THE EFFECT OF A CREATIVE PROBLEM-SOLVING STRATEGY ON THE DIVERGENT THINKING SKILLS OF PROFESSIONAL NURSES IN A NURSING SERVICE SETTING.
Contributors: Boston College.
Published: 1989
Number of pages: 176
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Education, Higher.; Education, Curriculum and Instruction.
Description: This study examined the effect of a creative problem solving strategy on the divergent thinking of professional nurses. In addition, the study examined the correlation between divergent thinking and critical thinking, cognitive preference, age, levels of education and years of experience in nursing.

The creative problem solving method developed for this study was adapted from the synectics research of W. J. J. Gordon. Subjects' aptitude for divergent thinking was pretested and posttested by the Torrance Verbal Test of Creative Thinking and by the Gordon Creative Problem Solving Test. Critical thinking was assessed by the Watson-Glaser Test of Critical Thinking, cognitive preference by the Atwood Cognitive Preference Test.

The training strategy consisted of paradox, analogy, equivalence, and new insight. The participants were randomly selected for either the experimental group (trained in synectics) or control group (not trained in synectics). Ninety-seven professional nurses completed the study, 51 experimental subjects and 46 control subjects. Descriptive findings reflect that the majority of subjects scored in the lower ranges in divergent thinking, in the higher ranges in critical thinking, and had a cognitive preference for application.

Correlation was measured by Pearson Product-Moment Correlation. Significant positive correlation was found between the divergent thinking skills of flexibility, originality and critical thinking. Significant negative correlation was found between the divergent thinking skills of flexibility, originality and age, and, between fluency, flexibility, originality and years of experience in nursing.

Pretest-posttest differences in the means were larger for the experimental group than for the control group. Effect scores revealed a marked gain for the experimental group in fluency, flexibility, originality and creative problem solving. MANOVA Repeated Measures Design demonstrated that these differences were statistically significant.

From this study it would appear that professional nurses receiving instruction in a creative problem solving strategy use a more fluent, flexible, original, novel and efficacious method of thinking. These findings support the use of a creative problem solving strategy, specifically synectics, in the education of the professional nurse.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 50-09, Section: B, page: 3918.

Thesis (PH.D.)--BOSTON COLLEGE, 1989.

School code: 0016.