Abstract
A comparison was made of the effects of a topic-centred lecture and a skill-centred practice session on creativity, as measured by two tests of divergent thinking. Ninety undergraduate university students were randomly allocated to one of the two treatments. No significant effects of experimenter or sex of subjects were found in the posttest. Subjects high on pretest measures of creativity were significantly higher on the posttest measures regardless of which treatment they received and, for three of the four posttest scores, those subjects receiving practice in creative skills were significantly better than those subjects hearing the lecture. Results were interpreted as supporting De Bono's claim that thinking skills are best taught by focussing on techniques which, with practice, can be deliberately applied to a number of situations.