Errors and Understanding: The Effects of Error-Management Training on Creative Problem-Solving

Abstract

People make errors in their creative problem-solving efforts. The intent of this article was to assess whether error-management training would improve performance on creative problem-solving tasks. Undergraduates were asked to solve an educational leadership problem known to call for creative thought where problem solutions were scored for quality, originality, and elegance. Prior to beginning work on their problem solutions, participants were provided with training in 0 to 4 error-management strategies. It was found that error-management training was beneficial for talented people (as indicated by scores on the pretraining exercise) resulting in solutions of greater originality. The implications of these findings for improving performance on creative problem-solving tasks are discussed.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Sam Hunter, Richard Marcy, Leslie Dailey, and Cassie Blair for their contributions to this article. This effort was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (IIS—0852589), Michael D. Mumford principal investigator.

Notes

Note. MS = Mean square, F = F-ratio (degrees of freedom), p = significance level, η ²  = partial eta squared effect size.

Note. MS = Mean square, F = F-ratio (degrees of freedom), p = significance level, η ²  = partial eta squared effect size.

Note. MS = Mean square, F = F-ratio (degrees of freedom), p = significance level, η ²  = partial eta squared effect size.