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Review of Fostering Creativity by Arthur and DavidCropleySusan BesemerPublished online: 20 May 2010.

To cite this article: Susan Besemer (2010) Review of Fostering Creativity by Arthur and David Cropley, Creativity ResearchJournal, 22:2, 236-237, DOI: 10.1080/10400419.2010.481543

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Book Review

Review of Fostering Creativity by Arthur and David Cropley

Susan Besemer

Arthur J. Cropley and David Cropley have publishedseveral worthy articles together over the last decadee.g., Cropley & Cropley (2005), Cropley, Kaufman, &Cropley, (2000, 2008), but their 2009 book, FosteringCreativity: A Diagnostic Approach for Higher Educationand Organizations, goes far beyond these achievements.This new work is destined to become a classic in thefields both of creativity research and of creativity prac-tice; it will raise awareness of the importance of creativ-ity among other disciplines. Arthur, author of 25 booksand more than 160 articles, has been a thought leader inthe study of creativity over the past 40 years, and holdsprofessorships at several important universities. Davidteaches engineering and serves as Deputy Director ofthe Defense and Systems Institute (DASI) at the Schoolof Electrical and Information Engineering, University ofSouth Australia. Together, they have created a bookthat is both an explication of creative behavior and ademonstration of it.

This book is unique in many ways. For starters, it isunique even in its intended audience, which includes notonly the usual demographic of research psychologists andcreativity wonks, but also higher education faculty mem-bers teaching in engineering schools and other disciplinesthat don’t usually talk much about deliberate creativity.It is also aimed at managers and business leaders intenton fostering the creativity of their employees. The booknever strays from its focus on these two, seemingly dispar-ate, groups by demonstrating with examples and case stu-dies how important creativity is in all human endeavorsand achievements. In this dual focus, the authors pointout that that, although there are differences among expres-sions of creativity among domains, there is much that isin common in creative performance across the board.

Fostering Creativity is unique, also, in the way that itpresents its content. All chapters are preceded by a

boxed summary or abstract of the upcoming content,and most are concluded by an extremely helpful tableof tips or advice for readers: those who are students orfrontline workers, and other tips for their bosses orprofessors. There are also ‘‘callouts’’ of importantpoints on most pages throughout the book, to help thereader stay focused and attentive to the central issues.This boxed and highlighted content can help facultymembers prepare their lectures and assignments, andstudents prepare for exams or other demonstrations thatthey have learned the material.

Numerous examples from all fields of human endea-vor show creativity to be a necessary, but sometimesneglected, possibility in any arena. Case studies areselected that demonstrate principles being discussed,and are back-referenced in an integrative style thatseems aimed at constantly helping the reader stayfocused. This is not a watered-down cookbook of clevertools and techniques. The content itself is comprehen-sive and authoritative, with thoroughly documentedreferences so that readers may trace back the originsof any point.

At the same time, it maintains a writing style that isaccessible to any undergraduate or independent readerwho wants to improve her own creative performance.The authors present creative behavior as something thatis important, but not exotic. We are all creative, but wecan hone our creative skills by practice and attention toour strengths and especially to our creative blind spots.In another novel idea, they suggest not only testing forcreative potential, but also using the results to coach orcounsel the student or employee on how to use the find-ings of the testing to alter their initial behavior to maxi-mize their creative performance. This is a logical, butinfrequently practiced value of any assessment process.

The authors present a systematic understanding ofcreativity through an amplification of Wallas’ creativitytheory into a seven-phase model (preparation, acti-vation, generation, illumination, verification, communi-cation, and validation). They also propose adding two

Correspondence should be sent to Susan Besemer, ideafusion.biz,

10056 Patterson Lane, Fredonia, NY 10063. E-mail: ideafusion@

ideafusion.biz

CREATIVITY RESEARCH JOURNAL, 22(2), 236–237, 2010

Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

ISSN: 1040-0419 print=1532-6934 online

DOI: 10.1080/10400419.2010.481543

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more Ps to Rhodes’ structure for discussing creativity.The Cropley 6 Ps are problem, press, person, process,product, and phase. They use this model for investigatingthe material, and for their assessment of all of the variedtypes of creativity.

There are good chapters, of course, on creative think-ing, creative personality, and the product. There are alsotwo very useful chapters on social aspects of creativity,both within the organization and in society at large.The authors make a point of elaborating how importantdomain-relevant knowledge is as a basis upon whichcreative thinking may be built, and of the importanceof the social aspects of building support for new ideas,products, and solutions. Both of these issues are oftenpassed over lightly in some ‘‘You, too, can becomecreative’’ books.

The authors include chapters on packages and pro-grams that teach creative techniques and a case studydescribing a creative thinking course in an engineeringschool. Both of these are full of down-to-earth, usefulinformation for practitioners who seek to provide crea-tivity information and support for creativity in theirorganizations. Academics who wish to move from tra-ditional modes of instruction in domain-centeredcourses will find information on how to break awayfrom the convergent overdefined problems, assignments,and examinations that stifle creativity.

Over the years A. J. Cropley has become more inter-ested in using the creative product (often called, in thisbook, the solution) as an entry-point for consideringcreativity in the organization or the person. FosteringCreativity demonstrates that increased interest by usingthe product as a way of not only judging the degreeof creative behavior of individuals but also by using itas a way of nurturing that behavior. That is donethrough formative feedback about the aspects of creativ-ity that are manifested in the student’s or the worker’ssolution, and areas where the product’s creativity maybe strengthened.

In looking at a product or a solution to an assign-ment to assess or evaluate it, the Cropleys advocateattention to effectiveness, novelty, elegance, and

generalizability. They have formulated their own rubricfor reviewing creative products, the Cropley SolutionDiagnosis Scale, where points are accumulated for allaspects of a creative solution that are present in the pro-duct being evaluated. The last chapter of their book (aswell as another earlier chapter) is devoted to products.This chapter discusses using the CSDS to rate two teamprojects made in an engineering class, in response to anassignment that was not overdefined. Because of theopenness of the assignment (to make a wheeled vehicle,capable of moving at least a short distance, using theenergy of a mousetrap) the resulting solutions are quitedifferent. In a typical college course, rating products asdifferent as the two shown is very difficult. The authorsstate that this is part of the reason why not onlystudents, but also instructors, prefer overdefined assign-ments. The Cropleys demonstrate that, by using a stan-dard framework of desired indicators of creativity, thedifficult and subjective job of judging becomes morerational and somewhat more objective. Not only that,they also demonstrate that other judges can make simi-lar judgments of the solutions using the rubric provided.

From its scholarly authority and credibility to itsthoroughly accessible style, this book is a dazzling tourde force that can be used as a guidebook for professorsand managers, a reference work for psychologists andother scholars, and as a roadmap or manual for inde-pendent learners or students who wish to develop theirown creative abilities.

REFERENCES

Cropley, D. H., & Cropley, A. J. (2005). Engineering creativity: A sys-

tems concept of functional creativity. In J. C. Kaufman & J. Baer

(Eds.), Faces of the muse: How people think, work, and act creatively

in diverse domains (pp. 160–185). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum

Associates.

Cropley, D. H., Kaufman, J. C., & Cropley, A. J. (2008). Malevolent

creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 20, 105–115.

Cropley, D. H., Kaufman, J. C., & Cropley, A. J. (2000). Fostering

creativity in engineering undergraduates. High Ability Studies, 11,

207–219.

REVIEW OF FOSTERING CREATIVITY BY ARTHUR AND DAVID CROPLEY 237

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