Fostering the Creativity of Gifted Students: A Comprehensive Creative Problem Solving Program

Creativity is crucially important for talented people because it helps them potentially increase their power and this is for the benefit of society. The present research has endeavored to examine the effectiveness of a comprehensive Creative Problem Solving Program in increasing the creativity of gifted students. This quasi-experimental study had a pretest-posttest control group design. The sample was comprised of 50 gifted male students in grades three through six and their parents. The students were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) (figural version) was given to both groups. There were 12 training sessions for the students and 4 family-centered training sessions for the parents. The content of the sessions for the students includes games, group interactive activities, and multiple intelligence dimensions (including storytelling, reading stories, music, drama, motor skills, etc.). Due to the importance of games, the program and activities for the children were based on games and entertainment. The content of the training sessions for the parents included strategies to enhance creativity and parenting styles of gifted students. The results of ANCOVA were indicative of the effectiveness of the Creative Problem Solving Program. The results of the study demonstrated that there was a significance difference between pretest and posttest scores of the experimental and control groups (P<0.005) in the dimensions of TTCT, namely, fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration. The findings of the study revealed that the creativity of gifted students can be fostered through appropriate programs incorporating entertaining. To better estimate these effects, future research should consider the potential effectiveness of longitudinal studies. It is also recommended that this program be administered to regular students.