Can creativity be learned, and does it matter?
Geoffrey NewlandHelping encourage creative play was a driving force behind our creation of the Brickle, so it was important to me to understand if there was scientific literature that supports what we intuitively felt - that 'being creative' can be developed and that it's a good attribute to have. To try to tackle this I broke it down into three sub questions:
- Can creative thinking be 'learned'?
- If so, does this learning 'stick'. i.e. Once 'taught' are children more creative for life?
- Do creative children go on to have better life outcomes?
Firstly, can creativity be learned/developed?
In short the answer is yes. The scientific evidence for this seems to be relatively conclusive. One particularly useful study in understanding this is “Creativity training programs in primary education: A systematic review and meta‐analysis” (Thinking Skills & Creativity, 2022). This study examines 55 other English language studies looking at different childhood interventions and how they impacted the creativity of children.
It concludes:
This paper presents an exhaustive systematic review of the existing empirical studies investigating the factors which influence children’s creativity. The results showed that parents and teachers can play a key role in developing children’s creativity.
The recommendations of the Paper go on to particularly stress the influence of the parents in helping provide an environment that encourages creativity. This is both in their interactions with their children but also in the physical environment they provide and the type and nature of the childrens play.
Secondly, does creative learning ‘stick’?
This is where unfortunately the evidence is thinnest. There’s a gap in the research. Long-term studies that specifically track the impact of creativity interventions over decades are rare. This makes sense, running controlled, longitudinal studies on this kind of intervention is difficult. You’d need to teach creativity to one group of children, and withhold it from another, and then follow both for 20+ years — something that's ethically and logistically challenging to do at scale. As a result, most evidence comes either from short-term gains after intervention, or from long-term correlations with ‘natural’ creativity.
Lastly, do creative children go on to have 'better' life outcomes?
Again, yes, the evidence seems fairly clear both from the now quite old Torrence Tests longitudinal studies and also the more recent (2023) Gill and Prowse study: “The Creativity Premium: Exploring the Link Between Childhood Creativity and Life Outcomes”.
Both of these studies assess children, scoring them for creativity and then assess later life outcomes. Importantly, the more recent Gill and Prowse study attempts to control for elements such as family background and cognitive ability – so it gets closer to measuring only the impact of creativity.
In summary
Difficult as it was for us here at Brickle we couldn't definitively claim that fostering creativity in children is worth it! We suspect it, and parents and schools make a huge effort to encourage it, but we don’t know for certain (ignoring the vast troves of anecdotal evidence) that the answer to all three of the questions I ask at the start of this article are yes.
As manufacturers of the Brickle, this is frustrating! We’d like to be able to slap a ‘guaranteed to make your child have better life outcomes’ sticker on the side.
However, what we do know is that creativity isn’t something you’re just born with — it can be nurtured. Additionally the evidence is clear: that children who grow up with more opportunities for creative play tend to do better in life. So, we feel comfortable to claim that the Brickle pushes an already creative toy, LEGO®, another step forward in encouraging a creative life.
