Integrating Creative Problem Solving and Generative AI in Animation Education: Advancing Sustainability-Related Competencies in Higher Education

This study examines how integrating Creative Problem Solving (CPS) and generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) within animation storytelling education can foster sustainability-related competencies in higher education. A twelve-week mixed-methods action research design was implemented in a “Storytelling and Scriptwriting” course at a university of technology in northern Taiwan (N = 60). The intervention design combined a CPS-aligned instructional sequence, six scaffolded assignments (including a text-to-image resemiotization task), pre–post CPS cognition and affect scales, CPS-dimensioned assignment self-assessments, reflective journals, and expert evaluations of final story prototypes using the Consensual Assessment Technique. Quantitative results showed significant gains in students’ CPS-related narrative cognition and affective resilience (p < 0.001), as well as consistently high self-reported engagement across CPS dimensions for all assignments, particularly for the text-to-image and personal narrative tasks. Expert ratings indicated high levels of originality, narrative coherence, emotional impact, and social relevance in final prototypes, while qualitative data highlighted reduced “blank page” anxiety, greater willingness to revise, and more collaborative, systems-oriented narrative reasoning. The findings suggest that a CPS- and GenAI-supported teaching model can function as a cognitive bridge for heterogeneous cohorts, positioning GenAI as a conditional amplifier embedded within a reflective CPS framework and helping to translate abstract sustainability-related competencies—such as anticipatory, normative, strategic, and interpersonal competencies—into concrete creative media practices.