EFFECTS OF COGNITIVE STYLE AND ANTICIPATORY REWARD ON STUDENTS CREATIVITY

Abstract

The study examined the roles of cognitive style and anticipatory reward on creativity using one hundred and twelve (112) participants drawn from Capital City Secondary School Awka, Nigeria. Participant’s responses from Group Embedded Figure Test (GEFT) and Divergent Thinking Task (DTT) used in measuring cognitive style and creativity respectively were subjected to 2-way-ANOVA statistical test. The results of the analysis shows that a significant main effect was observed for cognitive style, F (1, 108) = 7.16, p < .05 with the field-independent (M = 13.63, SD = 3.50) performing better on creativity task than the field-dependent (M = 11.75, SD = 3.69), which confirmed hypothesis I. And, no significant main effect was observed for reward, F (1, 108) = 0.04, p < .05 with the anticipatory reward condition (M = 12.89, SD = 3.93) not performing better on creativity task than no reward condition (M = 12.48, SD = 3.49), which rejects hypothesis II. The implications of the findings have shown that field-independent and field-dependent students perform differently to the anticipatory reward and no reward conditions on creativity tasks. Suggestions were made for further study.