Evaluating Playful Creative Problem Solving in Kyiv and Ukrainian Refugees in France

This study examines how wartime stress affects divergent thinking (DT) in playful creative problem solving, using a modular robotics task called CreaCube. The authors compare two groups of Ukrainian participants: 17 families of refugees in Nice, France, and 16 participants in Kyiv, who were living under daily conditions of missile attacks, power and heating restrictions, and air raid alerts. Divergent thinking is assessed through its three components of fluency, flexibility, and originality, scored from video analysis of participants' configurations of cubes, with originality defined as responses given by fewer than 5% of participants in the same age category.

The preliminary findings show that Kyiv participants scored significantly higher on originality in their first attempt, with a mean of 1.18 compared with 0.13 for the Nice group (Welch's t-test, p = 0.013), and also higher on flexibility overall. No significant differences were found for fluency or flexibility in the second attempt. The authors interpret the originality advantage as a product of the everyday problem-solving demands of wartime life, combined with the distraction and emotional relief that playful activity provided to Kyiv participants.

The authors acknowledge that the sample size is limited and that the results are preliminary, so the conclusions remain tentative. The study situates its questions within a literature that offers conflicting accounts of whether stress suppresses or stimulates creativity, and it frames the work as both a research inquiry and a form of support for Ukrainian educators and children through game-based learning.