Divergent and Convergent Thinking During the Creative Thinking Process

Creative thinking is an essential 21st-century competency for solving complex problems. It involves the interplay between two key sub-skills: divergent thinking (DT), generating various ideas, and Convergent Thinking (CT), refining successful approaches. While both are necessary, the dynamic between them during the creative process remains under-studied, as traditional assessments often prioritize outcomes over process evolution. Using the validated Structures task, participants (N = 122) were asked to design a polygon under constraints and received real-time feedback to improve their designs. Activity data (20 min) was segmented into 10 intervals of two minutes. For each participant, independent measures of convergent and divergent thinking were automatically calculated from the consistency of their progress and the different combinations of features across an interval, respectively. Clustering analysis identified three distinct behavioral profiles: effective learners, who maintained high DT throughout the task; and two types of ineffective learners: those who persisted but showed low DT and those who disengaged early. Notably, these group differences emerged early in the task and remained relatively stable. This may justify the focus of traditional creative thinking tasks on DT rather than CT. This research underscores the potential of digital environments to provide higher resolution insights into higher-order thinking skills tasks.