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EVELOPING CREATIVE ABILITIES ATTHE UNIVERSITY LEVELEunice M.L. Soriano de Alencar aa Instituto de Psicologia , Universidade de Brasilia , Brasilia,70910‐900, DF BrazilPublished online: 04 Oct 2011.

To cite this article: Eunice M.L. Soriano de Alencar (1995) EVELOPING CREATIVEABILITIES AT THE UNIVERSITY LEVEL, European Journal of High Ability, 6:1, 82-90, DOI:10.1080/0937445950060109

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EUROPEAN JOURNAL FOR HIGH ABILITY, 1995, 6, 82-90.

DEVELOPING CREATIVE ABILITIES AT THE UNIVERSITY LEVEL1

Eunice M.L. Soriano de Alencar2

Studies on the nurturing of creativity by university teachers are rare. In the presentstudy 233 students from two universities, one ranked as one of the best in Brazil(University A) and another ranked low among Brazilian universities (University B)were asked to fill out an inventory designed to evaluate the degree to whichdifferent aspects related to creativity had been fostered by their university teachers.Students from University A, compared with those from University B, rated theirteachers as providing significantly more favourable conditions for the nurturing ofcreativity. It was also found that students from the first half of their courses,compared with those from the second half, evaluated their teachers as nurturingsignificantly more different aspects of creativity. The results point to somecharacteristics of the learning situation that may contribute to the promotion ofcreative abilities. These characteristics should be implemented in the educationalsetting, in order to prepare students for the creative productivity that is necessary inall societies.

Most of the research on educational environments has focused on elementary school.Extensive studies were conducted by Torrance (1965, 1972, 1979, 1987), Treffinger(1980) and Renzulli (1992), among many authors, on several aspects, such aspersonality traits of creative pupils, characteristics of teachers that foster creativity anddifferent procedures for facilitating creative thinking. Although the years of highereducation are of major importance in enabling students to become aware of theircreative abilities and to learn how to enhance and use their creative potential, there isnot much attention to this aspect at university level in most countries. One exceptionis the United States, where this issue has been addressed by several authors.

This research was supported in part by a grant from the Brazilian Council for the Development ofScience and Technology (Grant No. 50.2212/91-8). I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of ProfLuiz Pasquali in the analysis of data and the collaboration of my undergraduate students ClaudiaCarvalho, Patricia Ramos Pacheco and Maria Thereza Magalhaes in collecting the data.Author's address: Prof. Dr. Eunice M.L. Soriano de Alencar, Instituto de Psicologia, Universidadede Brasilia, Brasilia, 70910-900, DF Brazil.

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Shallcross and Gawienowski (1989), for example, described a major symposium oncreativity, which was held at the University of Massachusetts in 1986 to drawattention to creativity at the college level and to ways of nurturing it on this campus.The questions of how to recognize and cultivate in students the potential for creativework and how to provide students with opportunities to channel their creative energywere addressed in this symposium, as well as in another sponsored by the NationalScience Foundation in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1987. In this same year, a study conductedby McDonough and McDonough (1987) indicated that 76 American colleges wereoffering formal courses in creativity. More recently, Baloche, Montgomery, Bull andSalyer (1992) described goals for creativity courses, as well as experiences, projectsand products required in these courses by 147 college and university level teachers ofcreativity.

Another topic that has also been investigated is teaching styles that promote orinhibit high levels of creative productivity in students. This issue has been addressedpreviously by Chambers (1973), who found that teachers who fostered creativity atthe college level had several recognizable characteristics, such as the following: theywere enthusiastic, accepted students as equals, directly rewarded students' creativebehavior, encouraged students to be independent, interacted with the students outsidethe classroom and generally conducted classes in an informal manner. In Brazil, aprevious study by Rosas (1988) noted lack of incentive for creativity at the universitylevel. This author observed, for example, that in college courses less attention isdevoted to providing opportunities for students to express their creative abilities.According to this author, with the exception of the department of art, it seems thatmost teachers are not interested in imagination and creativity. However, no data werepresented to support this assertion. The purpose of the present study was toinvestigate the extent to which different aspects related to creativity have beenfostered by Brazilian university teachers.

METHOD

Sample

Two hundred and thirty three students from two universities participated in the study.One hundred and thirty nine of them were from a university ranked as one of the bestin Brazil and 94 studied in a university ranked low among Brazilian universities. Onehundred and thirty two from this group were in the first half of their courses and 101in the second half. Of the total group, 42 were male and 191 female, and 106 werefrom the Department of Communication and 127 from the Department of PedagogicalSciences. One hundred and forty of the students reported that they also had jobs. Themean age of the sample was 23.7 years.

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Instrument

The students were requested to fill out an inventory designed to evaluate the extent towhich different aspects related to creativity had been fostered by their universityteachers. This instrument consisted of 19 items, which were answered on a five pointscale. Examples of the items are:

My university teachers in general:

- stimulate students to ask questions on the topics studied;

- give time to students to think and develop new ideas;

- provide conditions for the students to become familiar with divergent pointsof view in relation to the topic under study or investigation;

- ask challenging questions in class,

- stimulate students' independence;

- provide an environment of respect for students' new ideas;

- use tests and exam questions that require only the reproduction of the contentgiven in class or presented in the textbooks (reverse scored);

- cultivate in students interest in new discoveries and new knowledge;

- provide conditions for students to analyse different aspects of a problem;

- stimulate students' curiosity by means of the tasks required in their courses.

This instrument was constructed on the basis of a review of theory and research oncreativity in schools, including studies in educational settings (Alencar, Fleith,Shimabukuro & Nobre, 1987; Virgolim & Alencar, 1993). The production of thisinstrument included the construction of 24 items related to several dimensions ofcreativity, such as personality traits, creative thinking, teaching methodology andconditions of learning. These items were submitted to a semantic evaluation in orderto guarantee that participants could understand them and to avoid ambiguity and lackof clarity. In order to do this, 12 students listened individually to the items and wererequested to repeat in their own words the content of, each item. Several items wererevised because of respondents' difficulty in understanding completely their content or

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because it became apparent that the items were open to multiple interpretation. Oneitem was also eliminated for being a duplicate of another item of the instrument.

Procedure

The 23 item instrument was administered to 210 university students. A factor analysis(principal components, varimax rotation) was carried out on the instrument. Thisanalysis yielded five factors, but only Factor 1 showed high loadings (equal to orhigher than .30) for most items. In the case of the four other factors, most items hadloadings below this value. A second factor analysis was carried out with the twolargest factors. These two factors had eigenvalues equal to or higher than 1.5 in theprevious factor analysis. In this second analysis, the eigenvalue for factor 1 was 6.72,explaining 30.6% of the total variance. An alpha coefficient of .90 was obtained in thereliability analysis. Factor 2 had an eigenvalue smaller than one, and was thus nottaken into consideration. After this analysis, the revised form of the instrument wasconstructed with items with an item-total correlation equal to or higher than 0.30 (19items). A four way analysis of variance was used to analyse the data. The independentvariables were university, gender, stage of the course and job, each with two levels.The dependent variable was extent to which instructors fostered creativity.

RESULTS

Table 1 (see next page) presents the means, standard deviations and F ratios for maleand female students from University A and B, who were in the first half and in thesecond half of their courses, and also for students who had no job compared withthose who did. No interaction effects were found.

These data showed that students from University A considered that their teachersgave significantly more incentive to produce behaviors conducive to creativitydevelopment, compared with those from University B, (F(l, 207) = 4.69; p < .05). Itwas also observed that it was the students from the first half of their courses whoregarded their teachers as providing better conditions for the development of differentaspects of creativity rather the students from the second half (F(l, 207) = 4.11;p < .05). No difference was observed between male and female students and betweenstudents who had jobs compared with those with no jobs.

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Table 1. Means, standard deviations and F ratios on the inventory by sex. University, stageof course and job

VariablesGender

MaleFemale

UniversityUniversity AUniversity B

Period of CourseFirst HalfSecond Half

JobYesNo

Means

2.922.93

3.012.81

3.032.80

2.853.06

SD

.62

.57

.59

.54

.59

.54

.57

.57

F

.08

4.69

4.11

2.39

P

n.s.

.032

.044

n.s.

In addition to the total score on the scale, differences related to the individual itemswere also analysed, in order to identify those where differences existed betweengroups. Significant differences were observed among students from University A andUniversity B, in favor of University A, in the following items:

Teachers

- cultivate in students interest in discoveries and new knowledges (F(l, 226) = 8.69;

— ask challenging questions in class to motivate students to think and to reason(F(l, 225) = 22.99; p<.01);

- stimulate students to analyse different aspects of a problem (F(l, 227) = 11.06;

- provide an environment of respect for students' ideas (F(l, 223) = 5.39, p < .05);

- stimulate students' independence, (F(l, 226) = 4.14; p < .05).

Significant differences in favor of the students from the first half of their courses wereobserved in the following items related to teachers' behavior in the classroom:

They

- ask challenging questions in class to motivate students to think and to reason(F(l, 225) = 7.43; p <.01);

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- stimulate students to analyse different aspects of a problem, (F(l, 227) = 4.87;p < .05);

- stimulate students' initiative (F(l, 225) = 5.67; p < .05);

- stimulate students' independence (F(l, 226) = 6,74; p < .05);

- provide conditions for students to become familiar with divergent points of view inrelation to the topic under study or investigation (F(l, 228) = 7.43; p < .01);

- use tests and exam questions that require only the reproduction of content given inclass or presented in textbooks (reverse scored) (F(l, 224) = 10.77; p < .01);

- present different points of view about a topic under study or investigation(F(l, 225) = 4.49; p <.05);

- use different teaching methods in their courses (F(l, 225) = 4.06; p < .05).

Significant differences were also observed in the following items about teachers'behaviour in the classroom between the group of students who had a job and thosewith no job, in favour of the second group:

Teachers

- are interested only in the informative content of their courses (reverse scored)F(l, 225) = 4.53; p <.05);

- use tests and exam questions that require only the reproduction of the contentgiven in class or presented in the textbooks (reverse scored) (F(l, 221) = 5.36;

- present different points of view about a topic under study or investigation(F(l,222) = 3.31;/><.05).

Significant differences were also observed between male and female students, in favorof the female students, in the following items:

Teachers

- ask challenging questions in class to motivate students to think and to reason(F(l,228) = 11.15;p<.01);

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- stimulate students to ask questions in relation to the topics studied(F(l, 225) = 3.76; p <.05).

DISCUSSION

The results indicated that students from university A perceived their teachers asdisplaying various behaviors that influence students' creative development positively.This difference may reflect the conditions of teaching in the two universities.University A is a public Brazilian university and one of the best in the country. Mostof the teachers have a PhD degree obtained in foreign countries. It has a lower numberof students per class and many graduate courses are considered the best in the country.Good facilities and equipments are also available to the teachers. This universitycontinually receives visiting scholars from other universities in Brazil and othercountries. The teachers usually have time to assist students outside the class.University B is a private university and most of its teachers do not have a Ph Ddegree. In general the number of students per class is much higher and most of theteachers do not work full time at the university. It seems that teachers from UniversityA display some of the creativity facilitating factors identified by Chambers (1973) in astudy with a large sample of creative psychologists and chemists. Chambers foundthat teachers who fostered creativity displayed several characteristics such asencouraging students to be independent, encouraging them to have ideas, andmotivating them to think and to reason.

The difference observed among the students from the first half of their coursescompared with those from the second half might be explained by the educationalobjectives and methodology in Brazilian high schools and universities. A strongemphasis on memorization and reproduction of knowledge is observed during highschool years. In general, the traditional teaching model is adopted in most schools,with much emphasis on the use of questions and exercises which require only onecorrect response. It is usual to adopt text books that are expository and informative. Itis common for teachers to insist on repetition of exercises as a way for students to fixthe content in their memories, as observed by Alencar, Collares, Dias and Juliao(1993). At university level, on the contrary, much more independence and initiativeare required from the students. It seems that, in general, teachers use more open endedquestions and provide conditions for the students to become familiar with divergentpoints of view in relation to the topic studied. These aspects are more evident forstudents in the first half of their courses.

In the main, the results obtained point towards some characteristics of thelearning situation that may contribute to the promotion of creativity. At present, I aminvestigating creative thinking abilities among students who participated in this study,as well as their perceptions of their own level of creativity and of their colleagues'levels of creativity. These data will complement the aspects discussed in this article.

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Although correlational evidence must be interpreted cautiously, it may point to somefacilitative effects of the educational environment on the students' creative abilities. Itis important to learn more about the characteristics of an educational environment thatare conducive to creativity.

REFERENCES

Alencar, E.M.L.S., Fleith, D.S., Shimabukuro, L.A. & Nobre, M.A. (1987). Efeitosde um programa de treinamento de criatividade para professores do ensino deprimeiro grau nas habilidades de pensamento criativo do aluno [Effects of acreativity training program for elementary school teachers on their students'creative thinking abilities]. Interamerican Journal of Psychology, 21(1), 56-71.

Alencar, E.M.L.S., Collares, K., Dias, L. & Juliao, S. (1993, October). Efeitos a curtoe médio prazos de um programa de treinamento de criatividade em estudantes doensino de segundo grau [Short term and medium term effects of a creativitytraining program among high school students]. Paper presented at the XXIIAnnual Meeting of the Brazilian Society of Psychology, Ribeirao Preto, Brazil.

Baloche, L., Montgomery, D., Bull, K.S. & Salyer, B.K. (1992). Faculty perceptionsof college creativity courses. Journal of Creative Behavior, 26, 222-227.

Chambers, J.A. (1973). College teachers: their effect on creativity of students. Journalof Educational Psychology, 65, 326-334.

McDonough, P. & McDonough, B. (1987). A survey of American colleges anduniversities on the conducting of formal courses in creativity. Journal of CreativeBehavior, 21, 271-282.

Renzulli, J.S. (1992). A general theory for the development of creative productivity inyoung people. In F. Monks & W. Peters (Eds.), Talent for the future (pp. 51-72).Assen/Maastricht, The Netherlands: Van Gorcum.

Rosas, A. (1988). Universidade e criatividade [University and creativity]. Proceedingof the Seventh Brazilian Conference on Giftedness, 7, 121-124.

Shallcross, D.J. & Gawienowski, A.M. (1989). Top experts address issues oncreativity gap in higher education. Journal of Creative Behavior, 23, 75-84.

Torrance, E.P. (1965). Rewarding creative behavior. Experiments in classroomcreativity. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Torrance, E.P. (1972). Can we teach children to think creatively? Journal of CreativeBehavior, 6, 114-143.

Torrance, E.P. (1979). The search for satori and creativity. Buffalo, NY: BearlyLimited.

Torrance, E.P. (1987). Teaching for creativity. In S.G. Isaksen (Ed.), Frontiers ofcreativity research. Beyond the basics (pp. 189-215). Buffalo, NY: BearlyLimited.

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Treffinger, D. (1980). Encouraging creative learning for the gifted and talented.Ventura, CA: Ventura County School Superintendent's Office.

Virgolim, A.M.R. & Alencar, E.M.L.S. (1993). Habilidades de pensamento criativoentre estudantes de escolas tradicional, intermediaria e aberta [Creative thinkingabilities among students from open and traditional classrooms]. Psicologia:Teoria e Pesquisa [Psychology: Theory and Research], 9, 601-610.

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