Using manual with Lego ‘stifles a child’s creativity’
LEGO’S branded kits, such as Star Wars, that come with instructions, hamper children’s creativity, researchers say.
Some parents complain expensive packs of the toy take away the pleasure and ambition involved in creating something from imagination, using basic bricks.
To test Lego’s claims that its sets foster creativity, scientists gave children kits with step-by-step instructions while others were left to build what they wanted.
Both groups were later given other creative tasks. Those who had no instructions with the Lego outperformed the other group in the creativity tests, the study f ound. Researchers f rom Norway’s Buskerud and Vestfold University College found the sets with instructions were too easy to make and did not instil creativity.
Study co-author Marit Gundersen Engeset said: ‘What we find is that a welldefined problem – in our case, following an explicit set of instructions to build something with Lego – can actually hamper creativity in solving future problems.’
She and Page Moreau of Wisconsin University published their findings in the Journal of Market Research, writing that Lego with instructions is like ‘Googling [the answer to] a problem instead of getting it from your memory’. They added: ‘Managers and policy-makers should become more aware of the way in which things like routine tasks can make an employee ill-suited for creative work and how standardised testing … can hamper imaginative thinking.’
Nobel Prize-winning chemist Harry Kroto has argued t hat Meccano, constructed with nuts and bolts, is of greater educational value as it mimics real-life engineering.
He said: ‘There is no comparison. Children should start with Lego, which is basically a toy.’
A Lego spokesman denied the sets are less creative, adding: ‘Children still get bricks and they can combine them.’