Fostering Creativity through Games and Digital Storytelling

Alessia Eletta Coppi

i2 media research

Goldsmiths, University of London

Three main goals:

• Develop a game-based training (Over the Gate) to foster children’s creativity using stories and games

• Test the effect of the training on creativity with a pilot study

• Test the usability of the game

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Scope of the Work

• Three (and a half) creativity theories: o Guilford (1959) conceived

creativity “as a set of traits” identifying a series of processes underlying creativity such as fluidity, flexibility, originality, elaboration and evaluation

o Torrance (1968) created the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) based on fluidity, flexibility, originality and elaboration

o Mednick (1962) identified creative thinking as “the forming of associative elements into new combinations”. The process is composed of three types of association that are serendipity, similarity and mediation

o Kanizka (1973) identifies processes such functional fixedness and worked on the restructuration of the field of the problem

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A bit of theory: Creativity

• Creativity: A mystery? An insight? A cognitive or association process? A personality trait?

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Creativity Empowerment

• Creativity techniques: brainstorming (Osborn, 1963), synectics (Gordon, 1961), adopting different points of view (De Bono, 1985) or heuristics (Newell and Simon, 1972)

• Pen and paper training:

o Can you imagine! (Myers and Torrance, 1965)

o Thinking Creatively (Davis, 1968)

o Purdue Creative Thinking (Feldhusen, 1971)

o Developing Creative Thinking (Antonietti, 1993)

• Computer training:

o Verbal fluidity with the Logo Training (Clements, 1991)

o Problem solving skills and metacognition (Kobe, 2001)

o Production of ideas (Keog, 2010)

• Question: Why create ‘Over the Gate’?

• ‘Over the Gate’ is an e-book composed of an illustrated story and 18 visual and verbal games based on flexibility, fluidity, originality, association and Gestalt principles

• ‘Over the Gate’ has been built using the main principle of usability for children and appears like a book with pages containing text, illustrations or games

• While playing, the user has the opportunity to ask for help and is encouraged by the game to provide multiple answers or to try different strategies

• At the end of every game the user is rewarded with points and feedback about their performance

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What is ‘Over the Gate’?

• Goal: the user needs to solve the riddle by identifying two different solutions

• Creativity enhancement: flexibility is empowered by asking to deconstruct the riddle’s text and discover a second solution by avoiding functional fixedness (e.g., synonyms)

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Over the Gate: Solve the Riddle!

• Goal: the user is instructed to draw ‘headgear’ for the ‘Queen of the Sand’

• Creativity enhancement: flexibility is empowered by the use of the word ‘headgear’ in the instructions. This intends to free the user from the prototypical drawings of a ‘crown’ and encourages the child to create an original drawing

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Over the Gate: Draw...

• Goal: the user has to save the Shepherd (and his sheep) from the Wolf by moving the characters on a chess board

• Creativity enhancement: fluidity and flexibility are enhanced by asking participants to resolve the game using the available tools multiple times and in different ways

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Over the Gate: Save the Shepherd from the Wolf!

• The digital storytelling component of ‘Over the Gate’ both conveys and explicitly explores the concept of creativity

• The story narrates the adventures of Milo, a child who is taken on a journey into a fantasy world by his grandfather

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Over the Gate: Story

• In this world Milo encounters four main characters who have lost their creative abilities and ask him for help

• Milo’s creative efforts serve to increase his self-confidence within the story and in turn, aims to increase the self confidence of the child player

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Over the Gate: Story

• Sample:

o The experimental group comprised 14 children (mean age=11 years)

o The control group was composed of 10 children (mean age=10.5 years)

• Procedure:

o The experimental group started with the pre test (Test of Child Creativity, TCI), then worked through the ‘Over the Gate’ training, and finally completed the post test (TCI), finishing with the metacognition activity

o The control group also completed the TCI at pre and post test, but was exposed only to the story of the game (without interaction) and there was no metacognition activity

• Usability test: performed with two children using a cognitive walkthrough procedure

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Pilot Study

• The results of the quantitative analysis on the TCI showed no significant difference between

the two groups in the factors of fluidity, flexibility and originality

• The results of the qualitative analysis revealed an interesting insight: o Game scores:

Struggle with cognitive restructuring Original non-stereotypical drawings High scores and different solving strategies in the simulations

o Metacognition activity: Awareness of the similarity of the processes used in the game with real life tasks Naming and identification of the processes used to resolve the game

o Usability test: Engagement was influenced by the type of game Emotional reaction to the game multiple answer request Misconception about the interface

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Over the Gate: Results

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Conclusions

• ‘Over the Gate’ tries to challenge the limits of computers, using them as an opportunity to develop innovative tools to empower creativity

• Consideration and changes:

o Design: association test, length of the experiment and length of the story

o Engagement: increase of simulations and interactivity

o Metacognition: develop in-game metacognition activity

o Creativity models: incorporate other creativity theories

o Usability: implementation of the interface and app development

Special thanks to: Claudio Lira Prof. Andrea Gaggioli Prof. Alessandro Antonietti Jane Lessiter Rhiannon Phillips Luca Zanni Jonathan Freeman

Thank for your time! Any questions?