The interface of creativity, fluency, lateral thinking, and technology while designing Serious Educational Games in a science classroom

Introduction. Creativity is the production of the new, original, unique, and divergent products and ideas mediated through lateral thinking. Evidence suggests that high levels of creativity and fluency are important in the continued development of student interest, efficacy and ultimately career impact in the sciences. Method. In this study, 559 randomly selected students attended an eight-month long workshop on science-based videogame design as a learning tool in the classroom. Students then designed science-based video games exemplifying learned, key, science concepts. Upon completion of the workshop, all students were given the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking to aid in the development of understanding of the relationship between creativity and related constructs. Results. The authors also explore the implications of the role of lateral thinking as a cognitive system mediating science learning. Results suggest a statistically significant difference exists between pretest and posttest outcomes and that the data confirms the suggested model for the role of creative, fluency and lateral thinking related to science processing. Discussion and Conclusion. Seeking to promote interest in creative support tools such as those in use during the design of SEGs can provide disciplinary convergence through lateral thinking. More specifically these result agree with results found in other studies such as Yamamoto & Nakakoji (2005), Chen et.al. (2007) and Spencer, Lucas & Claxton (2012), which suggest that there are underlying behavioral manifestations of creativity and fluency that impacts the science and design process via lateral thinking.