The benefit of arts education for cultural engagement, wider academic achievement, and as a contributor to the creative economy is a subject of significant debate. In the present work we focus on the potential for simple arts-based improvisation activities to enhance divergent thinking skills and creativity in primary school age children. In a first experiment we compared the effect of children taking part in an improvised vs. non-improvised dance class on their subsequent performance on the Instances Task (Wallach & Kogan, 1965) and on a creative 'toy' design task. In a second experiment children took part in verbal and acting improvisation games or in matched control games before completing figural activity 1 of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (Torrance, 1974). In both experiments we found that children who took part in the improvisation interventions showed better divergent thinking and creativity after the intervention. Our findings suggest that simple, arts-based improvisation interventions could have domain general benefits for creative cognition processes. Further, they indicate one way in which simply making better use of existing arts education provision could provide a cost-effective way to increase creativity relevant skills in primary school children. We consider putative mechanisms for the improvisation effects and specify directions for future work.
Previous findings highlight the relationships between 2 × 2 perfectionism and burnout in dancers, but researchers are yet to examine the relationships between 2 × 2 perfectionism and, the opposing outcome of, engagement in dance. Similarly, we know little about the factors that may moderate these relationships. We therefore sought to extend previous research by examining the relationships between 2 × 2 perfectionism and both burnout and engagement in dancers, and by assessing whether autonomy support moderated the relationships between subtypes of perfectionism and the two opposing outcomes. Adolescent dancers (N = 244, female n = 198, M age = 15.00 years, SD = 2.90 years) completed measures capturing four subtypes of perfectionism (pure personal standards perfectionism, pure evaluative concerns perfectionism, mixed perfectionism, and nonperfectionism), burnout dimensions (reduced sense of accomplishment, emotional/physical exhaustion, devaluation), engagement dimensions (confidence, dedication, vigour, enthusiasm), and autonomy support provided by their dance teacher. Moderated regression analyses supported all four hypotheses of the 2 × 2 perfectionism model for burnout (all dimensions) and dedication, vigour, and enthusiasm, and supported three hypotheses for confidence (Hypotheses 1a, 2 and 3). In addition, autonomy support moderated the relationships between subtypes of perfectionism and burnout (reduced accomplishment and devaluation) and engagement (all dimensions). The findings suggest that providing autonomy support offers a potential strategy to prevent burnout and promote engagement in perfectionistic dancers.
In contemporary dance, experts evaluate creativity in competitions, auditions, and performances, typically through ratings of choreography or improvisation. Audiences also implicitly evaluate choreographic creativity, so dancers’ livelihoods also hinge upon the opinions of non-expert observers. However, some argue that the abstract and often pedestrian nature of contemporary dance confuses non-expert audiences. Therefore, agreement regarding creativity and appreciation amongst experts and non-experts may be low. Finding appropriate methodologies for reliable and real-world creativity evaluation remains the subject of considerable debate within the psychology creativity research field. Although considerably variant in methodological operationalisation, the Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT) asks individuals to use an implicit definition to assess creativity in others’ work. This study aimed to investigate the role of experience and expertise in the evaluation of choreographic creativity, with a secondary aim of testing the feasibility of an online snowballing methodology for large-scale dance-specific research, informed by the methodology of the CAT. We filmed 23 Contemporary Dance students each performing a 3-min peer-choreographed solo and then recruited 850 online evaluators with varying degrees of expertise and experience in dance and creativity. Evaluators viewed at least one randomly selected video and rated creativity, technical ability, appreciation and understanding of the work, each using a seven-point Likert scale. A one-way ANOVA showed a significant difference in creativity ratings across the 23 videos, and creativity correlated significantly with the other variables. We then categorized evaluators on nine aspects of their dance and creative experience and entered the data into a repeated-measures linear mixed model. Two of the fixed effects yielded differences in creativity evaluations: (i) contemporary choreographic experience and (ii) self-reported creative expertise, as did the random effect of the video. The results indicate that personal experience of the choreographic process impacts creativity assessment, above and beyond experience in dance class participation. Implications for creativity assessment within creativity research and practice are discussed.
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