Counterfactual thinking refers to imaginative thoughts about what might have been ("if only" or "what if") which are intrinsically linked to self-conscious emotions (regret and guilt) and social judgements (blame). Research in adults suggests that the focus of these thoughts is influenced by order (temporal and causal). Little…

Based on the analysis of interviews with children, this article links what we know about the way in which they learn with their views of creativity. Whilst pupils have a crisp view of the nature of creativity, which links them to well-established philosophical views, this contrasts both with the vaguer notions of the term and with their experience…

Research related to how young children's drawings change and develop is well documented and an extensive literature on this area can be traced back to the nineteenth century. Most of this literature, however, focuses on developmental aspects and largely fails to explore what would seem to be an essential ingredient in each drawings…

William Hazlitt (1778-1830), one of the most important critics of the English Romantic Period, held and published highly developed views about the nature of the creative imagination, the function of criticism and what it means to be truly learned. Although he never advanced an explicit theory of education, least of all one about the purposes of…

Drawing on existing work in the area of creativity and early years education, this paper maps the process of an exploratory study which sought to identify what characterizes "possibility thinking" as an aspect of creativity in young children's learning. With the aim of developing a framework for identifying "possibility…

This study is part of a larger research agenda, which includes future doctoral study, aiming to investigate the psychological processes of thought experiments. How do thought-experimenters establish relations between their imaginary worlds and the physical one? How does a technique devoid of new sensory input result to new empirical knowledge? In…

The IADIS CELDA 2012 Conference intention was to address the main issues concerned with evolving learning processes and supporting pedagogies and applications in the digital age. There had been advances in both cognitive psychology and computing that have affected the educational arena. The convergence of these two disciplines is increasing at a…