This is the text of the 24th Vernon-Wall lecture to be presented at the annual meeting of the

Education Section of the British Psychological Society, Glasgow, November 6, 2004.

It was published by the BPS as

Cropley, A. J. (2005). Problem-solving and creativity: Implications for classroom assessment.

Leicester, UK: British Psychological Society.

Creativity and problem solving: Implications for classroom asssessment

Arthur Cropley

University of Hamburg

Arthur Cropley
Unit 3, 120 South Terrace
Adelaide, SA 5000
Australia
Email: ajcropley@[Link]
 2

Summary

Discussions of problem-solving not infrequently neglect four processes that are at the core of

“creative” problem-solving: finding problems, generating novelty, defining solutions, and

recognizing solutions. Furthermore, the problem itself influences the likelihood of creative

solutions: In particular, “overdefined” problems inhibit creativity. It is also possible to focus on

the product, distinguishing for instance between “routine,” “original,” “elegant,” and

“innovative” solutions. This involves specifying aspects of solutions that are favourable for

creativity, such as diagnosis, redefinition, surprisingness, harmoniousness, and germinality.

On the basis of these considerations, guidelines can be worked out for setting assignments in

classroom teaching at all levels, and indicators identified that make it possible for teachers to

assess in a consistent, understandable way the amount of creativity in students’ work, as well

as to indicate areas of strength and weakness.

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Creativity and problem solving: Implications for classroom assessment

Arthur Cropley

University of Hamburg

Guilford, the initiator of the modern era (e.g., 1950), described creativity as problem-solving,

and concluded (1959) that the creative process has four stages:

● recognition that a problem exists;

● production of a variety of relevant ideas;

● evaluation of the various possibilities produced;

● drawing of appropriate conclusions that lead to the solution of the problem.

Over the years, other writers too such as Newell, Shaw and Simon (1962) or Isaksen, Dorval

and Treffinger (1994) have linked creativity with problem-solving. In this paper, I will focus

on four aspects of Guilford’s outline listed above:

(a) defining the problem;

(b) defining the solution;

(c) producing solutions;

(d) recognizing a solution when one occurs.

Striking in Guilford’s approach is that the idea of “creativity” does not seem at first

glance to add much to understanding the steps in problem-solving given in his list. Indeed,

Land questioned the need for any such concept as “creativity” at all. He argued that he had

invented the polaroid camera by possessing detailed knowledge of relevant aspects of

photochemistry, applying logical thinking to these in order to proceed to a solution (a camera

that developed and printed its own pictures instantly), and possessing the energy to work

untiringly on solving the problem. At almost the beginning of the moden era, the cognitive

psychologist Campbell (1960) questioned whether there was any such thing as creativity and

by 1970, when a body of evidence based on differing samples and tests had accumulated,

Wallach (1970) argued that there was no need for a factor “creativity” to explain divergent
 4

thinking. By the 1990s, Milgram (1990) even asked whether creativity might not be a concept

whose time had come and gone. What then is the link between creativity and problem-solving,

apart from a vague notion that creativity helps, or the view that problem-solving is inherently

creative and no further discussion is therefore needed?.

Creative problem solving

In answering my own question I will distinguish between “creative” and “ordinary” problem-

solving. I will focus on the four elements I introduced above: discovering the problem, and

defining, generating, and recognizing the [Link] crucial thing about creative problem-

solving is that, in contrast to “ordinary” problem-solving, the problem is not specified exactly,

the nature of the solution is largely open, the pathway to the solution is not specified, and the

criteria for recognizing a solution are open.

1. Defining the problem—problem finding

At least until the dawning of the modern creativity era, the idea of problem-solving was

encapsulated in intelligence testing: The person being tested is presented with a clearly defined

problem, about which there is no ambiguity and for which there is a known answer (i.e., the

solution to the problem is already known). If the person taking the test does not already know

the answer, it can be worked out by applying known techniques or logic (i.e., the pathway to

the solution is known). The examiner merely has to check whether or not the person has given

the one and one only correct answer (which is to be found in the test manual). Becoming good

at this was, by and large, what was regarded as the purpose of teaching and learning, and of

course, was emphasized in setting and marking assignments.

However, from the beginning of modern interest in creativity some writers argued that

the special thing about creative problem-solving is that it involves not solving well-defined

problems that have already been constructed by somebody else, but clarifying ill-defined

problems in a process of finding or defining your own problems (e.g., Torrance, 1965).

Creativity researchers spoke of “problem awareness,” “problem recognition” and the process of
 5

“problem finding” or “problem definition”. As Dillon (1982) pointed out, problem finding is

not as straightforward as might seem: It is possible to distinguish between recognizing

problems that are already evident in the present organization of available information and are

obvious to any qualified observer, discovering hidden problems, and inventing problems. In

modern times, it has been recognized that invented problems have most to do with creativity

(Jay and Perkins, 1997), and Mumford and co-workers (1996) identified “problem

construction” as one of the main cognitive processes involved in creative problem-solving.

A simple example of the first kind of problem from our field (the obvious problem that

is the same for everybody and inevitably leads to the one and one only correct answer—or is

unsolvable for people without the necessary knowledge and/or reasoning skills) is to be seen in

standardized achievement tests. The instructions to these tests often contain elaborate details

that have the purpose of excluding any uncertainty about what is required. In my terms, the

tester’s intention is to exclude the possibility of any test candidate discovering or inventing a

[Link] is a payoff to defining the problem in a highly circumscribed manner and

precluding problem-finding, i.e., in concentrating on “ordinary” problem-solving—for the

problem solver it simplifies the search for a solution and for the assessor it standardizes the

kind of solution likely to be reached. In education, such problems are greatly admired by

testers and examiners, since all relatively knowledgable persons being tested quickly recognize

what is required by the problem, and confine themselves to the limited range of possible

solutions implied by the problem’s definition—indeed, it is quite possible, or even usual, that

there may only be a single answer. Even those who do not possess sufficient knowledge to

solve the problem usually play by the rules.

This greatly simplifies scoring and grading, and eliminates arguments about the

accuracy of assessment. However, such problems discourage creativity. From the point of view

of creative problem-solving, they are overdefined. None the less, it is extremely hard for

teachers to break away from the habit of overdefining the problem. The majority of students
 6

like such problems (despite what they may say to the contrary), because in effect, the solution

is also overdefined,.since there is always an answer. This is known to the teacher who has

already given guidance on how to find it, or can give such guidance on request, and the

learners’ task is clearcut (learn the “facts” by heart), even if many of them do not relish the

idea of doing the necessary work. For students who are extrinsically motivated (they seek

simply to pass the exam, regardless of contents) or achievement motivated (they wish to get the

best possible grade), such problems are ideal, even if they discourage the deep learning of

intrinsically motivated students, who wish to understand the structure of the discipline.

Tardiff and Sternberg (1988) also stressed the importance in creativity of sensitivity to

problems, but went further and emphasized an additional element of problem-finding: finding

good problems. Getzels and Csikszentmihalyi (1976) concluded that this is as much the case in

artistic as in scientific creativity. A striking example of both these aspects of creative problem-

solving is Einstein’s recognition that existing theories of electrodynamics were inadequate in

dealing with moving bodies. He (a) “invented” a problem where others saw none, and (b)

identified the “good” aspect of this problem. This quickly led to the special theory of relativity,

revealed the need for a general theory of relativity, and ultimately resulted in lasting fame. In

terms of the hierarchy I will introduce below, “good” problems are those that not only provoke

a helpful answer to a specific situation, but also yield or even require what I call “elegant” and

“generalizable” solutions, i.e., they lead on to new things that go beyond the present situation.

Solutions to the “best” problems lead to Nobel prizes and similar awards.

However, problem-finding is not as straightforward as might be thought. Sosa and Gero

(2003) recently argued that many creative products are developed “to satisfy the needs of …

social groups”. As I see it, the “needs” may be concrete and down-to-earth, such as cheaper

power, or a cure for a particular disease, but they may also be more general such as better

educational methods or more beautiful ways of combining colours on canvas, or more abstract

such as improved ways of expressing feelings through music. Generally, the “social groups”
 7

whose needs must be satisfied are (a) people who are knowledgable in a domain—specialists or

experts, or (b) users of the domain—people who are in some way affected by it. The people

who are motivated to solve the problem are most commonly active in the domain as

practitioners, experts, researchers, and the like. Those who have no contact with an area,

seldom (although perhaps not never) experience the need for solutions to problems or produce

solutions in that domain.

Where there is no awareness that a problem exists, there will be no problem-finding, no

drive to produce solutions, and no creative problem-solving. A simple example is the area of

design: A common artefact may be awkward to use and ineffective, perhaps even dangerous.

However, it may be so familiar to so many people that everybody has become accustomed to

its disadvantages, and may be able to use it very effectively, despite the disadvantages and

inconvenience. In this case there is no pressure to introduce effective novelty and, in a sense,

no problem, no matter how bad the design may be. An example is the automobile. The internal

combustion engine is inefficient and wastes energy, cars are very dangerous, and they pollute

the environment. However, novelty in automobile design is limited to tinkering with details,

and no genuinely radical originality has been seen since the introduction of the horseless

carriage about 120 years ago. Problem awareness is limited to the issue of how to polish what

already exists. Solutions that emerge in this area are not what I would call “good” solutions,

since they are in essence dead ends.

A further, simple, everyday example can be taken from my experiences in Canada in

the 1960s and 1970s. I was astonished to find that people baked using plain flour, to which

baking soda had to be added. They did not see the need to add baking powder as a

disadvantage or inconvenience, and were amazed when I told them about the self-raising flour

I was accustomed to using in Australia. Lack of knowledge of any alternative and sheer

familiarity with what already existed led to a situation where there was no problem awareness

and no pressure to improve things. (Interestingly, self-raising flour was introduced briefly in
 8

the 1970s, but did not sell well, and was removed from sale. People were so accustomed to the

inconvenient version that they resisted changing to the more convenient. No problem

awareness meant no solution pressure, and no solution pressure meant no generation of

effective novelty.)

As the plain flour example shows, there may be a tension between the society’s

problem awareness and that of individuals. The problem may be apparent only to people who

are well informed in an area (sometimes even only to one person, as in the Einstein example

already given), because it arises from a discrepancy between what already exists and what

these people think things should be like, not from a publicly perceived problem—only

knowledgable insiders are dissatisfied and experience the urge to produce a creative solution

(when Einstein was dissatisfied with existing theories of thermodynamics, others were

experiencing no such dissatisfaction, and thus perceived no problem). In this case, lack of

problem awareness inhibits creativity. This suggests that a culture of problem awareness would

foster creativity. This could be in school, but also in higher education or in organizations such

as companies or factories.

2. “Creative” solutions

Even creative solutions to problems must be “appropriate,” “correct,” “useful,” or

“valuable”, as Amabile and Tighe (1993, p. 9) put it. Poincaré made the same point more than

100 years earlier, and Bruner (1962) referred to the necessity of relevance and effectiveness.

But appropriateness and correctness are required in conventional solutions too: You do not get

many points on an IQ test or on a conventional school achievement test for irrelevant, incorrect

answers, nor in the real world either. At the practical level, this is particularly obvious in

domains such as engineering, where usefulness and similar properties are easy to define and

are uncompromisingly expected (with a few exceptions, as will be discussed below). How,

then, does creativity go beyond correctness, appropriateness, or usefulness to expand the idea

of a solution?
 9

It seems more or less self-evident that the first characteristic of a creative solution to a

problem is novelty—creativity always leads to something new, as Morgan (1953) pointed out at

the beginning of the modern creativity era. However, novelty, unexpectedness, surprisingness,

and the like are not required for “ordinary” problem-solving, and indeed, are likely to be

rejected or punished. Creativity thus expands the idea of “solution” by adding the criterion of

novelty. The order of the criteria “relevance and effectiveness” and “novelty” is not arbitary:

Although novelty seems intuitively to take precedence over effectiveness in any discussion of

creativity, my view is that in the case of problem-solving there can be no discussion of

creativity without first dealing with the issue of relevance and effectiveness. To take a simple

example, a bridge must first solve the problem of getting traffic across a river. If it does not do

what the engineers were hired to build it for, it does not solve the problem, no matter how

beautiful or how surprising it is. In this sense, creative problem-solving may well differ from

other forms of creativity such as aesthetic creativity, where novelty may well have precedence.1

There may even be a conflict between the two ways of looking at a solution to a

problem. A famous example in my homeland is the Sydney Opera House. After several

decades it is still hailed as a piece of extraordinary architectural creativity, because of its high

level of novelty: For instance, it introduced novel design principles and new building

techniques that are still being used today. Its only fault is that it is a less than optimal solution

to the problem of large-scale staging of operas, the purpose for which it was originally

commissioned! Critics who dwell on this (i.e., who place relevance and effectiveness before

novelty) and insist that the opera house should be capable of doing what it was built for

(provide a venue for grand opera) are dismissed as soulless curmudgeons by those who give

preference to the criterion of novelty.

1
Although the idea of problem-solving is most obvious in, let us say, engineering, where the problem may be concrete,
specific, easily evaluated, and so on, in principle, I see the task of an artist, a sculptor, a musician, a poet, a novelist,
or similar workers in aesthetic domains as also amenable to discussion in terms of problem-solving: For instance, how
can a feeling or an emotion be expressed in an effectively novel way?
 10

In aesthetic creativity the relationship in solutions between relevance and effectiveness,

on the one hand, and novelty, on the other, may be more or less open, or even favour novelty at

the expense of effectiveness. However, in the case of practical problem-solving, effectiveness

is essential: Otherwise the “official” problem has not been solved, although some other

problem may have been solved on the side (as in the case of the Sydney Opera House). Jackson

and Messick (1965) made a helpful distinction in this context: They distinguished between the

“internal” relevance and effectiveness of a product and its “external” relevance and

effectiveness. The novelty and beauty of the Opera House are aspects of its internal creativity,

the question of whether it actually works as an opera house is related to its external creativity.

In discussing the creativity of products various researchers have gone beyond novelty.

Taylor (1975), for instance focused on generation, reformulation, originality, relevancy,

hedonics, complexity and condensation. Besemer and O’Quin (1999) added resolution (the

product is valuable, logical, useful and understandable) and elaboration and synthesis (the

product is organic, elegant, complex and well crafted). I thus propose two additional criteria of

creative problem solutions, in addition to effectiveness and novelty:

• Elegance: Einstein argued that it is not difficult to find novel solutions to problems:

The difficult part is finding solutions that are elegant (see Miller, 1992). Grudin

(1990) reinforced this idea when he referred to “the grace of great things [my italics]”.

What Grudin was referring to is what might be called the “internal” elegance (see the

reference above to Jackson and Messick, 1965) of the product (it is well worked out,

logical and complete). Creative solutions cause surprise in beholders (Bruner, 1962)

and possibly a more or less instantaneous “shock of recognition”, even provoking a

“Why didn’t I think of that?” or an “Of course; it’s obvious!”reaction. Indeed, an

elegant solution may be so obviously just right that—after the fact—viewers may

underrate its creativity or denigrate it as banal. This is possibly the highest praise

that can be conferred on a solution to a problem! Rechtin and Maier (1997) quoted
 11

Wernher von Braun’s aphorism: “The eye is a fine architect. Believe it!” This

principle captures what is intuitively understood by many problem-solvers—good

solutions often look like good solutions, or to put it slightly differently, they possess

not only “internal” (see above), but also “external” elegance.

• Generalizability: In 1605 Francis Bacon developed a binary cipher using only

five bit combinations of the letters a and b, thus showing that complex messages

could be represented without loss of information, using only two values. Gottfried

Leibnitz built on this to invent the binary number system late in the same century.

The two could scarcely have conceived of modern computers, but they laid the

foundation for modern digital computing. This is a dramatic example of

generalizability.

The special quality of generalizable solutions is that they not only solve a particular

problem, but also

• solve problems in other apparently unrelated situations (i.e., they are transferable to

other situations, whether or not the problem solver intended this at the time);

• introduce a new way of conceptualizing a whole area, or open up new approaches to

existing problems, possibly in many areas (i.e., they are germinal);

• demonstrate the existence of previously unnoticed problems and suggest the need for

new work (i.e. they are seminal);

• lay a foundation for later solutions to new problems, although the original problem-

solver may have had no idea of the future problems (i.e., they are foundational).

One way of classifying problem solutions is to use the four dimensions just listed to arrange

them in a hierarchy ranging from the “routine” solution (characterized by effectiveness

alone) at one pole to the “innovative” solution (characterized by effectiveness, novelty,

elegance and generalizability) at the other, with “original” and “elegant” solutions between

these poles. This relationship is shown in Table 1 (see next page), where a plus sign means
 12

that a property is necessary for this kind of solution, a minus sign that it is not. The

schematic in Table 1 can also be used to demonstrate the position of “aesthetic” creativity,

where the only necessary property of solutions seems to be novelty. Additional properties

may or may not be present. The table shows that each solution higher in the hierarchy

incorporates all the properties of those at lower levels, but adds something to them.

According to our criteria, routine solutions to products are not creative, because the second

necessary criterion (novelty) is missing. This does not mean, however, that such solutions

are useless.

The hierarchical organization of products shown in Table 1 introduces an important

principle into the discussion of problem solving: Creativity is not an all-or-nothing quality

of a solution, but there are levels and kinds of creativity. It is not something that solutions

either have or do not have. Different solutions can have creativity to greater or lesser

degrees, or they can display different kinds of it. I have already suggested different labels

for different kinds of creative solution (“original,” “elegant,” “innovative”), while the

hierarchical organization of these kinds of creativity means that there are also levels of

creativity (innovative solutions are more creative than elegant ones, while elegant solutions

are more creative than original ones).

Table 1. The hierarchical organization of products

Kind of Solution

Criterion
Routine Original Elegant Innovative Aesthetic

Effectiveness + + + + ?
Novelty - + + + +
Elegance - - + + ?
Generalizability - - - + ?
 13

A simple case study gives an idea of the usefulness of this approach for assessing the

creativity of solutions to problems. University students complained about experiencing

discomfort in the classroom because the desks—even the “large” ones—were too small for

some of them.2 On the other hand, simply increasing the desks’ size was not the answer, since

very large desks would be too large for smaller students. A special team was formed to solve

the problem. The team’s members concluded that there were three issues:

1. The desks needed to fit both small and large people;

2. They needed to be able to prevent pencils rolling off onto the floor;

3. A cup holder was needed on the desks.

After a brainstorming session the team designed an expanding desk that could be adjusted

according to the size of the user. The top had grooves for pencils and a hole bored in it as a cup

holder. When the desk was built it was found to work so well that the team began the process

of obtaining a patent.

In discussing this case, Vielot (2001) posed a series of important questions about the

solution to the desk problem. Modified for our purposes, these are:

1. Where did the creativity lie?

2. Just because the desk proved to be useful, can it be said that the ideas involved in

designing it were creative?

3. Are other desks that may well have involved a good idea nonetheless not creative

because they did not get built?

Vielot himself made a number of interesting points. If the desk itself is the creativity, what

is it about it that is creative? The individual parts are not new: Sliding mechanisms are not

new, nor are grooves for pencils or holes for holding cups. The whole desk is not new

either, nor is its function, since we are perfectly familiar with sitting at desks. Unusual is
2
This case was posted on the website [Link]/forum/[Link] by Jacques Vielot. The site is dedicated
to the “Forum on creativity in engineering education” of the International Journal of Engineering Education.
 14

that the desk is adjustable, but the basic idea of adjustability is not new. How then was

creativity involved in the design and construction of the adjustable desk?

The desk was relevant and effective—it did what its designers wanted it to do. However,

effectiveness alone produces only routine solutions. Simply being built and proving useful did

not make the desk creative. Fortunately, it displayed an additional property—it was adjustable.

Adjustable desks are not commonplace. Thus, in addition to effectiveness the design displayed

novelty. The minimum requirements were met, and it is possible to say that the desk was an

“original” solution in the sense of Table 1. An adjustable desk may even possess a certain degree

of elegance—it would probably be “neater” than a device with, let us say, several different seats

and footrests, in some kind of staircase or stepladder arrangement: The desk earns a ? in this

category. The presence of generalizability is highly questionable: Does the design help us to see

desks in a new light? What new lines of attack are offered by the adjustable desk (germinality)?

What new problems or issues did it reveal (seminality)? Does it suggest spin-offs in other areas

(was it foundational)? In my view the solution’s creativity is limited to originality—a low level

of creativity. In analyzing and evaluating their own solution to the desk problem, the students

would be advised to attempt to increase its elegance and generalizability. Thus, it can be seen

that the concept of creativity makes it possible to define the solution to a problem in a novel way,

permitting a differentation of the idea of “solution”.

3. The creative problem-solving process

In my own early work I concentrated on the second element in the list in the first

section—the process of constructing solutions. Guilford had already offered the concept

needed to distinguish between “creative” and “ordinary” problem-solving by distingishing

between “divergent” and “convergent” thinking. The convention was quickly established that

convergent thinking = intelligence, divergent thinking = creativity. These two came to be

treated as competitors or even as mutually exclusive (e.g., Getzels and Jackson, 1962,

Torrance, 1965). In rejecting the incompatibility approach I regarded creativity as a qualitative

 15

phenomenon that involves the way or style in which people go about working towards a

solution, not whether or not they have more or less of something (Cropley, 1968), thus taking

an approach similar to that of Hudson (1968). If problem solvers concentrate on recalling what

they already know and logically combining elements of information (i.e., if they think

convergently), they will often come up with ideas that may be highly effective in solving the

problem (and thus very intelligent). If they concentrate on speculating, making unexpected

links, finding surprising answers, etc (i.e., if they think divergently), they may open new

perspectives, develop new techniques, arrive at unorthodox conclusions, etc, and thus be

“creative”. This may not lead to high scores on IQ tests, but despite this may solve the problem

and thus be, in a sense, very intelligent. This view means that both convergence and divergence

can lead to useful solutions to problems, and both are intelligent. What then characterizes

“creative” problem solving processes?

One of the enduring conceptualizations of creative thinking is that it involves a process

of association and selection. A striking description of the thinking that leads to production of

effective novelty is found in the writings of Poincaré. He regarded production of novelty as a

process of selection in which knowledge elements from widely separated domains are

selectively combined. He possessed vast knowledge of mathematics, and could in principle

have produced an endless string of combinations, but somehow homed in on the effective ones

(see below) . This idea was well established before the beginning of the modern era:

Rossman’s (1931) study of inventors for instance, concluded that they “manipulate the symbols

of … past experience (p. 82)” [my italics]. He also showed that they combine “known

movements (p. 77)” adding or subtracting known elements to a mix of ideas, until a happy

combination is found. In an early modern study of inventors, Olken (1964) argued strongly that

creativity is a trial-and-error process, in which possible solutions are imagined as mental

images and compared with the desired end-result, being discarded when this comparison shows
 16

that the solution envisaged in the mental image does not match the desired solution or, of

course, retained when it does match.

However, the mental images are not produced, combined and tested randomly. According

to Miller (1992), in creative thinking nearly all of the theoretically possible combinations are

“filtered out”, leaving only the ones that are “harmonious” and “beautiful”. In Miller’s view, it is

“sensible intuition” that makes it possible to eliminate from the beginning the large number of

dead-end combinations. Olken also believed that promising lines of attack are selected from

among the large number of possibilities on the basis of “hunches”, or what are now called

“heuristics”.

Although some contemporary authors have gone so far as to argue that creativity results

from random processes of association (e.g., Simonton’s, 1988, “chance configuration” model,

according to which elements of knowledge are blindly combined until a lucky hit occurs), I take

the view that information processing leading to effective novelty cannot proceed by what Simon

(1989) called “brute force”, in a process of perceiving, blindly associating, and occasionally

recognizing, perhaps by good fortune, that a new combination happens to offer the required

solution. This would lead to a “combinatorial explosion” (Simon, 1989) involving huge numbers

of “empty” trials (Altshuller, 1984), and leading to “cognitive strain” (Bruner, 1962). Thus,

combinatorial processes must be guided in some systematic way if they are to produce effective

novelty. This is presumably done by “editing out” the high proportion of alternatives that lead

nowhere.

Some writers emphasize the role of “intuition” in directing attention to promising lines of

attack (for a relevant discussion, see Policastro, 1995). The basic idea is that, early in the process

of production of variability, people sometimes see the novelty for which they are striving in the

form of a rough, “intuitive” outline of the solution. Their task is then that of defining and

refining this into effective novelty. The outline may be acquired via implicit learning, i.e.,

learning that occurs without the learner being aware of it, for instance in the course of everyday
 17

life. To take a simple example, during the course of riding to work every day by bus and sitting

just behind the driver, a person might learn a great deal about the work of a busdriver, without

ever having thought of the ride to work as a learning experience. Such learning leads to tacit

knowledge that people do not know they possess, and this can prestructure thinking about an

issue. For instance, engineers exposed to the situation above might already have acquired

information about redesigning buses and have stored this in the form of tacit knowledge. Upon

being hired to design a new bus, they would already possess a preliminary framework that could

suggest where the required answer might be found or approximately what the eventual solution

might look like. When this leads to production of effective novelty it is experienced as intuition.

When it narrowly focuses information processing and leads to production of singularity it is

experienced as a set or corset that blocks ideas (see below).

Olken (1964) was one of the earlier writers to focus attention of the problem of avoiding

dead ends. In an examination of the development of innovative ideas in engineering such as the

triode vacuum tube, the Astron machine (a reactor for producing power by controlled nuclear

fusion), or a device for the simultaneous production of multiple photocopies, he identified the

“wrong approach barrier”. He pointed out how starting along a wrong approach is very

dangerous, because the difficulty of getting out of the cul de sac increases as the problem solver

invests more and more resources (money, time, ego-commitment, prestige, etc) in the dead end.

In effect, a barrier builds up, that blocks finding a productive approach. Thus, the first step in

generating effective novelty is to produce variability, to be sure, but to confine this to promising

alternatives, and avoid the barrier. Olken identified three ways of breaking the barrier: a lucky

break, “letting the work lie fallow” (incubating), or continuing along the fruitless line of attack,

but gradually “veering around” to find a new direction.

Although some writers (e.g., Hausman, 1984) argued that “true” creativity is always so

novel that it is unprecedented, and thus has no connection to anything that went before, others

such as Bailin (1988) have concluded that creative products are always conceived by both the
 18

creative person and external observers in terms of existing knowledge, and Weisberg (2003)

showed that even an extraordinarily radical product such as Picasso’s Les demoiselles

d’Avignon arose out of what Picasso had experienced up until the time he painted it. Sternberg

(1999) turned attention to the way the known is used to introduce effective novelty in problem-

solving with the help of the idea of “propelling a field”. He suggested a number of ways in

which this can occur: conceptual replication (the known is transferred to a news setting),

redefinition (the known is seen in a new way), forward incrementation (the known is extended

in an existing direction), advance forward incrementation (the known is extended in an

existing direction but goes beyond what is currently tolerable), redirection (the known is

extended in a new direction), reconstruction and redirection (new life is breathed into an

approach previously abandoned), and reinitiation (thinking begins at a radically different point

from the current one and takes off in a new direction).

Savransky (2000) turned specifically to “inventive problems”, which always involve “a

conflict between new requirements and an old system”, i.e., they necessitate a change in what

already exists. He discerned six ways in which this can occur. Slightly modified for present

purposes, creative problem-solving according to Savransky involves one or more of

improvement (improvement or perfection of both quality and quantity of what already exists),

diagnostics (search for and elimination of shortcomings in what already exists), trimming

(reduction of costs associated with existing solutions), analogy (new use of known processes

and systems), synthesis (generation of new mixtures of existing elements), and genesis

(generation of fundamentally new solutions). As was the case with Sternberg’s list, only the

last of these involves something fundamentally new.

What this means is that even creative problem-solving does not necessarily involve

calling into existence something that never existed before, although in saying this I do not mean

to deny the possibility of fundamentally new solutions. The point is that effective, elegant,

generalizable novelty is mainly produced through re-application of the already known. This
 19

means that in order to solve problems a great deal of knowledge about the domain in question is

required. This idea has been put in modern terms by Boden (1994), using the language of

artifical intelligence. What I call “knowledge”, she calls “representation of structural features” of

a domain. The more structural features of a domain are represented in a person’s mind (the more

the person knows), the more creative the person can be. Boden gave the example of Mozart and

what it was that made him capable of musical creativity: According to her, the the crucial

property of Mozart was his possession of rich, deep, and detailed “cognitive maps of musical

space”. Mozart’s creativity lay in his exploitation of existing musical knowledge, and it was the

vastness of his knowledge (plus the quality of the use he made of it) that made him a great

composer. In general (e.g., Elshout, 1990, Walberg and Stariha, 1992), an “apprenticeship” of

10-15 years seems to be necessary for acquiring the fund of knowledge and skills necessary for

creativity, even in the case of people like Mozart, who produced creative music in his teens, it is

true, but who started his musical education by playing at the age of four!

However, despite its importance, research has shown that high expertise does not

always facilitate novelty production. A very high level of familiarity with a field and with

existing solution strategies can preorganize thinking so effectively that it leads only to

production of tried and trusted, “correct” answers. Working successfully in an area over a long

period of time (i.e., becoming an expert) can provide a knowledge base that can be manipulated

to yield effective novelty, but it can also produce a kind of tunnel vision that narrows thinking

and restricts it to the conventional. Indeed, experts may have a vested interest in maintaining

the status quo. Radical new solutions to old and intractable problems may threaten to render

irrelevant the lifetime’s work of experts who have laboured long on a particular problem.

Knowledge thus seems to be a two edged sword when it comes to creative problem-

solving. In fact, the advantage that experts enjoy may lie less in the area of finding solutions

and more in in the area of problem finding and definition, or problem recognition and

reformulation. Experts seem to spend more time than beginners on (re)formulating problems
 20

(Rostan, 1994), and less on searching for solution strategies. Experts reformulate problems on

the basis of recognition of their definitive patterns. Once they have done this, the solution is

often at hand, since it is obvious once you know what the problem is. Thus, in a sense, experts

already know the solution, and the task is to find the problem. This is done by means of

identifying its deep structure (its systematic and metasystematic properties). Beginners, on the

other hand, believe that they already know the problem, which they define on the basis of its

surface structure (its immediate, concrete, unique properties), and spend their time searching

for an unknown solution. Martinson (1995) suggested a solution to the problem of defining the

relationship between knowledge and problem solving by arguing that the relationship is U-

shaped: Both very high (great experise) and very low (ignorance) levels of pre-existing

knowledge inhibit creative problem-solving.

In an empirical study of almost 1000 employees and managers, van der Heijden (2000)

showed that expertise has five dimensions, including special knowledge and specific skills as

would be expected, as well as two further important dimensions: “meta-cognitive knowledge”

and “growth and flexibility”. The former involves self-insights the latter the combining of

fields. Fields that are combined may be adjacent, with the result that combining them produces

only orthodox solutions or, more interesting for present purposes, they may be radically

different or remote, in which case combining them leads to novelt solutions. In other words,

deep knowledge is only favourable for creativity when it is accompanied by insight, flexibility

and similar properties. Resnick (1987) made a similar point in a more general way in an

analysis of metacognitive processes and creativity. According to her, thinking favourable for

production of effective novelty would be nonalgorithmic (no fixed pathway is specified in

advance) and complex (oriented towards achieving multiple solutions, and guided by multiple

criteria). Exploration would have to be self-regulatory, tolerant of uncertainty, and based on

nuanced judgment (i.e., subjective interpretation by the thinker would play an important role).
 21

Despite their expertise, highly creative experts often show a freshness and openness that

is more typical of beginners. This has been referred to by Root-Bernstein, Bernstein and Garnier

(1993) as the “novice effect”. I once attended a lecture by the then 70 year old Hans Selye,

discoverer among other things of the stress syndrome, who apologized for being in plaster from

his toes to his hip—a few days before he had fallen out of a tree after he saw something that

seemed odd and interesting in its branches and climbed it in order to have a better look! A less

creative senior researcher would have been too busy with current research problems to bother

with something in a tree or would have sent a junior staff member to investigate!

4. Defining the solution

The traditional model of problem-solving sketched out above presupposes that the solution

is known and can be recognized by a knowledgeable observer—in my experience, this is

precisely the situation that teachers and, above all, students like best. However, where problems

are loosely defined and the solution pathway involves branching out, making unexpected

connections, trying unlikely possibilities, taking a risk, being tolerant of uncertainty, using

nuanced judgment, and the like, it may be difficult to say just what constitutes a solution or to

recognize a solution when one is at hand. Indeed, Ghiselin (1955) argued that recognizing

solutions is the key to creativity.

A striking example of failure to recognize a solution involves the German-Latvian

microbiologist and pathologist, Eugen Semmer, who worked in the Institute of Veterinary

Medicine in Riga. In 1870 Semmer published a paper in the widely-read German-language

scientific journal, Virchows Archiv3, reporting on the strange recovery of two horses that he was

treating for what we would now call “infections”. At the Veterinary Clinic the horses were

accidentally exposed to spores of the mushroom penicillium notatum and inexplicably got better,

despite a grave prognosis. This was seen by Semmer as a problem that impeded his research on
3
This journal still exists.
 22

the pathology of disease: How can you conduct microbiological studies in pathology if the

patients regain their health? Both Semmer himself, as well as the distinguished readers of the

journal, which still specializes in pathology today, failed to recognize that the curing of infection

by a living organism (mushroom spores) had introduced a novel (and as we now know,

extremely effective) approach to fighting infection (i.e., antibiotics). Biology and medicine had

to wait another 8 years for Pasteur to discover bacteria, and another 70 years for Fleming to

discover penicillin. A simple example from the business world is seen in the report that Victor

Kayam declined the opportunity to purchase the rights to Velcro, because he could not see any

practical application for it! Both Semmer and Victor Kayam had extremely important, novel and

effective, elegant and generalizable solution in their hands, but did not see this.

The effect of the problem on creativity

One way of showing the relationship of creativity to problem-solving is to focus, not on

creativity, but on the problems themselves. Sticking to the three dimensions introduced at the

beginning, problems can be divided according to:

● their degree of definition;

● the degree to which the solution pathway has already been defined;

● the clarity of the criteria for recognizing a solution.

Clearly-defined problems that are solvable by means of standard techniques and for which there

are obvious and well-known criteria identifying the solution constitute “routine” problems. They

can often be solved without the need to generate novelty, although when existing knowledge is

applied in settings where it has previously been treated as irrelevant, a certain technical or

inventive creativity occurs. Nonetheless, creativity is not absolutely necessary, and is probably

not usual. By contrast some problems require in the first instance becoming aware that there is a

problem at all and finding a way of defining it, secondly working out techniques for solving the

problem and thirdly developing criteria for recognizing a solution. Such “loosely-defined”

problems often demand a high level of creativity.

 23

This raises the possibility that certain kinds of problem (routine problems) may actually

inhibit creativity (see also earlier discussions of high expertise and creativity). It is also

conceivable that the reverse could occur: Creativity could inhibit the solving of routine problem,

for instance by making the solver overlook perfectly effective and obvious (but not novel)

solutions and look for obscure (novel) ones, or by encouraging the solver to go beyond the actual

problem at hand and define it in an excessively complex fashion. In the case of loosely-defined

problems, on the other hand, creativity may be indispensable.

It also seems that a too highly defined definition of the solution may hinder problem-

solving. An example is to be seen in the now almost infamous Australian “submarine project”.

The Department of Defence budgeted six billion Dollars (although it has spent much more) on

designing and building a new class of submarine (the Collins class). Unfortunately despite the

protests of the apologists the submarine is said to be as loud as a rock band, to have a weapons

system that cannot hit anything, and a propulsion system that cannot guarantee to move the

submarine. Although they were asked to build something effectively novel, the designers and

engineers were given excessively narrow specifications of the nature of the end product. Not

only did it have to be a submarine, but even the material of which the screw was to be

constructed was specified, i.e., the solution was over-defined. A truly open task statement would

have been something like: “Design and build an effective device for defending Australia’s

coastal waters at a cost of no more than six billion Dollars.”

Practical implications

What does all this mean for practice? Although it would be possible to tease out from these

thoughts practical suggestions for, for instance, business, I will concentrate here on education,

and in particular on classroom teaching. This link has a substantial history in modern thinking:

From the very beginning, the modern creativity discussion focused on education. Immediately

following the Sputnik shock of 1957, the perceived defeat of American engineers in the first

event of the space race was attributed to defects in their education, and the now familiar call for
 24

education to foster creativity arose. This culminated in the United States of America in the

almost bizarrely named National Defense Education Act, which called for schools and

universities to foster creativity, especially in areas relevant to national defence.

Setting assignments

I have discussed creativity-facilitating classroom instruction in other places (e.g., Cropley

and Urban, 2000; Cropley, 2001), as well as out-of-school measures for fostering creativity

(Cropley and Gribov, 2003). For the purposes of the present paper, I will concentrate on

assessment. The first issue, to which I will devote only a few sentences in this paper, is that of

setting tasks that permit, facilitate, or even provoke creative solutions. The key difficulty here, in

my opinion, is the one I have already referred to: Not only do teachers like overdefined

problems, or even have difficulty breaking away from them, but students like them too, because

they are so clearcut. Both parties know how to prepare themselves and what is expected of them,

even students who do not make any particular effort to prepare well. As a university student I

was a master at predicting what questions would be on the final (through an analysis of past

papers), and focused on preparing only for what I knew was coming! Overdefined examinations

were vital to my ability to pass.

A case study of the reactions of teachers and pupils to grading practice at the University

of Adelaide in South Australia at two points 100 years apart is informative here. In the

nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Western Australia had no university. Consequently,

students in that state often attended the University of Adelaide and, as a result, had to take that

university’s entrance examination. In 1904 there was an unusually high failure rate among

Western Australian students, and this led to an intense public discussion (e.g., Morning Herald,

1904). The complaint was straightforward: The university had changed its assessment criteria

and made the exams too difficult. The problem was that the university had suddenly set

assignments such as “To what extent can Sir Walter Scott’s novels be classified as ‘historically

accurate’?” whereas what the parents and protesting teachers wanted was “List three examples of
 25

historical errors in the novel Ivanhoe.” The complainants specifically criticized the fact that it

would not be possible to learn the answer to the “To what extent …” example by heart, and that

students would have to use their own judgment, with all the risks associated with this, including

the possibility of being wrong! The new approach had negated all the hours of learning by heart

that many students had carried out, with the result that earnest and hardworking people had

failed. Protesting parents and educators made it plain that they were not demanding an easy

examination, but one that they saw as predictable, objective and fair. The demand was for (a)

assignments that were, in our terms, overdefined, (b) highly defined solutions, and (c) a clearly

defined pathway to the solution (learn by heart).

Almost 100 years later, in 1996, the same university changed the criteria for admission

to medical school—as a rule, students in Australia enter medical school directly from high

school, and the number of applications exceeds by far the number of places available. The new

criteria involved a combination of high school grades, scores on an aptitude test, and results of an

interview. Among other things, the latter two procedures assess problem-solving ability,

communication skills and ability to work in teams. There was a public outcry. Some candidates

with extraordinarily good high school grades did not obtain a place, and the university was

depicted as being anti-academic. Some parents even went to the South Australian ombudsman

(without success), although the procedure had been judged by educational theorists to be “based

on cogent reasoning”. Once again, the thrust of the argument was that (a) problem-solving ability

and the like are subjective, (b) what students need to know cannot be reduced to pre-defined

factual knowledge that teachers know in advance and can pass on to students, and (c) the

necessary knowledge cannot be acquired by (possibly) long hours of honest toil over textbooks,

whereas the facts of physics, chemistry, and biology can.

Table 2 offers some guidelines for setting assignments that would have defeated me, but

probably have caused fury in Perth in 1904 or Adelaide in 1996! The rows in the table are

derived from earlier sections of this paper, the columns represent a progression from more
 26

general, abstract statements to increasingly specific and concrete specifications, and the entries in

the cells of the tables are derived from ideas developed in the body of this paper.

Table 2. Guidelines for setting assignments

Domain General Principle Practical Guidelines

• Set “open” or ambiguous problems

Do not over-specify the • Set assignments in the form of open

problem issues such as gaps in existing
knowledge, conflicts of opinion,
etc
• Set varied, even apparently
Problem Finding conflicting source material
• Encourage students to state “the
problem” as they see it
• Emphasize the importance of
Encourage finding selecting problems that have the
“good” problems potential for elegance and/or
generalizability
• Encourage students to discuss the
“goodness” of the problem as they
have defined it
• Set tasks with multiple, even
conflicting answers
Do not over-specify the • Set tasks without a set answer
solution • Encourage students to test the
limits of the acceptable in their
solutions
• Encourage students to state what
they would regard as a satisfactory
solution, and why
Finding Solutions • Encourage students to evaluate
how well what they have done
Encourage solution matches the solution definition
recognition given by the instructor
• Encourage students to evaluate
how well what they have done
matches their own solution
definition
• Encourage students to look for and
specify “wrong way barriers”

Evaluating asssignments

An aspect of practice that is of considerable concern to many teachers is that of evaluation or

grading. In litigious countries teachers are nowadays expected to be able to state in advance in
 27

relatively concrete and objective terms the criteria they will employ in grading students’

assignments, and to show in actual grading practice how these criteria were assessed . Under

such conditions, teachers need to be able to specify criteria in an understandable way and in the

case of poor, or even less than perfect, grades, to show how things should have been done

differently.

Although the call for clear criteria is linked by some teachers with a general, undesirable

climate of dissatisfaction and unwillingness to accept authority, the idea that assessors should

state what they are looking for and show where students’ performances have failed to meet

expectations is not simply a political/legal issue, and is not necessarily a bad thing, even in the

context of fostering creativity, despite the fact that Amabile (e.g., 1996) is generally taken to

have established that extrinsic rewards inhibit creativity and thus to have shown that grades

(since they are given by the teacher, not by students themselves, and are thus extrinsic), are bad

for creativity.

In real life, even people in aesthetically “creative” areas (such as literature, music or fine

art), where I have argued above that pressure for concrete effectiveness may be less than in

medicine, business, engineering, and the like, are usually subject to external evaluation of their

work. I suspect that the idea of completely intrinsically motivated creators, who produce novelty

for no-one but themselves and care nothing for other people’s opinions, is not an accurate

representation of the majority of creative people. Indeed, Csikszentmihalyi (e.g., 1988) argued

that creativity is actually in the eye of the beholder (i.e., the external assessor), and that a product

is only creative when knowledgeable people apply this label. I myself (Cropley, 1997) have

argued that Wallas’s (1926) phase model of creativity needs to be expanded to include, among

other things, phases of communication to other people and external evaluation by those people.

Eisenberger and Armeli (1997) showed that the giving of grades can promote creativity,

even in such intrinsically “creative” areas as music, provided that (a) instructors know what it is

that they are trying to promote and (b) students know what it is that they are expected to do
 28

differently in order to be creative, although it must be admitted that the area is beset by

differences of opinion (e.g., Joussemet and Koestner, 1999). Thus, it seems to me to be important

for teachers that they are familiar with what it is that they want students to do in assignments and

that they can (a) show students how to evaluate their own work from the point of creativity, (b)

recognize aspects of students’ work that can be said to be “creative,” (c) show students where

they have fallen down, and (d) give guidelines on how to do better.

In Table 3 (see next page) I have derived from earlier sections of this paper guidelines for

recognizing creativity in students’ reactions to assignments, i.e., for grading assignments. The

rows in the tables (novelty, elegance, generalizability) are derived from the criteria of a creative

product summarized in Table 1. As in Table 2, the columns represent a progression from more

general, abstract criteria to increasingly specific and concrete indicators, and the entries in the

cells of the tables are derived from ideas developed in the body of the paper. It might be thought

that judging such properties is so subjective as to become arbitrary, thus defeating the very

purpose of constructing the table. However, Hennessey (1994) reported

inter-rater agreement ranging up to .93 even among untrained undergraduates who rated

aspects of creativity simply applying their own subjective understanding of these qualities.

Other studies also suggest that judging properties connected with the creativity of products

such as novelty, effectiveness, or understandability is not as difficult as might be supposed.

Vosburg (1998) reported that untrained judges who rated products on 7-point scales such as

“Very understandable”—“Not at all understandable” achieved inter-rater reliabilities of

about.90. These guidelines and criteria are not meant to be treated as exhaustive, but only as an

indication of what is needed and a first step towards establishing concrete criteria. What is

Table 3. Guidelines for grading assignments

Principle Criterion Indicator

 29

• traditional indicators (does the solution

Possession and reveal good knowledge of the facts and
use of knowledge insightful understanding?) See, for
instance, Biggs and Collis (1982) and Biggs
(1996).
• diagnosis (shortcomings in what already
exists are revealed)
Problematization • prescription (points at which what already
exists could be improved are indicated)
• prognosis (broad suggestions are made for
how to carry out improvements )
Generation of • replication (the known is transferred to a
Novelty new setting)
(i.e, aspects of the • redefinition (the known is seen or used in a
process of generating new way)
something new) Adding to existing knowledge • combination (generation of new mixtures of
existing elements);
• incrementation (the known is extended in an
existing direction)
• reconstruction (an approach previously
abandoned is shown to be useful)
• redirection (the known is extended in a new
direction)
• reinitiation (thinking begins at a radically
Developing new knowledge different point from the current one and takes
off in a new direction that is shown to be
helpful)
• generation (construction of fundamentally
new—but at least potentially effective—
solutions)
• surprisingness (the beholder is “surprised”
by the solution)
External elegance: Effect on • convincingness (the beholder is convinced
other people by the solution)
Elegance • pleasingness (the beholder finds the solution
(i.e., properties of the “beautiful”)
solution)
• completeness (the solution is well worked
Internal elegance: Ideas are out and “rounded”, not just fragmentary)
well worked out and hang • harmoniousness (the elements of the
together solution fit together in an internally
consistent way)
• foundationality (the solution lays down a
general basis for further work)
• transferability (ideas are offered for other,
apparently unrelated problems)
Generalizability Ideas go beyond the • germinality (the solution suggests new ways
(i.e., properties of the immediate problem of looking at existing issues or problems)
solution) • seminality (the solution demonstrates the
existence of previously unnoticed additional
problems and/or suggests how they might be
solved)
needed now are practical examples or miniature case studies showing what the criteria look like in

specific assignments. A single example will be given here in abbreviated form.

A brief case study

 30

As part of their assessment, students in an engineering class were required to design and

build “a wheeled vehicle powered by the energy stored in a mousetrap.” Although a passing

grade was guaranteed if the vehicle proved to be capable of moving at least 1m under its own

power, assessment emphasized the importance of novelty, elegance and generalizibility (all of

which had been explained to the students in class) for obtaining a high mark. If students asked

for an elaboration of the assignment, they were told that from the point of the instructor the

problem was sufficiently defined by the words, “Build a wheeled vehicle powered by the energy

stored in a mousetrap.” Some students expressed annoyance at this, in essence demanding what I

have called “overdefinition” of the problem, and the instructor was regarded by some as hard or

unreasonable or unhelpful. Such is students’ love for overdefined problems!

Almost all participants succeeded in constructing a vehicle that met the minimum formal

requirements (it had wheels and was capable of moving itself, and was thus relevant and

effective). Several of the resulting models were elegantly designed and well finished. However,

most students assumed that the vehicle had to be four wheeled and had to run on the ground like

a car or truck. In addition, most focused on the energy stored in the trap’s spring as the source of

power, as well as consciously opting for a vehicle that was effective in the sense that it could

cover well over a metre, and was socially acceptable in that it looked like existing vehicles. An

example of a well constructed conventional vehicle that illustrates the points made above is the

“Ferrari” model I will now show you.

 31

Only a few groups were able to break away from conventional thinking. One used the

mouse trap’s spring to operate a pump which inflated a balloon attached to the car. When the

balloon blew out the air it propelled the car by means of a jet effect. The power source was not

part of the vehicle, although the thruster (the balloon) was.

32
 33

Another also used a novel means of propulsion by launching a model car using a catapault

powered by the mousetrap’s spring. Neither power source nor thruster was part of the vehicle.
 34

More novelty was introduced by groups that broke away from the idea that all “wheeled

vehicles” must resemble conventional motor cars. One group built a large hollow wheel set

rolling by a weight mounted in its interior and wound into position by the trap’s spring, thus

expanding the meaning of “wheeled vehicle” and using gravity as the actual driver.

Even more novelty was produced by group that set fire to the mousetrap and used the

heat generated by the flames to fire up the boiler of a steam locomotive, thus using the

chemical energy stored in the wood, whereas almost all others focused on the mechanical

energy of the spring. Another group offered what was in some ways the most radical solution: a

wheeled cart attached to the mousetrap by a string. When the mousetrap was thrown off the

table on which the vehicle stood, its weight pulled the cart along as the trap fell to the floor,

thus using the gravitational force acting on the mousetrap’s mass as the source of energy, not

the spring. The only limit on the distance this method could propel the vehicle was the height

of the surface from which the mousetrap was thrown.

 35

The final example I will give involved a redefinition of “wheeled vehicle” and a novel

means of propulsion, although it retained the potential energy stored in the mouse trap’s spring

as the source of power. The spring was used to drive a fan and the wind created by the action of

the fan was used to propel an ultralight cylinder (a large “wheel”).

What is now needed is to analyze these solutions using the system presented in Table 3. I

will do this by comparing the Ferrari model with the fan driven vehicle.4 The Ferrari was a

wheeled vehicle, and moved at least a metre. Thus, it successfully took the first hurdle of

relevance and effectiveness, and could be evaluated for creativity. It displayed knowledge of

existing principles and facts (conventional indicator), but did not in any way show concern about

problems with existing approaches or improve them in any way (no points for Problematization).

It displayed a certain degree of novelty in that Lego is not usually used in classroom

assignments, although the use of Lego to make models is commonplace. Thus, it scored a point

4
For simplicity’s sake I will award points only on a “Yes,” or “No” basis: If a criterion is satisfied, one point, of it
is not, zero points. In practice, it would be possible to grade on, let us say, a five point basis such as: “Very
markedly present,: “pronounced,” “obvious,” “observable,” “weakly present,” “absent,” thus providing more
differentiated feedback.
 36

for replication (see Table 3). The mouse trap was also used in a new way (redefinition) and there

was a combination of existing elements (model building with Lego and mouse trap), while there

was perhaps incrementation (use of the mouse trap spring was extended, but in an existing way,

since the well known “snapping shut” action of the mouse trap was retained). Thus, the Ferrari

scored five points in all for Generation of Novelty. In the area of “Elegance” this model scored

well: It is convincing, pleasing, complete and harmonious—four points. In the area of

Generalizability, however, it scored zero, yielding a total score of 9, largely obtained via elegant

use of the known. The Ferrari group would be praised for their workmanship, but advised to

introduce more novelty

In some ways the fan driven “vehicle” suffers by contrast with the Ferrari, but overall it

obtained substantially more points. It was a wheeled vehicle and moved one metre, and was thus

relevant and effective. It also showed knowledge of the basic facts (one point). It received points

for diagnosis, prescription and prognosis, since it draws attention to the need to change from

vehicles with a power source that travels with the vehicle, indicates a possible line of

improvement (ultralight vehicle) and shows roughly how these two ideas might be combined:

three points for Problematization. The lever action of the trap’s spring was used to drive a fan

(replication), “wheeled vehicle” was defined in an unusual way (redefinition), the combination

of mousetrap, fan and wheeled vehicle was uncommon (combination), and the already known

ability of fans to impart movement to light objects was extended from air or smoke to a wheel

(incrementation). The known fan action was used in a new way by using it to drive a vehicle

(redirection), “propelled by” and “wheeled vehicle” are existing concepts, but were taken in a

new direction (reinitiation), and the whole resulted in a solution that suggests a new line of

attack: an ultralight vehicle that does not carry the power source with it (generation). Thus the

fan car receives seven points for Generation of Novelty.

In the case of Elegance, the fan vehicle was surprising and elicited a feeling that it was

clever (pleasingness), but was perhaps not convincing. It was, also, only fragmentary and rather
 37

crude and scored zero for internal elegance: Two points only for Elegance. Finally, the fan

vehicle suggested where further work could be done (ultralight vehicles, stationary power source,

use of moving air as a driver) (germinality): a point for Generalizability. Thus the fan car

received a total of 14 points, losing points to the Ferrari for its roughness and lack of detail, but

gaining more for its new ideas and generalizability. The fan car group would be praised for their

introduction of effective novelty, but advised try to work out their ideas more fully and build a

more finished prototype.

What is needed now are case studies from disparate fields such as mathematics or

physics, but also mother tongue, foreign languages, history, and the like, that provide concrete

examples of the application of these indicators to the assessment of real assignments. I would

be grateful to any colleagues who provided such studies.

 38

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