Some Key Issues in Creativity Research and Evaluation as Seen From a Psychological Perspective

Creative Practices Embodied, Embedded, and Enacted in Architectural Settings: Toward an Ecological Model of Creativity

“…Scientists acknowledge that creativity is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that cannot be fully understood from the perspective of a singular approach or domain of study ( Runco, 2007 ; Sawyer, 2012 ), yet the physical context of creativity has received relatively little attention in the literature ( Hunter et al, 2007 ; Dul et al, 2011 ). In fact, much research conducted over the past century has focused only on certain aspects of creativity ( Fryer, 2012 ), organized by Rhodes (1961) as the Four Ps : Person, Product, Process, and Press (environments supporting creativity). Within the press research strand there have been some efforts to understand how creative performance results from interactions between different dimensions of creativity, including social (but not physical) environments 2 .…”

“…His model describes creativity as conscious (explicit) and subconscious (intuitive) mental processes involving stages of: (1) preparation, where knowledge is acquired; (2) incubation, a period of rest when knowledge is subconsciously restructured; (3) illumination, a moment of insight; and (4) verification, when an idea is evaluated and possibly applied. The Wallas model continues to be extensively referenced 5 in the creativity literature despite criticisms it (a) neglects to identify all sub-processes of creativity and (b) does not adequately explain relationships between stages including how people sequence between them ( Lubart, 2001 ; Fryer, 2012 ). This paper argues another limitation is it reduces creativity to mental operations, giving little consideration for physically situated processes.…”

Wallas’ Four-Stage Model of the Creative Process: More Than Meets the Eye?

“…both Wallace and Darwin to desist from mental activity and thereby engage involuntarily in Incubation. Wallas argued further that the mental relaxation required in Incubation may benefit from, or even require, physical exercise (as in both Helmholtz's and Poincaré's experiences) and that that "the human organism gains more from the alternation of various forms of activity than from a constant devotion to one of them" (Wallas, 1926, p.90 (Fryer, 2012;Lubart, 2001;Sadler-Smith, 2008 'association-train' in a state of rising consciousness "which indicates that the fully conscious flash of success is coming" (Wallas, 1926, p.97). In support of this Wallas offered the account of a "high English civil servant" who related to him his personal experience that "I often know that the solution is coming, though I don't know what the solution will be" (ibid.).…”

“…Although some creativity researchers have proposed finer granularities (e.g. Cropley & Cropley, 2005, 2012Doyle, 1998) most have adhered to the basic framework to the extent that the four-stage model has the status of shared 'in-house' assumption (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2011) amongst creativity researchers. Given this state of affairs it is perhaps worth taking stock and examining more closely Wallas' writings Graham Wallas was born in Sunderland, England on 31 st May, 1858 and educated at Shrewsbury School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he obtained a second class degree in Literae Humaniores (Classics) in 1881.…”

Finding creative processes in learning design patterns

“…Creativity has received less attention in the discourse (Swirski, 2012), and become somewhat invisible (Jackson, Oliver, Shaw, & Wisdom, 2006). Yet creativity requires both generative and analytical thinking skills (Fryer, 2012), and in Bloom's revised taxonomy of learning outcomes (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001), creativity is credited with being the most complex of all cognitive activities.…”