Creative Thinking as a Predictor of Creative Problem Solving in Architectural Design Students Hernan Casakin and Nitza Davidovitch Ariel University Center of Samaria Roberta M. Milgram Ariel University Center of Samaria and Tel Aviv University The findings demonstrated that creative thinking, operationally defined as the cognitive ability to generate a large number of original ideas/solutions predicted creative thinking in solving problems in architecture. Research participants were 111 students of architectural design. A strong correlation was found between the predictor and criterion measures, r = .45, p  .001. Creative problem solving in architectural design was more highly correlated with the verbal than with the figural component of the creative thinking measure, r = .51, p  .001 and r = .31, p  .005, respectively. The findings suggest the potential benefits of including both domain-general tests of ideational fluency and domain-specific tests of creative thinking in architectural problem solving in admission procedures for departments of architecture. Keywords: Architectural design, domain-general creative thinking, domain-specific creative thinking, verbal stimuli, figural stimuli According to the Oxford Dictionary (Cowie, 1990) architecture is defined as the “art and science of designing and constructing buildings” (p. 51). A wider definition of the term often includes the design of the total environment, from town planning to the con- struction of buildings. Design is defined by the Merriam–Webster Online Dictionary (n.d.) as the ability “to create, fashion, execute, or construct according to plan; to devise for a specific function or end.” Architectural design is mainly concerned with the creative manipulation of form, space, light, materials, and technologies with the aim to achieve an objective, which is aesthetic and functional. Creativity is a central aspect in design education, design research, and professional practice in architecture. The outcome of a design activity is expected to be not only useful and functional, but also original and valuable (Christiaans, 2002). Design problems are by definition ill-defined because they are complex, ambiguous, and the initial goals are not fully formulated (e.g., Goel, 1995; Simon, 1981). Accordingly, design problems cannot be solved using routine problem-solving procedures (Gero, 1996). In addition to knowledge and skills in a specific domain, solving design problems requires creative thinking abilities that will generate solutions that are unpredictable and unusual (Suwa, Gero, & Purcell, 1999). A relatively large amount of literature has accumulated on the development and application of models, methods and strategies for enhancing, supporting, or facilitating the generation of outcomes considered creative in architectural design (e.g., Akin & Akin, 1996, 1998; Gero, 1996; Gero & Maher, 1993; Goldschmidt, Ben-Zeev, & Levi, 1996; Golschmidt & Smolkov, 2006; Lawson, 2002, 2005; MacKinnon, 1965; Schmitt, 1993). However, very little attention has been given in the research literature to the specific question of the assessment and/or the enhancement of creative thinking in architectural design. This paucity can be attributed to the difficulty and complexity in defining creative thinking in architectural design operationally and measuring it objectively. Hong and Milgram (2008b) defined creative thinking ability as the cognitive ability to generate ideas that are unusual and of high quality. Creative thinkers discover or produce ideas and solutions that are imaginative, clever, elegant, or surprising (Guilford, 1967, 1981; Mednick, 1962). They perceive and define problems differ- ently and notice things that others ignore (Wallach, 1970). Cre- ative thinking abilities are essential for the development of creative talent (Hong & Milgram, 2008b). Until recently, creative thinking was considered domain general, that is, individuals high in general creative thinking ability would be able to generate original ideas in a wide variety of domains. Recently scholars have produced evi- dence that creative thinking is domain- or content-specific (e.g., Amabile, 1996; Baer, 1998). In a recent volume, Kaufman and Baer (2005) presented an authoritative summary of the conflict that surrounds this issue. In their new theoretical formulation, Hong and Milgram (2008b) distinguished between domain-general and domain-specific creative thinking abilities and postulated a relationship between the two. Milgram and Milgram (1976) developed the Tel Aviv Creativity Test, a measure that assesses domain-general creative thinking ability. In this test creative thinking is defined operationally as ideational fluency, that is, the ability to generate a large number of unusual, high quality responses to a stimulus. The test has been translated into six languages and used over the years in Israel and Hernan P. Casakin, School of Architecture, Ariel University Center of Samaria; Nitza Davidovitch, Department of Academic Development, Ariel University Center of Samaria; Roberta M. Milgram, Department of Be- havioral Sciences, Ariel University Center of Samaria and School of Education, Tel Aviv University. We thank David Cassuto for his support and collaboration with this study. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Hernan P. Casakin, Department of Architecture, Ariel University Center of Samaria, P.O. Box 3, 44837, Ariel, Israel. E-mail: casakin@bezeqint.net Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts © 2010 American Psychological Association 2010, Vol. 4, No. 1, 31–35 1931-3896/10/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0016965 31 This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.