Worked-out examples have long been regarded as an effective strategy for lowering cognitive load and thereby facilitating learning and task performance, but within the context of artistic creativity they have received comparatively little attention. T...
Worked-out examples have long been regarded as an effective strategy for lowering cognitive load and thereby facilitating learning and task performance, but within the context of artistic creativity they have received comparatively little attention. This is not only because the relevance of cognition to art learning was perceived as low, but also because the ill-structured and complex nature of art assignments makes it difficult to explore students’ cognitive burden and its effects on creativity under empirical conditions. However, artistic creativity unfolds through a creative thinking process, manifesting in both performance and products, so the cognitive load perceived by learners is likely to influence their creative outcomes. Moreover, if we can identify specific instructional strategies for manipulating the completeness of examples and determine their efficacy for each subdimension of art creativity, we may uncover instructional approaches tailored to the unique characteristics of the art domain.
Furthermore, given that art learners’ expertise is formed through accumulated artistic experiences, the relationships among instructional strategy, cognitive load, and art creativity may vary according to learners’ art experience. Therefore, rather than applying a one-size-fits-all example-based strategy to art learners, it is necessary to explore differentiated and optimal instructional strategies for fostering artistic creativity that take individual learners’ art experiences into account. Accordingly, this study draws principally on worked-out example and the expertise reversal effect to comprehensively and empirically examine the impact of example completeness on art creativity, the causal structure involving cognitive load, and the moderating role of art experience. The main research objectives are as follows.
First, we designed three example conditions for art learners-fully worked-out examples, partially worked-out examples, and no example-differing in the degree of completeness, in order to identify the forms and structuring methods of examples most suitable for open-ended art tasks. Considering the ill-structured and open-ended nature of art assignments, we hypothesized that partially worked-out examples, which grant learners greater cognitive autonomy, would better facilitate creative thinking processes and creative products than fully worked-out examples, whose efficacy has been established primarily in well-structured tasks.
Second, we sought to determine through which conditions and pathways the detailed subdimensions of art creativity emerge in an art learning context. Recognizing that art creativity is multidimensional rather than unidimensional—comprising distinct yet interacting subfactors such as originality, appropriateness, and elaboration—we posited that example completeness and cognitive load would exert differentiated effects on each subdimension of art creativity.
Third, we compared students from general high schools and arts-specialized high schools to investigate differences in art experience and to clarify the moderating effect of art experience. High school is a critical period when individuals make career decisions and when art learners’ creativity and expertise develop, leading to pronounced qualitative differences in art experiences. General high school students typically form basic expressive and experiential art experiences, whereas arts-specialized high school students accumulate more advanced technical skills and self-directed creative experiences. We thus examined two types of high schools—general and arts-specialized—as proxy groups for low versus high art experience.
Based on these considerations, a total of 241 high school students (223 in the final sample)—enrolled either in general or arts-specialized high schools—participated in this study. We used pretests measuring creative disposition, visual imagery ability, and task competence as control variables. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions—fully worked-out example (an example detailing every stage of the creative process), partially worked-out example (an example presenting only some stages, to promote learner autonomy), or no example—and then completed a creative art task. After task performance, they completed a questionnaire on cognitive load. Expert raters evaluated creative outcomes, focusing not only on overall creativity but also on the subdimensions of originality, appropriateness, and elaboration.
For data analysis, we created two contrasts via dummy coding: (C1) example presentation versus no example (fully and partially worked-out examples vs. no example), and (C2) example completeness (fully worked-out example vs. partially worked-out example). The main findings are summarized as follows.
First, when examining total effects across all students for both contrasts (C1, C2), both example presentation and higher example completeness positively influenced overall art creativity. This suggests that providing examples—and, moreover, providing examples with greater clarity and specificity—can be advantageous for high school art learners’ creativity.
Second, in the moderation analysis of total effects by art experience, we focused on interaction effects. Under the example presentation contrast (C1), negative interactions with art experience emerged for all subdimensions of creativity, indicating that the positive effect of example provision diminished among learners with higher levels of art experience. In contrast, under the example completeness contrast (C2), only originality exhibited a significant negative interaction with art experience, suggesting that for highly experienced learners, partially worked-out examples foster originality more effectively than fully worked-out examples.
Third, in examining the mediating role of cognitive load across all students, example presentation (C1) significantly reduced cognitive load in a negative direction. However, the indirect effect of reduced cognitive load on creativity reached marginal significance only for appropriateness and elaboration, implying that lowering cognitive load via example provision benefits only certain subdimensions of art creativity. Under the example completeness contrast (C2), fully worked-out examples tended to increase cognitive load relative to partially worked-out examples, but this tendency was not statistically significant, and no indirect effects on creativity were observed.
Finally, we analyzed moderated mediation by art experience, focusing on interaction effects in the paths from example contrasts (C1, C2) to cognitive load. Both contrasts significantly and positively interacted with art experience: among low-experience learners, example provision significantly reduced cognitive load, whereas among high-experience learners, fully worked-out examples increased cognitive load more than partially worked-out examples. Interaction effects of example contrasts and art experience on creative subdimensions varied in direction across conditions and subdimensions. For C1, these interactions mirrored the moderation results from the total effects analysis. For C2, significant interactions emerged only for originality and appropriateness: originality showed a negative interaction (favoring partially worked examples for high-experience learners), while appropriateness showed a positive interaction (favoring fully worked examples for high-experience learners). Additionally, interactions between cognitive load and art experience on art creativity were significant: high cognitive load markedly reduced creativity for low-experience learners, but for high-experience learners creativity did not decline—or even increased—under higher cognitive load. In supplementary moderated mediation analyses, the clearest moderating effect across the entire causal structure surfaced in the elaboration subdimension under C1.
In sum, our findings suggest that, for high school art learners, providing highly complete examples can serve as a broadly effective strategy for promoting most subdimensions of creativity during open-ended art tasks. However, for learners with substantial art experience, only the originality benefits of partially worked-out examples persist. Moreover, strategies aimed at reducing cognitive load show differential efficacy depending on the subdimension of creativity and on learners’ art experience, with the most pronounced moderated mediation effect observed in elaboration under the example presentation contrast (C1).
These results have several pedagogical implications. First, by demonstrating the expertise reversal effect among high school art learners, we empirically underscore the need for tailored instructional strategies that consider learners’ levels of art experience during their developmental trajectory. In practice, art educators should offer clearly structured, fully worked-out examples to novices—helping them develop foundational expression and exploratory skills—whereas experienced learners should receive partially worked-out examples to encourage creative exploration and originality.
Second, this study expands the applicability of cognitive load theory and expertise reversal from well-structured tasks to the ill-structured, open-ended realm of art assignments, offering academic contributions. We clarify the role and limits of cognitive load during creative tasks and show that merely reducing cognitive load is insufficient to fully foster the multifaceted nature of art creativity; indeed, certain levels of cognitive challenge may actually enhance creativity depending on learners’ expertise. This highlights the importance of differentiated cognitive instructional strategies tailored to learners’ expertise, deepening theoretical understanding.
Third, by proposing concrete, differentiated instructional strategies according to subdimensions of art creativity (overall creativity, originality, appropriateness, elaboration), this study provides practical guidance for art education. Specifically, to boost originality among experienced learners, partially worked-out examples are more effective than full worked-out examples, and for subdimensions requiring domain‐specific skills—such as appropriateness and elaboration—the benefits of examples may be more limited. By delineating these subdimension-specific effects under particular conditions and learner profiles, we offer insights for designing instructional strategies that align with learner characteristics and targeted creative outcomes.
Finally, recognizing high school as a critical period for the systematic development of expertise and creativity, we emphasize the importance of long-term educational planning to sustain students’ creative and professional growth into adulthood. We anticipate that our findings will provide a practical foundation for designing instruction that effectively fosters creative expression in art education.