần CƠNG NGHỆ VÀ GIÁO DỤC 259 creativity training will be elaborated on Then, several elements and advantages of this computerized game will be specified Creativity commonly refers to the generation and recognition of new and useful ideas (Mumford, 2003) However, creative thoughts happen less often than conventional thoughts due to a cognitive structure called schema, which maps knowledge into domains and categories (Gentner, 1983) A conceptual structure theory proposes that, because of this cognitive mapping of knowledge, concepts (such as objects and events) and their compatible attributes are processed within a single semantic space (Simmons & Barsalou, 2003) This semantic relatedness explains, for example, why we often have the first thought about “apple” as an exemplar of fruit, instead of thinking about technologies (Apple Inc.) Moreover, the more compatible properties the concepts share, the more likely they will be activated together For example, “dog” is related to “cat” because they are both pets, have fur and four legs This tendency to process information in schemas explains why we often reach a common, conventional solution when solving problems However, once problems present information in an unexpected manner, such as in case of riddles, conventional thinking cannot provide alternative perspectives to solve these problems For example, in this riddle: “What goes up and down but does not move?”, “go” and “move” both describe changes in location Therefore, this challenging, unexpected situation requires a newer, more creative approach to solve Instead of thinking about something that goes up and down in terms of positions, it will make more sense if we think about something that increases and decreases (and the answer is “temperature”) Thus, escaping the existing frameworks and proximity of information may facilitate the production of novel ideas, and possibly creative ideas (Sassenberg & Moskowitz, 2005) It is suggested that mental synthesis of previously unrelated concepts can help generate new properties, functions or associations for them (Ward, Smith, & Finke, 1999) This mental synthesis of concepts is known as conceptual combination The novelty of such combinations depend on how distant the concepts are in terms of semantic relatedness (Howard-Jones, Blakemore, Samuel, Summers, & Claxton, 2005), or the degree of incompatible attributes in the parent concepts (Wan & Chiu, 2002) The more distant, dissimilar they are, the more unconventional the conceptual combination is (Chan & Schunn, 2015) It has been found that conceptual combination facilitates divergent thinking, the ability to generate new ideas and a major cognitive process in creativity (Mumford, 2003) In the study of Wan and Chiu (2002), an experimental group who was trained in novel conceptual combination showed significant improvements in the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (Torrance, 1974), a standard test of creativity involving divergent thinking 260 Kỷ yếu Hội thảo quốc tế Các vấn đề khoa học giáo dục: tiếp cận liên ngành xuyên ngành skill, while a control group did not In another study, stories created by using a set of unrelated words were judged as more creative than by a set of related words, suggesting that semantic divergence in combining concepts is necessary for creative thought (Howard-Jones et al., 2005) Given that cognitive training with a focus on unique requirements of creativity is more likely to be effective (Scott et al., 2004b), the computerized game developed in this research will incorporate the practice of conceptual combination to train creative thinking Given the four main accounts to be considered when designing a creativity training program (Scott et al., 2004b) including targeted cognitive process and skill of creativity, means of delivery, training technique and type of exercises Firstly, in terms of targeted cognitive process and skill, the training program in this research focuses on developing conceptual combination and divergent thinking skill This cognitive approach has been shown to have large effect size and high successful rate (Scott et al., 2004b) Secondly, the delivery of our training is computerized and gamified It has been found that game-based learning environment can be entertaining while also engaging the leaners and enhancing their intrinsic motivation (Azriel, Erthal, & Starr, 2005; Hamari et al., 2014; Kang & Tan, 2014) Thirdly, our game training uses visualization as a creativity technique It is suggested that, because visual images can be scanned and mentally transformed, this will benefit the creative thoughts by allowing rapid detection of incompatible properties of objects or events (Finke, 1996) In the literature, the studies which target distant associations to enhance creative thinking have also applied imagery technique (Scott et al., 2004a) Moreover, using universal images can ensure that the training is language independent Therefore, the practice of conceptual combination in the game is based on visual, colored representations of a wide range of concepts, taken from different semantic categories For example, there are “dog” and “fish”, which are typically known as animals, and there are “durian” and “orange”, which are typical fruits This collection of both related (“dog” and “fish”) and unrelated (“fish” and “durian”) concepts will encourage players to visualize and generate associations among them For the final element, type of exercise, we want to make the game domain-unspecific by using colored images of familiar, common concepts that can be encountered every day as training stimuli This means that the skill gained through the exercises can be applied in various settings without specific technical knowledge, making this game training appropriate for the general population Taken together, this research aimed to develop a computerized game, which provides an environment for practicing conceptual combination based on visual representations of concepts The game was programmed in PsychoPy (Peirce, 2007) Phần CÔNG NGHỆ VÀ GIÁO DỤC 261 and several criteria were developed to measure game performance However, due to copyrighted contents, the details of the game will not be discussed in this article In this study, we validated the game by correlating game performance measures with several creativity tests scores We hypothesized that there were positive correlations between game performance and the creativity measures Additional information about the participants’ personalities and their opinions about the game were also collected Method Participants A total of 49 undergraduate university students (40 females) from the University of Social Sciences and Humanities Ho Chi Minh city (USSH), Vietnam, were recruited Their mean age was 20.71 (SD = 2.01) Most of them (94%) were majored in psychology The experiment took approximately one hour to complete and the participants were rewarded with ₫30,000 Creativity measures Prior to the main testing, a pilot study was conducted to develop Vietnamese versions of the testing materials Then these Vietnamese materials were used in this main study Stimuli were programmed in Vietnamese language in PsychoPy (Peirce, 2007) Please note that the details of the Vietnamese tests are not revealed here because they have not been published Divergent thinking Researchers have recognized that creativity is not a single act but a complex phenomenon, involving, but not limited to, generating many ideas and selecting the most creative, suitable idea (Mumford, 2003) Thus, one of the creative processes to be measured in this study was divergent thinking, the ability to generate multiple ideas or solutions The Alternative Uses Test (AUT, Guilford, 1967) is commonly used to evaluate divergent thinking skill In this test, the participants were required to list as many uses for a common object as possible in four minutes All participants were presented with two test versions, a brick and a newspaper The order of the versions were counterbalanced across the participants Following the AUT scoring guidelines (Guilford, Christensen, Merrifield, & Wilson, 1960), performance in the AUT was judged based on how many ideas they could generate (fluency), how flexible the participants were in changing perspectives (flexibility), and how novel and useful the ideas were (creativity) Convergent thinking While divergent thinking is crucial for idea generation, convergent thinking, the ability to select a single best, most correct answer to a problem, is also important for the creative process The Remote Associates Test (RAT, Mednick, 1962) was used to measure convergent thinking skill In this test, a combination of three seemingly unrelated cue words were presented (for example, 262 Kỷ yếu Hội thảo quốc tế Các vấn đề khoa học giáo dục: tiếp cận liên ngành xuyên ngành lapse - vivid - elephant) The participants were asked to find a fourth word that can relate to all the cue words to form three meaningful words (the answer is memory: memory lapse, vivid memory, elephant memory) Because the original version of RAT was in English, a Vietnamese version of RAT was constructed and piloted as mentioned The participants were presented with ten three-word combinations They had 20 seconds to solve each combination, and the order of the combinations was randomized Each correct answer earned one point, while an incorrect score earned zero Insight problems solving Besides idea generation and idea selection, creative thought is also crucial when solving problems, especially insight problems that represent information in an unexpected, challenging manner Although minimal technical knowledge is required, these insight problems can only be solved by overcoming functional fixedness, in which typical thought and perceptions about the problem block awareness of the solution (Batchelder & Alexander, 2012) We used the Duncker’s candle problem (Duncker, 1945) and the Maier’s two-string problem (Maier, 1931) to measure insight problem solving The order of the problems was randomized The participants had three minutes to read and solve each problem Each correct answer received one point while an incorrect answer received a zero Game instruction video Instructions on how to play “The Associates” game was recorded by a video using the built-in screen recording function of Windows 10 In this video, the gaming screen was showed and accompanied with verbal explanations about how to play the game and how to earn scores Demographic data and personalities We collected demographic data such as age, gender and major subject Self-reported creativity was also measured on a Likert scale from (not very creative) to (very creative) A short, standardized version of the Big Five personality scale (Van Eijck, & de Graaf, 2004) was translated into Vietnamese to collect subjective measures of extroversion, friendliness, conscientiousness, emotional stability and openness This questionnaire includes 30 items, in which six items assess each personality trait on a Likert scale from (strongly disagree) to (strongly agree) Feedback for the game.A questionnaire was used to assess whether the instructions for the game were sufficient, and whether the participants enjoyed playing the game It also asks for suggestions and recommendations for improvements This questionnaire includes 10 multiple-choice and short-answer questions Design Thissection briefly describes the game rules and how to score game performance Phần CÔNG NGHỆ VÀ GIÁO DỤC 263 Game rules Given a set of concepts presented as graphic cards, the participants were asked to form as many creative associations between the concepts as possible by placing the cards next to each other The participants could freely associate the concepts using their properties and attributes, although associations based on the color of the images were not encouraged and deemed invalid as real-life concepts may have different colors (for example, a concept card of “apple” may represent a red apple, but in real life apples can be green) They continued develop their connections of ideas Each round of game lasted for 10 minutes and they completed three rounds For each association they made, a verbal explanation was required The computer screen and the participants’ talks while playing the game were recorded for scoring and analysis Scoring game performance Five game performance measures were developed, including fluency, flexibility, and creativity The fluency score was the total number of the cards used to form associations The flexibility score was the total number of associations with valid, comprehendible explanations Each explanation for an association earned one point For example, participant A earns one point by associating “fridge” with “eye glasses”, explaining that they are “things made of metal” In case participant A continues to associate “eye glasses” with “cctv” by the same “metal” explanation again, this does not earn a point A sum score of flexibility was calculated for all participants The higher the score was, the more flexible the participants were in changing perspectives and approaches when forming associations Each explanation for the associations was then given a creativity score This was judged based on the novelty and usefulness of the ideas, on a Likert scale from (not at all creative) to (very creative) To account for the dependence on quantity, a mean score of creativity for each participant was calculated by dividing the sum creativity score by the number of associations This means that the mean score of creativity equaled the sum score of creativity divided by the sum score of flexibility Importantly, 30% of the sample was scored by three Vietnamese raters to analyze the consistency and agreement in judging creativity The inter-rater reliability of the creativity scores was calculated with a two-way random intra-class correlation coefficient analysis and considered substantial (ICC = 0.82) Procedure Recruited participants were welcomed to a quiet lab room at the Faculty of Psychology, USSH The participants sat in front of a computer The order of testing was fixed for all participants, starting with the AUT test, then the RAT test and finally the insight problems Before playing the game, the participants watched the instruction video to understand the game rules and how to play Then, the screen recorder was turned on, and the participants played three rounds of the game in thirty minutes They finished the experiment by completing the demographic questionnaire, the short Big Five, and the game feedback questionnaire Kỷ yếu Hội thảo quốc tế Các vấn đề khoa học giáo dục: tiếp cận liên ngành xuyên ngành 264 Results Divergent thinking and game performance Preliminary tests showed that nonnormal distributions existed for AUT fluency, game density and game intersection These three variables were logarithmically transformed and used throughout the analyses Pearson’s bivariate correlations were performed to examine the relationship between three AUT scores and five game performance measures The results showed that AUT fluency significantly correlated with game fluency (r = 315, p = 029) and game flexibility (r = 390, p = 007) This means that people who generated more ideas in the divergent thinking test also used more concept cards and formed more associations in the game No significant correlations were found between AUT creativity, flexibility and other game performance measures (Table 1) Table Correlations Between Creativity Measures and Game Performance 1 AUT fluency (log) - M SD 81 12 4.33 95 2.59 32 5.24 1.90 24.59 9.93 AUT flexbility 681** - AUT creativity 233 219 - RAT 020 -.016 021 - Game fluency 315* 247 -.150 113 - Game flexibility 390* 200 -.040 115 786** - 17.30 6.77 Game creativity 110 -.059 205 -.178 -.390** -.220 1.00 26 Note *p< 05, ** p< 01 Subsequently, multiple linear regressions were performed to investigate whether game fluency and flexibility can be predicted by AUT fluency Preliminary check showed that all assumptions of independence of errors, homoscedasticity of residuals, absence of multivariate outliers and multicollinearity were met The results showed that AUT fluency positively predicted game flexibility (b = 28.31, p = 013) (Table 2) ... targeted cognitive process and skill of creativity, means of delivery, training technique and type of exercises Firstly, in terms of targeted cognitive process and skill, the training program in this... 259 creativity training will be elaborated on Then, several elements and advantages of this computerized game will be specified Creativity commonly refers to the generation and recognition of. .. (“dog” and “fish”) and unrelated (“fish” and “durian”) concepts will encourage players to visualize and generate associations among them For the final element, type of exercise, we want to make