Sit Still or Move More? The Impact of Fidgeting on Creativity

Many modern classrooms impose constraints on student movement, both physical (e.g. stable, upright chairs) and psychological (e.g. norms that "being still" signals paying attention).. We conducted two separate studies on 32 6^th grade (11-12 year old) and 43 7^th grade (12-13 year old) students, respectively. Study 1 was a within-subject design and compared students' creative ideation on the Alternate Uses Test and a verbal memory task through two conditions: Sit Still (on a regular chair with instructions to not move) or Freedom to Move (on a wiggle stool with ability to move as they wanted). There was a significant effect of condition on novel ideas, as well as number of novel ideas / total ideation (creativity ratio). There was no significant difference by condition on the verbal memory task. Study 2 was a within-subject design (due to the COVID-19 pandemic, each student completed 2 of 3 conditions): Sit Still, Freedom to Move, and Sit as Usual (on a regular chair with instructions to sit as if they were paying attention in class) and compared students' creative ideation and a focused attention task instead of Study 1's memory task. There was a significant effect of condition on novel ideas and creativity ratio, but pairwise comparisons were not statistically significant. There was no condition effect on focused attention. The Freedom to Move effects appear selective only for creative ideation. Implications for future research and small classroom changes to support natural movement are discussed.