Beyond Divergent Thinking Assessment: Extending Creative Activity Areas in Creativity Training

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The present study systematically examined the effectiveness of the Idea-Marathon System (IMS) as a creativity training method using the S-A Creativity Test, which measures both divergent thinking traits and Creative Activity Areas. Previous research has focused mainly on divergent thinking; however, less is known about whether training effects extend to applied, context-sensitive domains. To address this, a quasi-experimental design was implemented with first-year undergraduates at A University (training group: n = 51; control group: n = 36). Over a 15-week intervention, the training group engaged in daily idea generation following IMS, while the control group received no training. Although statistical significance was not achieved, IMS showed tendencies toward improvements in productive improvement (Tb), imaginative speculation (Tc), fluency (F), flexibility (X), and elaboration (E), while originality (O) appeared to be maintained rather than enhanced. No effect was found for practical application (Ta). These findings suggest that IMS may provide a sustained and multi-contextual approach to creativity training, while also indicating that its potential benefits could depend on task-specific cognitive demands.