The objectives of the study were: (1) To find out the effect of STROKES on general creative abilities of students of class VIII, class IX and class X of urban and rural children. (2) To investigate the effects of strokes on the factors of sensitivity to problems, which is an important dimension of creativity. (3) To compare the effect of strokes on all categories of students and their general creative abilities before and after the tests. (4) To find out whether there is any significant difference after the specially designed workshop on strokes. (5) To study the relationship between positive strokes and general creative abilities. (6) To study the relationship between general creativity with respect to fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration on students of class VIII, class IX and class X.

The hypotheses of the study were: (1) The students who attend workshops on strokes will enhance their creative ability by practicing to receive and accept positive strokes. (2) Those students who have definite means of getting positive strokes evidenced greater creative ability than those students who did not have definite ways of getting positive strokes. (3) Strokes, independent of personality style and environment have a significant effect on students’ creativity. (4) There is significant change in the creative abilities of students after the initiation and implementation of strokes by teacher in the classroom. (5) Negative strokes are negatively related to the enhancement of creativity in students. (6) Not giving strokes is negatively related to the enhancement of creativity in students. (7) Intrinsic recognition is positively related to creativity demonstration.

The sample of the study consisted of 1053 VIII, IX and X class male and female students from both English and Tamil medium schools of Coimbatore District.  Purposive sampling method was used.

The tools of the study were: Passi tests’ of creativity – verbal and Non-verbal developed by Passi; Stroking profile developed by Jin Mc. Kenna; Quality of life Inventory by Gloria Noriega Gayol; Personal stroke Inventory and Stoke checklist were developed by the researcher.

The findings of the study were: (1) In comparing pretest and post test scores in cases of both creativity and strokes during the workshop session and after the treatment, the samples showed increase in scores.  The greatest increase being during the workshop and immediately after the workshop. (2)     The control group which started out with creativity equal or superior to those of the experimental group fell far behind in the performance of the creative tests because the conditions they encountered were not positive, it was rather negative. They did not have the chance of attending any workshops. (3) The t-test comparisons of scores of each subgroup on the Passi’s Test before and after the workshop on strokes were also noted (a) Positive strokes, independent of structure and environment had a significant effect on students’ creativity; (b) There was significant change in the creative abilities of students after the initiation and implementation of strokes by teachers in the classroom over a period of three months; (c) Students who received more negative strokes seldom showed any improvement in the creativity factors flexibility, fluency or originality; (d) Not giving positive strokes to others created a discrepancy in getting positive strokes and thus negatively related to the enhancement of creativity in students; (e) Intrinsic stroking was found positively related to creativity.