The Creative Team Member: A Study of the Influence of AI Integration Timing on Brainstorming and Ideation
11. juli 2026 oppdatert av: Mohit Bhandari, McMaster University
The Effect of Artificial Intelligence Integration Timing on Group Brainstorming and Ideation in Undergraduate Students: A Randomized Controlled Trial
This study aims to examine how the timing of artificial intelligence (AI) integration during group brainstorming activities affects the creativity and ideation of participants.
Undergraduate student participants will be randomly allocated into teams of four to complete a structured 12-minute brainstorming task.
The study utilizes a three-group experimental design to compare three conditions: no AI access, AI access from the outset of the session, and AI access introduced halfway through the session.
The standardized generative AI tool used is ChatGPT Pro.
The creative output produced by each group will be evaluated by a panel of independent expert judges using the Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT).
Studieoversikt
Status
Har ikke rekruttert ennå
Forhold
Detaljert beskrivelse
Artificial intelligence (AI) tools are increasingly used in academic and professional environments, yet little is known about how the timing of AI's introduction during a collaborative brainstorming process shapes the creativity of the ideas produced. While recent literature suggests that human-AI collaboration can increase the likelihood of successful idea generation when AI is present throughout an entire session, the specific effect of integration timing remains a gap in the literature. This study aims to provide early data on whether AI functions more effectively as an early collaborator, a later resource, or whether its absence supports more creative thinking.
The study recruits undergraduate students enrolled in a summer research program, who are then randomly assigned to teams of four using a digital randomizer. Over the course of nine sessions, these teams participate in structured, 12-minute collaborative brainstorming tasks focused on designing strategies to address common university student challenges. To mitigate the influence of individual baseline characteristics on the group output, participants are re-randomized into new teams for each separate session.
To standardize the technological intervention and eliminate technical confounders, the study utilizes ChatGPT Pro (GPT-4o architecture) on pre-set devices. At the conclusion of the timed task, a designated team scribe submits the group's collaboratively generated idea list and their selected best idea via a secure, digital case report form.
Following data collection, all session outputs are immediately de-identified and assigned neutral identifiers. A panel of independent expert judges, blinded to the condition assignments, evaluate the output of each group.
Studietype
Intervensjonell
Registrering (Antatt)
16
Fase
- Ikke aktuelt
Kontakter og plasseringer
Denne delen inneholder kontaktinformasjon for de som utfører studien, og informasjon om hvor denne studien blir utført.
Studiekontakt
- Navn: Alexandra Leone, BSc
- Telefonnummer: 44490 905-527-4322
- E-post: leonea5@mcmaster.ca
Studer Kontakt Backup
- Navn: Kaya Bhandari
- E-post: bhandk5@mcmaster.ca
Studiesteder
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Ontario
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Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, L8S 4L8
- McMaster University
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Ta kontakt med:
- Kaya Bhandari
- E-post: bhandk5@mcmaster.ca
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Ta kontakt med:
- Alexandra Leone, BSc.
- Telefonnummer: 44490 905-527-4322
- E-post: leonea5@mcmaster.ca
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Underetterforsker:
- Kaya Bhandari
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Underetterforsker:
- Alexandra Leone, BSc
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Hovedetterforsker:
- Mohit Bhandari, MD, PhD, FRCSC
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Deltakelseskriterier
Forskere ser etter personer som passer til en bestemt beskrivelse, kalt kvalifikasjonskriterier. Noen eksempler på disse kriteriene er en persons generelle helsetilstand eller tidligere behandlinger.
Kvalifikasjonskriterier
Alder som er kvalifisert for studier
- Barn
- Voksen
- Eldre voksen
Tar imot friske frivillige
Ja
Beskrivelse
Inclusion Criteria:
- Enrolled as a student in the designated summer research program
- Able to provide voluntary informed consent
- Proficient in reading and communicating in English (required to engage with the scenarios and the artificial intelligence tool)
Exclusion Criteria:
-Not enrolled as an undergraduate student
Studieplan
Denne delen gir detaljer om studieplanen, inkludert hvordan studien er utformet og hva studien måler.
Hvordan er studiet utformet?
Designdetaljer
- Primært formål: Annen
- Tildeling: Randomisert
- Intervensjonsmodell: Parallell tildeling
- Masking: Enkelt
Våpen og intervensjoner
Deltakergruppe / Arm |
Intervensjon / Behandling |
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Ingen inngripen: No Artificial Intelligence Tools (Control)
Across nine separate sessions, teams of four participants will complete all nine distinct student-struggle scenarios (one scenario per 12-minute session).
In each session, participants engage in a structured collaborative brainstorming task entirely without access to artificial intelligence tools for the full 12 minutes.
At the conclusion of each session, the team must evaluate their generated list and select their single best idea to solve that specific scenario.
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Eksperimentell: Artificial Intelligence First (Early Integration)
Across nine separate sessions, teams of four participants will complete all nine distinct student-struggle scenarios (one scenario per 12-minute session).
In each session, at minute 0, participants input the scenario prompt into ChatGPT Pro (GPT-4o architecture).
The team receives a single initial output of ideas and does not engage in further back-and-forth dialogue with the tool.
Participants use this initial artificial intelligence response as a baseline to continue human brainstorming and ideation for the remainder of the 12 minutes, ultimately selecting and submitting their single best idea for that specific scenario.
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The introduction of ChatGPT Pro (GPT-4o architecture) at the beginning (minute 0) of a 12-minute group brainstorming session.
A single prompt containing the scenario is submitted to generate an initial set of ideas, with no further back-and-forth dialogue permitted.
This single artificial intelligence output serves as the baseline for the team's subsequent human ideation.
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Eksperimentell: Artificial Intelligence Last (Late Integration)
Across nine separate sessions, teams of four participants will complete all nine distinct student-struggle scenarios (one scenario per 12-minute session).
In each session, participants brainstorm independently without technology for the first 6 minutes.
At minute 6, the team inputs the scenario prompt along with their already-generated human ideas into ChatGPT Pro (GPT-4o architecture).
Receiving a single output with no further back-and-forth dialogue, the team uses the artificial intelligence response to continue ideating for the final 6 minutes, ultimately selecting and submitting their single best idea for that specific scenario.
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The introduction of ChatGPT Pro (GPT-4o architecture) at the midpoint (minute 6) of a 12-minute group brainstorming session.
A single prompt containing both the scenario and the team's already-generated human ideas is submitted, with no further back-and-forth dialogue permitted.
This single artificial intelligence output is used to guide the team's human ideation for the remaining 6 minutes.
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Hva måler studien?
Primære resultatmål
Resultatmål |
Tiltaksbeskrivelse |
Tidsramme |
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Creativity Score of the Selected Best Idea
Tidsramme: Evaluated cross-sectionally upon the conclusion of each 12-minute session, across the 9 study sessions.
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The primary outcome is the mean expert creativity rating assigned to each team's top idea, across each of the 9 sessions, as assessed by independent judges using the Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT).
Higher average scores denote a more creative output, while lower scores denote a less creative output.
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Evaluated cross-sectionally upon the conclusion of each 12-minute session, across the 9 study sessions.
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Sekundære resultatmål
Resultatmål |
Tiltaksbeskrivelse |
Tidsramme |
|---|---|---|
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Overall Creativity Score of Full Idea List
Tidsramme: Evaluated cross-sectionally upon the conclusion of each 12-minute session, across the 9 study sessions.
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The collective creative quality of the entire list of ideas generated by the team during the session, evaluated by independent expert judges using the Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT).
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Evaluated cross-sectionally upon the conclusion of each 12-minute session, across the 9 study sessions.
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Number of Ideas Generated During the 12-Minute Session
Tidsramme: Evaluated cross-sectionally upon the conclusion of each 12-minute session, across the 9 study sessions.
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The total number of ideas generated (fluency) will be reported with the explicit methodological limitation that AI generation speed inherently outpaces human typing speed.
Fluency will be analysed purely observationally, as the 12-minute constraint does not control for the mechanical advantage of the AI tool.
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Evaluated cross-sectionally upon the conclusion of each 12-minute session, across the 9 study sessions.
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Qualitative Resemblance of the Team's Output to Typical AI-Generated Responses
Tidsramme: Evaluated cross-sectionally upon the conclusion of each 12-minute session, across the 9 study sessions.
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This will be subjectively assessed by the expert judges on a 1-5 scale (anchored from 'strongly AI-typical' to 'strongly human'), independent of the CAT creativity evaluation.
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Evaluated cross-sectionally upon the conclusion of each 12-minute session, across the 9 study sessions.
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Samarbeidspartnere og etterforskere
Det er her du vil finne personer og organisasjoner som er involvert i denne studien.
Sponsor
Etterforskere
- Hovedetterforsker: Mohit Bhandari, MD, PhD, FRCSC, McMaster University
Publikasjoner og nyttige lenker
Den som er ansvarlig for å legge inn informasjon om studien leverer frivillig disse publikasjonene. Disse kan handle om alt relatert til studiet.
Generelle publikasjoner
- Koo TK, Li MY. A Guideline of Selecting and Reporting Intraclass Correlation Coefficients for Reliability Research. J Chiropr Med. 2016 Jun;15(2):155-63. doi: 10.1016/j.jcm.2016.02.012. Epub 2016 Mar 31.
- Çelik, T. İ., & Akay, C. (2025). The Impact of Brainstorming Technique on Academic Achievement and Creative Thinking: A Meta-Analysis Study. Sage Open, 15(3). 62
- Muller, M., Houde, S., Gonzalez, G., Brimijoin, K., Ross, S. I., Silva Moran, D. A., & Weisz, J. D. (2024). Group brainstorming with an AI agent: Creating and selecting ideas. Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Computational Creativity (ICCC 2024). https://computationalcreativity.net/iccc24/papers/ICCC24_paper_18.pdf
- Amabile, Teresa. (1982). Social psychology of creativity: A consensual assessment technique. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 43. 997-1013. 10.1037/0022-3514.43.5.997
- Zhang C, Shao Y, Yuan Y, Shen W. Artificial Intelligence Reshapes Creativity: A Multidimensional Evaluation. Psych J. 2025 Dec;14(6):831-840. doi: 10.1002/pchj.70042. Epub 2025 Aug 5.
- Lee BC, Chung JJ. An empirical investigation of the impact of ChatGPT on creativity. Nat Hum Behav. 2024 Oct;8(10):1906-1914. doi: 10.1038/s41562-024-01953-1. Epub 2024 Aug 12.
Studierekorddatoer
Disse datoene sporer fremdriften for innsending av studieposter og sammendragsresultater til ClinicalTrials.gov. Studieposter og rapporterte resultater gjennomgås av National Library of Medicine (NLM) for å sikre at de oppfyller spesifikke kvalitetskontrollstandarder før de legges ut på det offentlige nettstedet.
Studer hoveddatoer
Studiestart (Antatt)
20. juli 2026
Primær fullføring (Antatt)
15. august 2026
Studiet fullført (Antatt)
15. september 2026
Datoer for studieregistrering
Først innsendt
5. juli 2026
Først innsendt som oppfylte QC-kriteriene
5. juli 2026
Først lagt ut (Faktiske)
9. juli 2026
Oppdateringer av studieposter
Sist oppdatering lagt ut (Faktiske)
14. juli 2026
Siste oppdatering sendt inn som oppfylte QC-kriteriene
11. juli 2026
Sist bekreftet
1. juli 2026
Mer informasjon
Begreper knyttet til denne studien
Nøkkelord
Andre studie-ID-numre
- 20358
Plan for individuelle deltakerdata (IPD)
Planlegger du å dele individuelle deltakerdata (IPD)?
NEI
IPD-planbeskrivelse
Individual participant data (IPD) will not be shared publicly due to an elevated risk of deductive re-identification.
While numeric outcomes could be anonymized, the primary data consists of raw qualitative text (transcribed group brainstorming ideas and solutions) generated by a highly specific, geographically localized cohort of undergraduate students enrolled in the 2026 summer research program.
Because the 2026 cohort size is small and the context is unique, sharing raw textual transcripts poses a risk of accidentally exposing the identities of the participants through specific phrasing, examples, or contextual clues, despite de-identification efforts.
Therefore, to ensure participant confidentiality in accordance with institutional ethics guidelines, the raw data will remain confidential within the primary research team.
Legemiddel- og utstyrsinformasjon, studiedokumenter
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Nei
Denne informasjonen ble hentet direkte fra nettstedet clinicaltrials.gov uten noen endringer. Hvis du har noen forespørsler om å endre, fjerne eller oppdatere studiedetaljene dine, vennligst kontakt register@clinicaltrials.gov. Så snart en endring er implementert på clinicaltrials.gov, vil denne også bli oppdatert automatisk på nettstedet vårt. .