Understanding the Practices and the Products of Creativity: Making and Tinkering Family Program at Informal Learning Environments

Abstract

This study investigates how families' sociomaterial experiences influence the creative practices of novel idea generation and feasible solution generation and the products during family workshops using littleBits as prototyping tools. We conceptualize creativity as a distributed and materially-grounded activity. Methods are interaction analysis on video-based accounts of 31 families' activities and creativity assessment metrics to analyze the novelty scores of families' products. We take an exploratory approach to understand families' sociomaterial interactions in high and low novelty score groups. Findings illustrate that collaborative idea exchange and ongoing generative tinkering with materials support the emergence of novel ideas and feasible solutions.