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SUSS PSY 355 CREATIVE PSYCH SU 2b Fostering Creativity in the Classroom…
SUSS PSY 355 CREATIVE PSYCH SU 2b Fostering Creativity in the Classroom &
Workplace
Fostering creativity in the classroom
Creative students and their teachers
Teachers do not enjoy instructing creative students.
Torrance (1962) found that conservative teachers were frustrated by highly creative students who have a reputation for coming up with wild or silly ideas.
Lam (1996) found that teachers’
perception of
the
ideal student did not fit the common characteristics of the creative student
, e.g., independent, argumentative, sceptical.
the ideal student trait often included honesty, self-discipline, responsibility and obedience.
Motivation from without versus motivation from within
Ryan and Guardia (1999) propose that there are two different types of motivation to learn.
motivation from without
motivation from within
Motivation from without
According to this
behaviourist view
, a student’s
motivation
to learn is wholly a function of
external forces
in the environment (i.e. grades, deadlines).
It is the job of the educator to provide
extrinsic incentives to motivate the student
to learn.
Motivation from within
According to this
humanistic view
, students are
inherently active learners
.
It is the job of the
educator
to provide students with a learning environment that
offers interesting challenges and opportunities to grow
.
Encouraging students to engage in positive versus negative creativity
Psychologists make a distinction between
positive creativity
e.g., developing a cure for cancer and
negative creativity
e.g., devising a plan to commit robbery
To achieve positive creativity among students, teachers can highlight the accomplishments of
moral creators
(Ng, 2007). (i.e. as a
role model
for students).
Example: Muhammad Yunos
Muhammad Yunus, a Bangladeshi economist, is an example of such a moral creator.
Yunus
discovered
that very small loans could greatly assist poor people, e.g., But traditional banks were not interested in making tiny loans to the poor.
So Yunus invented
the concept of microcredit
(lending to the poor) and set up the Grameen Bank to make loans to poor people.
Controlling style of instruction
Although the controlling style of instruction is associated with negative outcomes in learning, many teachers still adopt such a method of instruction in the classroom.
Negative consequences of stifling creativity
Creative students experience much
difficulty conforming with conventional learning
environment which encourages conformity, rote-learning and memorisation (i.e. Einstein)
The stifling of creativity in the classroom can lead to negative consequences in education.
Fourth-grade slump in creativity
One negative consequence is the fourth-grade slump in creativity (Torrance, 1968).
That is, students who reach the fourth grade of schooling experiences a
drastic drop in creativity, due to the pressure to conform
to rules and regulations.
Under-achievement of gifted students
Many of these
gifted learners
express their creativity which
appear to be challenging teaching norms.
Teachers may deem it annoying, or even misidentify these students to have learning difficulties like attention deficit disorder.
As a result, these creative
students may resent the constraining structure
of school life, its excessive rules and regulations, as well as the constant pressure for conformity.
When such students are pressurised to conform
, they may react in a defiant rather than compliant manner.
Some of these students
may even quit schooling
altogether.
Why teachers adopt a controlling stance towards students
pressure from below
Teachers
assert control
by reacting in a controlling way when students become disruptive and difficult to deal with.
Creative students are especially vulnerable
to this assertion of control by the teacher, as they tend to get bored easily and
behave in a mischievous way
in the classroom.
pressure from within
Operant Principle of behaviourism.
Many teachers endorse the maximal operant principle of behaviourism, which states that
rewards will motivate students to learn
, and the larger the reward, the greater the motivation to learn.
Personality
teachers may possess personality dispositions which are
oriented towards control
rather than autonomy support.
Such teachers
tend to be authoritarian
and conservative rather than liberal and democratic.
They focus on student discipline in the classroom instead of developing the creative potential of students.
pressure from above
Teachers possess the dual burden of
responsibility and accountability
External forces
(i.e. principals, parents and media reports) apply
pressure on teachers
to ensure that students perform.
Teachers
pass along this pressure to students
in the form of a controlling style of instruction.
controlling style is
culturally-valued
,
i.e., in general, teachers who use controlling strategies in the classroom are
seen to be more competent
compared to those who support student autonomy
Teachers occupy a
powerful social position
vis-à-vis students. (Higher up in the social hierachy)
Teachers
associate control
of student behaviour
with a proper/structured learning
structure in the classroom.
In comparison, they associate autonomous support of student behaviour with a haphazard/chaotic environment of learning in class.
How teachers can be more autonomy supportive in class
Awareness of the different pressure
The teacher should
strive to be less controlling
towards students, by gaining an awareness of those forces that push him towards a controlling style, i.e., the pressures from above, below andWithin.
Desire to support autonomy
The teacher should also cultivate the personal desire to support student autonomy in the classroom
by learning to appreciate
the benefits of this mode of instruction for both students and teachers.
Specifically, when students receive autonomy support in the classroom, they
become intrinsically motivated, creative
, flexible, passionate and persevering learners who take delight in the intellectual joy of discovery
Fostering creativity in the workplace
Employee creativity
What is employee creativity?
Employee creativity
refers to the individual’s
capacity to generate ideas
that are both original and
useful to the organisation
that he works in,
e.g., a suggestion to improve the work process or a major development of a new service
How can it be measured?
a variety of objective and subjective methods should be employed when assessing creativity
Psychological test
Psychological tests like the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking can be used to
assess the divergent thinking
ability of the employee
Complex work-tasks
Complex and open-ended work tasks can be used to
assess
his
creative problem-solving skills.
Appraisals
Supervisors and co-workers can provide a subjective assessment of employee creativity.
Past achievements
Past achievements can be used as Objective measures to gauge creativity
I.e. patent disclosures, research papers, technical reports and even ideas submitted to employee suggestion schemes.
Three theories of employee creativity
Interactionist approach
from this perspective, employee creativity is directly associated with the
interaction between person and situation
.
The person
component refers to
individual attributes
like originality, risk-taking, etc.
The situation
component refers to
environmental attributes
like the organisational culture, leadership style, etc.
Ideally, both components
should intereact harmoniously
to allow for optical employee creativity.
Systematic approach
From this perspective, creativity is a function of three components namely:
the characteristics of the
employee
the characteristics of the
context
the
interactions between these two
sets of characteristics (person x situation)
Context and motivation
Contextual characteristics affect
employee creativity via their impact on
intrinsic motivation
Controlling context
leads to a
decrease in intrinsic
motivation
Informational context
promotes intrinsic
motivation
Different contextual characteristics
it is necessary to take into account the interaction amongst different contextual characteristics.
This is because
employees are more likely to interact positively
with the contextual variable
when other related contextual variable(s) is simultaneously present
.
For example, an employee is more likely to generate wild ideas during a brainstorming session when:
when he sees other colleagues engaging in such behaviour (contextual characteristic 1)
and
the supervisor approves such behaviour (contextual characteristic 2)
Componential model of
creative performance
This model posits that a creative employee consists of:
Strong domain-relevant
skills
Creative-relevant
processes
and
Task
motivation.
Task motivation
According to Amabile, the
most crucial component is task motivation
, particularly intrinsic motivation.
Without task motivation
, one is
not aroused
or challenged to tackle the task,
reducing the odds of developing a creative
solution to the problem.
if one is
high in task motivation but low in the other two components
, then one
is likely to display creativity
.
This is because one is aroused and challenged
by the task to read up more about it (domain-relevant skills) as well as think of different ways of approaching the problem (creativity-relevant processes).
Key findings on employee creativity
Task: Designing complex jobs
complex/interesting/enriched can stimulate creativity
rather than simple/boring jobs.
According to the Job Characteristics Model (JCM), an enriched job consists of five core characteristics:
skill variety
task identity
task significance
autonomy
feedback.
When employees tackle an enriched job, they are likely to feel aroused and challenged by it. In turn, this will enhance their creative performance on the job.
Oldham and Cummings (1976) found that employees who were
creative, performed a complex and challenging job
and received
supportive
rather than controlling
supervision
displayed the most creativity at work.
Transformational leadership
Gumusluoglu and Ilsev (2009) found that transformational leadership has a significant effect on employee creativity at both the individual and organisational level
Methods of transformational leadership
Transformational leaders achieve these goals in the following ways:
charisma
individualised consideration
inspirational motivation and
intellectual stimulation
Characteristic of transformational leadership
A transformational leader behaves in the following way.
Awarness
Second, he
creates
in subordinates an
awareness and acceptance of the wider purpose
and mission of the organisation
Encourage
Third, he
encourages
individual employees to look beyond narrow interests to the
greater good of the group
.
Interest
First, he broadens and
elevates the interests
of employees
Goals: Setting creative goals
(Creative goals vs productive goals)
it is important to explicitly
set creative goals
Based on research findings, Shalley (1991) argued that
once a creativity goal was assigned
, participants were
primed
to focus their attention and effort on this creative objective. Hence they
displayed higher levels of creativity
compared to those who were not assigned a creativity goal.
On the other hand, when only a productivity goal was assigned
without a creativity goal
, this caused participants to
narrow their attention
to the productive dimension of the task while ignoring other potential dimensions such as creativity
Personality: How person and situation interact to facilitate or inhibit employee creativity
Openness
to experience may
predispose one to be creative
, but whether one behaves in a creative way
depends on the work situation.
For instance, when open employees receive positive feedback on their work this may enhance their enthusiasm and creativity.
On the other hand, negative feedback on work may dampen their enthusiasm and creativity.
Conscientiousness
will
inhibit employee creativity
under certain conditions at work.
Specifically, when co-workers are unsupportive of fellow employees behaving in a creative way, and supervisors closely monitor the behaviour of subordinates, then employees who are high on conscientiousness tend to actualise their conformist and deferential tendencies, displaying a low level of creativity as a result
Influence: How less creative employees can behave more creatively
Using
social cognitive theory
, Zhou (2003) argued that observing co-workers who display creativity at work may lead the uncreative employee to engage in creative activities as well.
But for this to occur, the supervisor should refrain from a close monitoring of the employee while at the same time provide developmental feedback to the employee.
Minority dissent, group participation and team innovation
De Dreu and West (2001) hypothesised that team innovation is due to the
interaction between group participation and minority dissent
.
Specifically, minority dissent would enhance divergent thinking in the group.
But for novel ideas to be transformed into innovative products and services, there must be a high level of participation in decision-making by individual members of the workgroup.
This was reflected in their studies where it was found that there were
more innovations under high levels of minority dissent
rather than low levels of minority dissent,
but only when there was a high degree of group participation
.
Different types of creativity
According to Unsworth (2001), there are
two basic dimensions
to creative problemsolving.
The
first dimension
concerns the question of
why
an employee engages in a creative task. can be internal or external reasons.
e.g., he wants to do it -Internal
e.g., the organisation wants him to do it- External
The
second dimension
deals with the
type of problem
faced by the employee which can be closed or open.
A
closed problem refers to a well-structured
and clearly-defined task, e.g., the employee modifies a certain aspect of the work process based on a set of prescribed guidelines.
An
open problem refers to an ill-structured
and vaguely-defined task, e.g., the employee has to find, invent or discover the problem first, then work out its solution.
Responsive creativity
In responsive creativity, the employee tackles a creative task which is
externally-driven and closed
,
e.g., the employee is asked by his boss to deal with a particular problem that has arisen.
Contributory creativity
In contributory creativity, the employee tackles a creative task which is
internally-driven and closed
e.g., the employee assists a fellow colleague to think of a solution to a specific problem which he is not directly involved in.
Expected creativity
In expected creativity, the employee tackles a creative task which is
externally-driven and open
,
e.g., the employee is part of a work improvement team which is given the generic task of improving the work processes in the organisation
Proactive creativity
In proactive creativity, the employee tackles a creative task which is
internally driven and open
,
e.g., the employee comes up with a new invention based on his original research at work.