Helping puzzle-solvers find solutions missed by a famous puzzle author: Initial study on stimulated creativity

Many matchstick puzzles have multiple solutions and are ideal learning tasks for fostering and improving creative thinking. Nevertheless, many puzzle book authors exhibit a strange approach toward these multiple-solution puzzles. For some puzzles, the number of solutions is mentioned after puzzle formulation and these solutions are published in solution section. For other puzzles, information about the number of solutions is omitted, and only one solution is published. Such authors’ behavior, certainly adverse to puzzle-solvers’ creativity, is illustrated with puzzle examples taken from two most successful books on matchstick puzzles. The first was published by Tromholt (1889), and the second was authored by Obermair (1975). To demonstrate that information about the number of solutions stimulates puzzle-solvers’ creative performance, in this initial small-scale study an arithmetic five-solution matchstick puzzle with Roman numerals was used. Its author Obermair (1975) published only one solution. This puzzle was given to three groups of students (N = 21), asking them to activate their creativity and to try find its five solutions. Students were allowed to manipulate the matchsticks. Thirteen students found Obermair’s (1975) solution, and, additionally, between one and four solutions that Obermair (1975) missed. Most of these students were helped by a verbal hint “think about all arithmetic operations.” Eight students did not find Obermair’s (1975) solution. Nevertheless, they found between two and four solutions unknown to Obermair (1975). Students’ reflections on this activity revealed that many gained a more positive view on their own creativity or puzzle-solving skills.