Using a Model of Domain Learning to Understand the Development of Creativity (Poster 16)

• In Event: Sunday Poster Session 3:05 pm
  In Poster Session: Perspectives on Learning and Development: Exploring Motivations, Cognition, and Contextual Factors

Abstract

Creative thinking is a process through which individuals generate ideas that are simultaneously novel and meaningful within a given social context. Historically, psychologists have closely studied the general creative capacity of young learners, as well as the domain-specific creativity of experts. However, the developmental trajectory from children’s general creativity to experts’ domain-specific creativity remains largely unmapped. In this article, we work to address this issue theoretically by drawing on one established conceptual framework of academic development, the Model of Domain Learning (MDL). We suggest that domain creative thinking develops from a largely self-referenced process when domain knowledge is low, to a more highly socially-referenced process as domain knowledge grows.

Authors

• Denis Dumas, University of Georgia

• Boris Forthmann, University of Munster

• Patricia A. Alexander, University of Maryland