Idea generation compared between children with and without learning disabilities

Abstract

The purposes of this quasi-experimental study were to: (a) compile a solution set of ideas and idea categories that could be used to measure ideational fluency, flexibility, and originality of ideas for future research studies, and (b) measure and compare the ideational performance of students with and without learning disabilities (LD). The idea generation performance of 13 students with LD and 11 children without LD was measured using 22 idea generation prompts modeled on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (Torrance, 1974). Ideational fluency, flexibility, and originality was analyzed using hierarchical generalized linear modeling, and results indicated that for children with LD, fluency had a weaker positive association with originality (i.e., an interaction effect; F [1, 659] = 4.54, p = .03), indicating that students with LD utilized a more convergent thinking style approach to idea generation rather than a divergent thinking style approach employed by students without LD. A solution set for fluency, flexibility, and originality was compiled which could be used for scoring future studies investigating the effects of strategy instruction for idea generation performance in students who may demonstrate more difficulties in generating ideas for academic tasks than their similarly disabled peers.