Toku science topic
Why strong problem solvers need to generate possibilities before choosing among them.
Explore flexible idea generation, creative reasoning and why practising more than one route can help children avoid becoming trapped by a single familiar procedure.
Elena Hoicka et al. · British Journal of Developmental Psychology
Generating varied possibilities is not simply a fixed trait; the learning environment can influence how broadly children explore.
Very young children exposed to more divergent demonstrations subsequently produced more divergent actions in the experimental task.
Bing Zuo et al. · Frontiers in Psychology
There is experimental evidence that asking learners to deliberately generate multiple possibilities can change how they approach idea generation.
A short divergent-thinking training programme changed divergent-thinking performance and related psychological measures in the adolescent sample.
Marci S. DeCaro · Memory & Cognition
Good practice should build fluency without teaching children that every problem has to be attacked in exactly the same way.
Repeated exposure to one procedure can create a mental set that makes learners less likely to notice a more efficient strategy and can constrain later flexibility.
Bert Jonsson, Carina Granberg & Johan Lithner · Frontiers in Psychology
Mathematical learning can benefit when children have to construct or justify a route rather than only imitate a supplied procedure.
Students practising with creative mathematical reasoning showed advantages on later mathematical performance compared with more imitative algorithmic practice in the reported work.