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This study examines "specific" exploration activities in students' visual arts portfolios from secondary education. Creating original visual arts products requires exploration according to Getzels and Csiksentmihalyi ("The creative vision. A longitudinal study of problem finding in Art." New York: John Wiley & Sons Inc., 1976). Obtaining insight about the contribution of "specific" exploration activities to the originality of arts products is important for designing and supporting learning in arts education. The aim of this study is to examine the contribution of activities within three types of exploration: "association," "combination," and "abstraction" to originality of visual arts designs. Data consist of 196 portfolio events showing exploration activities and art designs, from 11 Grade 11 visual arts students. Portfolio events were coded for three different types of exploration: "association," "combination," and "abstraction," on a dimension of ascending "abstractness." We coded activities within each of these types, on a scale of "remoteness," to determine the metaphorical distance. Visual originality of each portfolio event was assessed using the comparative judgment method. Multilevel regression analyses showed all three types of exploration significantly contributed to originality of visual designs. In total, 31% of the variance in originality at portfolio events level was explained by these types of exploration. In general, the more "remote" exploration activities were, the more "original" the visual design. These findings are discussed related to the literature on creative processes.

Visual arts education focuses on creating original visual art products. A means to improve originality is enhancement of divergent thinking, indicated by fluency, flexibility and originality of ideas. In regular arts lessons, divergent thinking is mostly promoted through brainstorming. In a previous study, we found positive effects of an explicit instruction of metacognition on fluency and flexibility in terms of the generation of ideas, but not on the originality of ideas. Therefore, we redesigned the instruction with a focus on building up knowledge about creative generation strategies by adding more complex types of association, and adding generation through combination and abstraction. In the present study, we examined the effects of this intervention by comparing it with regular brainstorming instruction. In a pretest-posttest control group design, secondary school students in the comparison condition received the brainstorm lesson and students in the experimental condition received the newly developed instruction lesson. To validate the effects, we replicated this study with a second cohort. The results showed that in both cohorts the strategy instruction of 50 min had positive effects on students' fluency, flexibility and originality. This study implies that instructional support in building up knowledge about creative generation strategies may improve students' creative processes in visual arts education.

Background: The main purposes of visual arts education concern the enhancement of students' creative processes and the originality of their art products. Divergent thinking is crucial for finding original ideas in the initial phase of a creative process that aims to result in an original product. Aims: This study aims to examine the effects of explicit instruction of meta-cognition on students' divergent thinking. Sample and method: A quasi-experimental design was implemented with 147 secondary school students in visual arts education. In the experimental condition, students attended a series of regular lessons with assignments on art reception and production, and they attended one intervention lesson with explicit instruction of meta-cognition. In the control condition, students attended a series of regular lessons only. Pre-test and post-test instances tests measured fluency, flexibility, and originality as indicators of divergent thinking. Results: Explicit instruction of meta-cognitive knowledge had a positive effect on fluency and flexibility, but not on originality. Conclusions: This study implies that in the domain of visual arts, instructional support in building up meta-cognitive knowledge about divergent thinking may improve students' creative processes. This study also discusses possible reasons for the demonstrated lack of effect for originality.