Gregory Boldt

My work in psychology focuses on cultivating creativity, wellbeing, and higher-order thinking skills across childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. My research examines the processes that drive creativity, how creative capacities can be developed, and how creativity can serve as a pathway to equity, empowerment, and flourishing. I teach courses in developmental psychology and collaborate with community partners to apply evidence‑based practices that help children and youth realize their full potential.

• Ph.D., Educational Psychology—University of Connecticut
• Ed., Educational Research—University of Calgary
• A. (Honours), Psychology—University of Winnipeg

Basic Research: Mechanisms of Creativity and Flourishing

Mapping the Creative Process

We are currently analyzing think aloud data from divergent thinking, drawing, and short‑story writing tasks to better understand the cognitive mechanisms that shape creative performance.

Instructional Prompts for Creativity

Across several studies, we are examining how brief instructional prompts guide participants through different stages of the creative process and how this engagement influences performance in problem‑solving, drawing, and writing tasks.

Creativity and Flourishing Across the Academic Term

This longitudinal study will investigate how personality traits, creative abilities, and environmental conditions predict flourishing across a semester, with the goal of identifying creativity‑related protective factors for undergraduate student wellbeing.

Applied Research: Creative Development in Practice

Teacher Creative Agency and Flourishing

In collaboration with the Creative Engagement Lab, we are studying how professional learning focused on creativity and agency supports teacher wellbeing and strengthens their capacity to foster creativity and wellbeing in students.

Teacher Discourse Self‑Efficacy (Project Focus)

Through the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education, we are examining how professional learning enhances teachers’ confidence in facilitating high‑quality classroom discourse. My work centers on developing psychometric tools that measure teachers’ discourse self‑efficacy and capture their ratings of students’ discourse behaviours.

Developing Creativity and Flourishing in Children and Youth

As part of the Brockman Professorship, I am partnering with community organizations to co‑design programming that cultivates creativity and wellbeing in children and youth. This work aims to build on local strengths, expand access to developmental opportunities, and embed supports for creativity and wellbeing across home, school, and broader community contexts.

I am currently accepting Honours Students. I also welcome any students interested in joining our creative development research lab to contact me.

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

Boldt, G. T., & Kaufman, J. C. (2025). Creative subprocess frequencies and their relation to personal characteristics and product creativity: Insights from a drawing task think aloud. Journal of Creative Behavior, 59(1). Article e629. https://doi.org/10.1002/jocb.629

Boldt, G. T., & Kaufman, J. C. (2026). Sequential thinking prompts for creative problem solving. Learning and Instruction, 102, Article 102247. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2025.102247

Boldt, G. T., Ivcevic, Z., & Kaufman, J. C. (2026). Do you think you are creative? Patterns of self-perceived creativity in adolescents and young adults. Creativity Research Journal, 38(1), 48–63. https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2024.2371261

Liu, X., Boldt, G. T., Leu, D. J., & Kaufman, J. C. (2025). Two’s company: How academic diversity in dyads enhances divergent thinking. Journal of Creative Behavior, 59(1), Article e1593. https://doi.org/10.1002/jocb.1539

Holinger, M., Boldt, G. T., & Kaufman, J. C. (2025). Recent trends in creativity research: An analysis of keywords in four prominent creativity journals. Creativity Research Journal, 37(3), 523–536. https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2024.2322857

Cody, R. A., Boldt, G. T., & Gubbins, E. J. (2024). How teachers make decisions in response to professional learning: A study on grade 3 differentiation in mathematics. Journal of Advanced Academics, 35(1), 156–185. https://doi.org/10.1177/1932202X231221143

Cody, R. A., Boldt, G. T., Canavan, E. J., Gubbins, E. J., Hayden, S. M., Bellara, A. P., & Kearney, K. L. (2022). Teachers’ reported beliefs about giftedness among twice exceptional and culturally, linguistically, and economically diverse populations. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, Article 953059. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.953059

Hook, T. S., & Boldt, G. T. (2025). Aligning educational goals and systems with student needs: Lessons from the field of gifted and talented education. Current Issues in Education, 26(1). https://doi.org/10.14507/cie.vol26iss1.2274

Book Chapters

Rubenstein, L. D., Boldt, G. T., & Galliher, J. (2025). Self-regulated learning and mind wandering: The embedded paradox of the creative process. In J. Katz-Buonincontro & T. Kettler (Eds.), Oxford international handbook of creativity and education (pp. 145–164). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197698181.013.0009

Boldt, G. T., & Kaufman, J. C. (2023). Creativity and meaning in work. In R. Reiter-Palmon & S. Hunter (Eds.), Handbook of organizational creativity: Individual and group level influences (2nd ed., pp. 209–221). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-91840-4.00003-7

Practitioner-Oriented Publications

Boldt, G. T. & Little, C. A. (2026, May 19). Developing metacognition in K–12 education. Education Canada, 65(1). https://www.edcan.ca/articles/developing-metacognition-in-k-12-education/

Boldt, G. T. (2025, Spring). Developing self-regulation through creative learning opportunities. Teaching for High Potential, 1, 16–18. https://search.proquest.com/openview/f3f8fcbdb28c870dba6c7d7dc5618915/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=6693395

Canavan, E. J., Gubbins, E. J., Cody, R., & Boldt, G. T. (2022, August 3). 5 tips for culturally responsive teaching in the math classroom. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/5-tips-culturally-responsive-teaching-math-classroom

Presentations

Boldt, G. T., & Kaufman, J. C. (2026, March 13). Mapping the creative process: Trajectories, profiles, and phases of subprocess engagement in drawing [Paper presentation]. American Psychological Association Division 10: Society for the Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, Omaha, NE, United States.

Boldt, G. T., & Strub, H. (2022, August 31). Task-related divergent thinking and other creative subprocesses [Paper presentation]. Marconi Institute for Creativity Conference: The 7 Cs of Creativity, Bologna, Italy.

Boldt, G. T., & Kaufman, J. C. (2025, March 15). Enhancing subprocess engagement and creative problem-solving performance with sequential thinking prompts [Poster presentation]. American Psychological Association Division 10: Society for the Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, New Haven, CT, United States.

Xie, L., Delgado, J., Boldt, G. T., & Hook, T. (2023, November 11). Yet they created and persisted: Cultivating social-emotional wellness in creative learners [Conference session]. National Association for Gifted Children, Orlando, FL, United States.

Anderson, R. C., LaParo, K., & Boldt, G. T. (2026, April 11). Personal, proxy, and collective: The different ways creative agency develops to support teacher flourishing [Poster presentation]. American Educational Research Association, Los Angeles, CA, United States.

McDonald, S., Boldt, G. T., & Little, C. A. (2025, April 26). Development of the teacher discourse self-efficacy scale [Paper presentation]. American Educational Research Association, Denver, CO, United States.

Boldt, G. T., Cody, R. A., & Gubbins, E. J. (2023, August 7). How teachers make decisions in response to professional learning on mathematics differentiation [Paper presentation]. World Council for Gifted and Talented Children 2023 Virtual World Conference: Excellence Without Borders: Gifted Education in a Changing World, online.

I teach using a constructivist, student‑centered approach that emphasizes inclusion, active learning, and high‑level thinking in supportive classroom environments that engage students in authentic activities that connect psychological theory to real‑world contexts. My teaching responsibilities have included:

• PSY 121: Social, Clinical, Cultural, and Developmental Bases of Psychology
• PSY 315: Advanced Development I: Social and Emotional Development
• PSY 316: Advanced Development II: Social and Emotional Research

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