PLAYING TOWARDS CREATIVITY: A REVIEW OF PLAY AND ITS IMPACT ON CREATIVITY
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Playing Towards Creativity: A Review of Play and its Impact on Creativity
Yin Mei J.J. Lenden-Hitchcock
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The Importance of Play
In his book, From Ritual to Theatre: The Seriousness of Human Play, Victor Turner
discussed the importance of play in the development of the human psyche. He very interestingly
notes that “play” comes from the Anglo-Saxon plega: “a game, sport”, but also “a fight, a battle”
(1992, p. 33). The etymology alone suggests to us the importance of play as training for (adult)
life. Being divorced from “the realm of the rational adaptation of means to ends”, play is “free
from constraints, where any and every variable can be played with” (Turner, 1992, p. 34); “a
kind of free assimilation, without accommodation to spatial conditions or to significance of
objects” (Piaget, 1999, p. 86). It is through this concept of play, where “one thing is playfully
treated as if it were something else” (Fein, 1987, p. 282) that the child may hone the skills
necessary to human development. In fact, Krasnor & Pepler (1980) conceptualised a tripartite
structure of the relationship between play and developmental skills:
1. Play as a reflection of a child’s progression and development.
2. Play as a platform to practise and apply skills.
3. Play as instrumental to the developmental process.
Given the necessity for play in the growth and development of the child, it thus becomes
necessary to see how play functions both as a developmental tool and measure. One of the ways
in which play works with its facilitation of the cognitive process, is its impact on creativity.
Already, there is the positive correlation of pretend play and creativity that has long been
acknowledged in numerous studies (Fein, 1981; Mindham, 2005; Mullineaux & Dilalla, 2009;
Russ, et al., 1999; Russ, 2003; Singer & Singer, 1990). This review seeks to move further into
the field by questioning if play can enhance creativity and the imagination by examining studies
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which measure the impact of play on creativity with a focus on evaluating their efficacy,
highlighting limitations and suggesting directions for further research.
Methods
Inclusion Criteria
For inclusion into this review, articles had to conform to the below criteria:
1. Subjects were children,
2. Study the impact of play on creativity,
3. Utilise “pretend”, “fantasy” or “dramatic” play
4. Describe either an intervention or longitudinal study.
Search Procedure
A computerised multi-database literature search was conducted in February of 2012,
selecting the Academic Search Premier, Education Research Complete, the Education Resource
Information Center (ERIC), PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES®, PsycCRITIQUES® from the EBSCO
search engine. The terms creativity, imagination, and play were entered into the descriptor fields,
with “language” limited to English and “source” limited to peer-reviewed journal articles.
Results
The Literature Review
The EBSCO search engine garnered a total of 76 citations after which each abstract was
assessed for the article’s relevancy to the area of focus. In the first cut of the selection process,
51 citations were obviously irrelevant to the topic of play’s impact on creativity. Next, 15
citations not describing the effect of play on one’s creativity were excluded. Of the remaining 10,
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three did not focus wholly on children, two didn’t deal with pretend or fantasy play, and,
together with a repeated citation in the results, were thus eliminated. Of the remaining five
articles, one text was unavailable. Thus, a total of four reviewed journal articles, two being
intervention studies and the other two longitudinal studies, comprising all components of the
selection criteria were identified and included in this literature review. Table 1 gives a summary
of the study characteristics of each article reviewed in this paper.
Framework for Critiquing the Literature
The four articles summarised in this review used several different ways of assessing the
effect of play on creativity. In two instances, studies were longitudinal; looking at how the way
children play currently would predict their creativity in the future. The other two were
intervention studies that examined how play intervention impacted creativity either in the form
of improving pretend play skills or in stimulating creativity.
Each article was critiqued based on the following criteria:
1. Components of play.
2. The aspect of creativity tested.
3. Assessment strategies.
4. Efficacy measures.
The strengths and limitations of each study were also highlighted.
(1999)
4. Russ, et al.
al. (2009)
3. Mullineaux, et
(2008)
2. Moore, et al.
M. (2006)
1. Garaigordobil,
Study
Research
Question
86 Can play
stimulate
verbal,
graphic–
figural,
constructive,
& dramatic
creativity?
45 Are the longterm effects of
a competent
pretend play
intervention
greater than
the effects
measured
immediately
postintervention?
127 Can preschool
pretend play
behaviours
predict
adolescent
creativity?
121 Can pretend
play predict
divergent
thinking &
affect in
fantasy over a
4-year period?
N
Table 1. Study characteristics
Longitudinal/
Prediction
Longitudinal/
Prediction
Intervention
Pretend Play
Pretend Play
(realistic
role-playing
behaviours)
Pretend Play
Type of
Play
Intervention/
Verbal,
Quasiexperimental Graphic–
figural,
Constructive,
Dramatic
creativity
Type/ Design
5 minutes
20
minutes
5 x 30
minutes
over
5- 8
weeks
Weekly,
2 hour
over
an
academic
year
Duration
4 years
5 to 10
years
2-8
months
Followup
none
Divergent
thinking
Fantasy
Divergent
thinking
Divergent
thinking
Positive
Positive
Positive
Aspect of
Effect on
Creativity
Creativity
Verbal,
Positive
Graphic–
figural,
Constructive,
Dramatic
creativity
PLAYING TOWARDS CREATIVITY: A REVIEW OF PLAY AND ITS IMPACT ON CREATIVITY
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Longitudinal Studies: Predicating Creativity
Both the Mullineaux and Dilalla (2009) and the Russ, et al. (1999) studies sought to
determine if pretend play impacts creativity later in life, employing longitudinal, correlation,
prediction design to determine if play could predict creativity.
Mullineaux and Dilalla (2009) sought to determine if “early pretend play behaviours were
related to performance on creativity measures during early adolescence”. They conducted freeplay situations for 250 five year olds in a laboratory playroom whereby the children were paired
together with an unacquainted child. Under indirect adult supervision, the children played for 20
minutes in a playroom with equal distribution of toys that would appeal either to boys or girls.
The children’s play sessions were all video-recorded for later coding of instances of realistic role
play representing everyday themes and persons.
Five to ten years later, the parents were invited to participate in a follow-up study via
mail using questionnaires. Of the original 250 children, only 127 of the original sample took part
in the follow-up. These questionnaires, to be completed at home, comprised an Alternate Uses
test and the Creative Thinking-Drawing Production measure.
The study showed that early pretend play behaviours “are an important factor in
predicting and understanding the developments of creativity during adolescence” (Mullineaux &
Dilalla, 2009) as seen in the correlation between realistic role-play at age five and scores on the
Alternate Uses test at age 10-15 during the follow-up. This was despite the dissociation between
realistic role-play at age five and the drawing prediction task at age 10-15. It was also in this test
as well as the realistic role-playing that significant sexual differences were reported. This was
unlike the Alternative Uses test which showed no evidence of sex difference on the number of
unusual responses.
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Limitations and weaknesses. While the Mullineaux and Dilalla (2009) study showed the
importance of early pretend behaviours in “predicting and understanding the developments of
creativity during adolescence”, the method by which this happens, was not, as self-reported,
examined. This leaves a gap in knowledge and the relevancy of the findings not made apparent.
Further limitations also occurred in that role-play and drawing exercises are tasks more
orientated towards girls than boys, lending to a skewing of results. As Mullineaux and Dilalla
(2009)’s Alternative Uses measure results suggest, as does Garaigordobil (2006), Moore and
Russ (2008), Russ, et al. (1999), and Russ (2003), that there is no correlation between gender and
divergent thinking. Furthermore, the fact that follow-up tasks were conducted at home meant
that there was no standardised testing; more persistent children could have spent more time on
the tasks or adult help may have been sought (Mullineaux & Dilalla, 2009). Lastly, as no
measure of intelligence was included in the analysis, it is possible that results would be altered if
it had been included.
Similar to Mullineaux and Dilalla (2009), Russ, et al. (1999) investigated “the ability of
pretend play in first- and second-grade children to predict divergent thinking ability and fantasy
over a 4-year period.” 121 first- and second-graders took part in two different test conducted by
different examiners who were also blind to the test scores and identities of the children. In one of
the sessions, the children individually took the Affect in Play Scale (APS) which measured
pretend play. As explained by Russ, et al. (1999), “The integration of affect score is determined
by combining mean quality of fantasy with frequency of affect (mean quality x frequency).”
Both the frequency of the positive and the negative affect were also computed. The second test
each child individually received was the Alternate Uses test and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary
Test-Revised (PPVT-R).
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In the follow-up, in which only 31 of the original sample participated, an Affect in
Fantasy Task (modified from the APS) was administered individually and videotaped. 21 of the
play tasks were videoed in the school and 10 were taped in the home. This was followed by the
Alternate Uses test used in the original study; though this time the task was conducted in small
groups rather than individually. The follow-up also included two extra measures of creativity for
exploratory purposes; one measuring how often children engage in creative behaviour as part of
daily life and the other measuring creativity in storytelling. In addition, the testing of children’s
coping was devised during the course of this study. A shorted version of the Basic Word
Vocabulary test was also given to estimate the present verbal level of the children.
While the main hypothesis posited that “pretend play in young children was significantly
predictive of divergent thinking and affect in fantasy over a 4-year period” was supported and
the findings indicate that “affective and cognitive process in play are stable over time and are
important processes in divergent thinking” as with divergent thinking itself, the study presented
several limitations.
Limitations and weaknesses. Firstly, there was no definition made of “fantasy” and of
its relation to creativity. Secondly, the follow-up sample size was merely a quarter of the original
and thus lacked the power and accuracy a larger sample size would have to draw more definite
conclusions. Thirdly, the quality of play is tied largely to affect which does not allow the play to
be assessed on the level of creativity per se.
Intervention Studies: Stimulating Creativity
Utilising a quasi-experimental pre-test intervention-post-test, Garaigordobil (2006)
assessed a cooperative play intervention, comprising games of verbal, graphic–figural,
constructive, and dramatic creativity, in its efficacy at stimulating creativity in children. With 86
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students in total aged 10 to 11, 54 were randomly allocated to two experimental groups while the
other 32 were assigned to two control groups. Both the control and experimental group were
homogenised across age, gender, academic aptitude, achievement, and sociocultural level
(Garaigordobil, 2006). The two-hour play sessions, conducted weekly in a large empty room at
the same time and day each week, comprised of a sequence of two or three recreational actives,
followed by a discussion. Blinded testers evaluated students with the same instruments as the
pre-test. The students were assessed using four creative tasks from the Torrence Tests of
Creative Thinking: asking, guessing causes, guessing consequences, product improvement.
The results of the study supported the hypotheses that “cooperative-creative play
stimulated an increase in (a) verbal creativity in originality … and (b) graphic-figural creativity.”
Similarly, those who had showed low creativity scores in the pre-test exhibited a significant
improvement.
Limitations and weaknesses. However, as self-reported, “because these results might be
affected by the statistical effect of ‘regression to the mean,’ they should be interpreted with
caution” and the study suggested that it would be advantageous to test this hypothesis again on
other samples of children. A limitation of the study could possibly be the lack of assessment of
the effect of the adults involved in the intervention who could have influenced the play. Another
self-reported limitation is “the use of experimental designs in natural educational contexts
because they may be affected by confounding variables that influence the results”
(Garaigordobil, 2006).
Moore and Russ (2008) differed from Garaigordobil (2006) in that they assessed the
effects of their play intervention as a follow-up as it was posited that “long-term effects of a
competent pretend play intervention may be greater than the effects measured immediately post
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intervention.” 50 children from age five to eight were randomly assigned to one of three groups:
control, affect play intervention or imagination play intervention. These groups had 14, 17 and
19 children in the groups respectively. Specific scripts, with standardised toys, prompts and
storylines were given for the children of each intervention group to play out, with the assessors
striving for four stories per session. Children in the affect group were encouraged to express
feelings and were given stories of high affective content, unlike the imagination group which
was asked to play out stories of “high-fantasy content and high story organisation.” The control
group played with puzzles and colouring books instead of the “human-like dolls, blocks, plastic
animals, Legos, and cars” used in the other two groups. Assessment was done by blinded
examiners using the Affect in Play Scale (APS), Alternate Uses test and the Multidimensional
Student Life Satisfaction Scale for Children as well as three additional measures.
In the follow-up there were 45 children distributed as follows: 16 in the imagination
group, 13 in the affect group and 16 in the control group. They were administered the same tests
as in the original study. It was found that play intervention did indeed improve play at follow-up
for the imagination group as the study demonstrated how imagination-focused intervention
improved cognitive play processes. The study also suggested the positive correlation between
cognitive skills and affective processes.
Limitations and weaknesses. However, one of the limitations is that as the skills
assessed in the imitation group more closely resembled the play processes measured by the APS,
the results could have been skewed in their favour. Furthermore, rather than remaining at the
level of improved play processes, the study could have extrapolated how improved play skills
subsequently enhanced creativity since cognitive play processes were shown to have been
improved. Most limiting however, was the low power of data due to small sample size. Also, due
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to the use of different examiners to administer the tests, there may have been differences in the
reporting of results.
Discussion
All four articles corroborated in their evidence that play has a positive impact on
creativity. However, there are several limitations discovered in the current literature on the effect
of play on creativity and imagination as stated below.
The first limitation is the lack of a standardised definition of what constitutes the
creativity being studied. While there seems to be a consensus that creativity is the creation of a
product that is “novel” and “good” (Russ, 2003), the study on the impact of play on creative
thinking seems mostly to focus on how play affects divergent thinking (Mullineaux, et al., 2009;
Russ, et al., 1999; Russ, 2003) which restricts the breadth that creative thinking comprises. Only
Garaigordobil (2006) proposed a structure that assessed creativity along the lines of fluency,
flexibility and originality thus giving more breadth to the concept of creativity.
The second limitation is defining what exactly constitutes play and what manner of play
enhances creativity. The articles reviewed here presented three differing concepts of play, and
the question of whether all manner of play enhances creativity or merely certain types was not
addressed. Though all four articles examined the impact of pretend play, Garaigordobil (2006)
had the additions of verbal, graphic–figural and constructive play.
The third limitation is the lack of intervention studies done to not only study the outcome
of play on creativity to show how play enhances creativity but, given that the empirical and
theoretical research that supports play’s positive effect on creativity, to help improve play skills.
Of the four articles reviewed, only two were intervention studies (Garaigordobil, 2006; Moore, et
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al., 2008) that examined the direct impact of play on creativity rather than merely using the
quality of play to predict creativity.
The forth limitation is the smallness of sample size in follow-ups in longitudinal studies
which results in less meaningful and accurate data analysis.
The fifth limitation is the lack of research done of the impact of play on creativity in
Singapore. For a country that desires “our students [ ] to possess life-ready competencies like
creativity” (MOE, 2012), and as one of its 21st Century Competencies promotes critical and
inventive thinking, it is important that we study the effect of play on children’ creativity within
the Singapore context.
Conclusions and Directions for Future Research
Currently, it is clear that play has a positive impact on creativity, among other things,
enhancing it. However, the efficacy of play can only be truly realised with more in-depth studies
that research how play may be integrated into the Singapore classroom to develop students’
creativity. Below, are several recommendations we would like to make.
First, there is a need for more intervention studies to study the need for play or even playskills intervention in Singapore. It needs to be determined whether developing students’ play
skills via such intervention studies would positively impact children’s creativity and in turn,
develop the critical and inventive thinking so necessary to Singapore’s 21st Century
Competencies.
Secondly, there is a need to have more longitudinal studies with greater sample size,
especially in the follow-up of the intervention to ensure greater accuracy in the statistical
analysis carried out.
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In conclusion, studies have determined a two-fold impact of play on creativity: 1.) that
play can predict creativity and 2.) that play can stimulate or enhance creativity. It is particularly
in the second option that the benefits of play intervention in schools have been apparent and this
review highly recommends the further exploration of such interventions. In closing, this review
has made a couple of suggestions to take this highly essential but, increasingly in the 21st
Century, thoroughly neglected aspect of human psyche and development back into our children’s
lives through recommendations for future research projects. By following the suggestions
proposed in this paper, play interventions can certainly enhance our children’s creativity and
imagination.
References
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