Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) Lab at Utah State University

The purpose of this study was to examine specific strategies students discuss before engaging with a creative problem-solving (CPS) task (strategic planning), the strategies they report using during the task (strategy use), and which strategies best predict specific creative outcomes. Fifty-eight fifth and sixth graders were interviewed while solving several CPS stories tasks. Their responses were coded for creative fluency, flexibility, originality, usefulness to stakeholders, and elaboration. While multiple strategies were significantly correlated with creative outcomes, perspective taking was the most consistent predictor across creative outcomes. Planning to take a stakeholder’s perspective accounted for 19% of the variance in creative fluency and 5% in creative flexibility across items. Further, when students reported using the perspective-taking strategy, they tended to develop more original (r= .34) and useful (r= .39) responses and provide more elaboration (r= .42). This study demonstrated how a semi-structured interview protocol may illuminate the nuances of CPS strategic approaches and further, provides initial evidence to support the development of future interventions targeting perspective-taking strategies.​​