Investigating Divergent Thinking in Creativity Exercises Through Alternative Uses Tests

Creativity is a valuable skill for today’s workplace and one that universities should be emphasizing in the classroom. Teaching creativity usually involves the completion of “creative exercises” that help an individual understand how to think outside the box. Often individuals that are considered creative “practice” creativity on a daily basis, either through their own will or through their occupation, which increases their creative potential. Creativity is shown to be divided into multiple aspects, one of which is divergent thinking. This study examines participants’ divergent thinking skills over nine weeks as they perform a simple design task each week. The participants are split into two groups as they perform an alternative uses test on a weekly basis. Each week a new item is presented and the results are collected and entered in a database. The number of entries per card is analyzed to determine if the participants have increased their divergent thinking ability throughout the nine weeks.