Assessing ideational and evaluative skills and creative styles and attitudes

Abstract

The authors describe the rationale for the multiphase creative problem solving process, and report the finding of an empirical investigation conducted to facilitate the problem solving of managers (N=35). The ideational skills of the managers were assessed before and after training in the creative problem solving process, along with their attitudes about creative ideation, cognitive style (i.e. optimizer, generator, conceptualizer, or implementor), and evaluative skill (i.e. ability to recognize original ideas). The managers were significantly more accurate in their judgments after training, both in their identification of original ideas and recognition of unoriginal ideas. After training, the managers also gave more solutions and more original solutions to problems faced. Several variables (e.g. the preference for ideation attitude and an implementor cognitive style) seemed to moderate the impact of training, which was therefore effective, with specific effects predictable from pretraining individual differences in attitudes and cognitive style.<>