Arlette Herrera
ENG3029
Dr. Chandler
Similarities in Creativity among Varied Academic Majors
The Importance of Creativity
In 1879, Thomas
Edison created what was said to be the first light bulb. This was conducted
through a series of inventions, innovations and a lot of imagination. His idea
was not restricted yet it was unlike anything people had seen before. According
to Webster Dictionary, “creativity,” is defined as the ability to “create.” To
be more detailed, “create” is then defined as the ability to bring something
out of nothing. These are definitions that are very vague because rarely will
there be one solid definition that can be mutually agreed upon.
In the academic
setting there are many examples of creativity. All of them are used and defined
differently. There are many formats that people, specifically undergraduate
students utilize to mark characteristics of creativity. The purpose of this
research is to, “explore creativity among a variety of academic majors.” The
goal is to characterize similarities in perceptions of creativity (more than
differences) in academic majors.” I will conduct surveys in an office of
undergraduate students. Also, through this data, I want to analyze the
significant impact the student’s major has in their creativity perspective. In
writing studies this is important because students usually feel limited when
wanting to use creativity without knowing the similarities.
My data will show
the role of creativity in their lifestyle and will utilize a ranking of five
categories to emphasize their stance on creativity. Throughout this survey, I
will utilize references that may be similar to my research. Following, through
my literature review, I will be able to correlate my data, however, mention how
my precise research data has not been used previously to compare creativity
perspectives.
Creativity and Higher Education
While thoroughly
searching for articles with research similar to mine, I concluded that there
has been no research to compare similarities of creativity among academic
majors. However, there has been previous research done where creativity is
restricted in the academic setting. While reading through many scholarly
research papers, I attempted to find a suitable paper that would connect my
research. In, “Creativity and Higher Education” by Norma Jackson, argues that
creativity should be more acknowledge specifically in an academic setting.
Similar to the
main research question of this paper, she also asks the subjects (teachers) a
similar question, “what does being creative mean when you design a course?’
(McGoldrick, 2002; Oliver, 2002) From this question that her source utilized,
the answers received included:
·
Creativity as personal innovation --- something
that is new to individuals. This is often about the transfer and adaption of
ideas from one context to another.
·
Creativity as working at and across the
boundaries of acceptability in specific contexts: it involves exploring new
territory and taking risks.
·
Creativity as designs that promote the holistic
idea of “graduateness,” i.e.-the capacity to connect and do things with what
has been learnt and to utilize this knowledge to learn in other situations.
·
Creativity as making sense out of complexity,
i.e. working with multiple, often conflicting factors, pressures, interests and
constraints.
This shows that academics, ironically
limiting student’s creativity utilize their own creativity when designing a
course for their prospective students. This does not come as a surprise because
as mentioned in one of the surveys of a college junior majoring in Marketing,
“If you think about it you do something creative every day.” This does correlate
the fact that a creative act done is not necessarily pre-planned nor out of the
norm, just not acknowledged as Norma Jackson mentions.
Unlike my research, this scholarly paper is
an example of why creativity is important in higher education. One of her reasons
why she believes that creativity is important in higher education is; she
believes it is tied in many “domains” as she calls it. Her examples of these
said, “domains,” include but are not limited to those of historians, biologists,
lawyers, and engineers “or any other disciplinary field of endeavor (Jackson
and Shaw 2006).
Also, through this she develops an example
that stood out greatly while reading and reviewing this literature. This is what
she considers her strongest argument which is that “Creativity lies at the
heart of learning and performing in any subject-based context and the highest
level of both are often the most creative acts of all.” Her example of a history teacher is identical
to one of the survey received by a senior majoring in secondary history
education. She mentions the following towards a history teacher:
“In the
illustrative example, the history teacher creates conditions to encourage and
enable students’ to be creative (for example a challenging problem). The
teaching and learning process becomes the vehicle for interaction between the
history teacher, students’ as engages active learners in the disciplianary
field of study. Student’s respond in different ways to the challenges provided
and they gain experience of being creative. The teacher’s role is to help
students experience and understand their creativity.”
All of the
surveys distributed among these student-workers in my research request for an
example when they were creative. Ironically enough, the response from the
senior majoring in secondary education was the following, “In my 7th
grade class that I am student teaching in, I designed a lesson to show how the
Patricians and Plebians in Rome interacted together. So six students, one from
each group were hose at random and they were Patricians. They gave the rules to
the assignment and were usually extravagant. This aggravated the rest of the
class and it led to some revolting and starting of their own, “government”
which compromised the rules of the projects for the rest of the class.”
The example
of both the scholarly paper and one which was answered by a survey taker was
significantly similar. This implies the necessity of creativity when teaching.
The “vehicle,” which is mentioned by Jackson displays the same example that
this student uses in his explanation to teach the lesson of the Plebians and
Patricians. As Jackson even mentioned, there was a response to the challenge
that they faced by “creating” a government. Through this the teacher’s role of
helping students experience and understand their creativity was very widely
utilized as well as initiated by the teacher himself.
While
reading, “Creativity in Higher Education,” various keywords appeared throughout
the literature similar to my subjects. For example, Jackson mentions that
academics associate a number of features with creativity. Among the very
elaborate list she provides she mentions the following: new ideas, thinking out
of the box, newness, inventing, doing things no one has ever done before,
knowledge,, communications and inventing. Similar to Table 1.1, there is a list
of words in categories of innovation, holistic ideas, and sense of complexity. This
reading provides a larger and elaborate list which contains a large percentage
of all the words provided by the survey-takers. This is useful information for
today’s college students bounded to a certain limit when doing creative things
such as writing.
What I did to Measure Creativity
This research was
conducted through a survey handed to eighteen student workers in Kean
University. The majors are very varied and the undergraduate students vary from
freshman to seniors. The surveys were generated with six questions, the first
three were basic information, name, major and academic year. The fourth, fifth
and sixth question were open-ended and required detail when answering. These
surveys were mass e-mailed to a total of eighteen students. However, there were
only ten surveys returned within two weeks of the initial distribution. As the
surveys were received, a table was created inputting the provided information
about the final question requesting a ranking of activities (see table 1.3).
What my data REALLY meant
Frequently used words
The
focus of the data will include subjects’ usage of lexis in comparison to the
overall answers from the other results provided. After receiving the surveys from ten
student-workers various points were observed. Among the most important points,
I analyzed keywords that had the tendency to appear frequently among the
answers. Based on analysis of all the surveys returned, there was a pattern in
the lexis that was viewed in the results (see
table 1.1).To categorize these words, I utilized three words that would
serve as carrier of other words. For example under the category of “making
sense out of things,” you’d find, create and innovation.
While reviewing
the surveys, the word that appeared in seven out of ten of the surveys was
“create.” The phrase that appeared the most in six out of ten of the surveys
was, “outside the box.” The usage of the words varied; however, it provided me
insight on the point of view of their definition of creativity.
|
Problem-Solving
|
Making
Sense Out of Things
|
Out
of the Box
|
|
Knowledge
|
Innovation
|
Uniqueness
|
|
Open-Minded
|
Create
|
Different
|
|
Intelligence
|
Free-Expression
|
Imagination
|
(Table 1.1)
This discourse
works together about five times a week during the course of twenty mutual
hours. As mentioned earlier, the majors as well as the academic years vary.
There was no specific requirement when distributing this survey (see Table 1.2). Despite the majors, 70%
of the student-workers reiterated the word “create,” when defining creativity.
Specifically, the survey requests that none of the answers receive assistance
from websites such as www.google.com or www.dictionary.com or any other form of
reference. With the respective answers, only, a senior, public administration,
a junior communication, junior biology major and a senior psychology did not
mention, “think outside the box.”
|
Freshman
|
Sophomore
|
Junior
|
Senior
|
|
Economics
|
Secondary
Education
|
Biology
|
Psychology
|
|
|
Marketing
|
Communication
|
Secondary Education
|
|
|
|
|
Public
Administration
|
|
|
|
|
Biology/Pre-PT
|
|
|
|
|
Math
|
(Table 1.2)
When asked,
“describe a time when you did something creative,” in under three hundred
words, the responses varied from very recent examples within the job and
academic experience. The explanations provided were from as frequent as, “well
yesterday….” to “If you think about it, you do something creative every day.”
Definition of “Creativity”
The
second part of the fourth question asked, “….would you consider yourself
creative, why?” this opened self-criticism which I infer will be vital to
comparing the exploration of “creativity,” among academic majors. Similar to
the word, “create,” 70% of the answers were “yes” only 20% were no and 10% was
not fully sure if they would consider themselves, “creative.” The 70% that
answered “yes,” agreed that in one way or another they face creativity when
doing things that relate to their academic major and knowledge. Whether this
skill be put in place during a classroom setting, club or job setting, those
that answered yes, emphasized an example that led them to believe why THEY were
creative.
Ranking of Creative Activities
The
major component of this survey was saved for last. The final question asks,
“How would you rank the following? (1 being least creative, 5 being most
creative). Following, there was a list with five categories which were, write a
song, design an experiment, solve a math problem, write a novel, draw an
illustration. Although I did not receive all ten surveys on the same day, I did
track the answers as I received them (see
table 1.3 in appendix).
After analyzing
the table 1.3, there were distinct similarities among the rankings provided.
Unfortunately, a couple of the participants did not rank them in order, rather
simply ranked it. This brought minor implications because this provided me a
smaller amount of data to analyze.
Based on the data
provided I did conclude that despite the variety of majors, a lot of people
agreed that math and creating an experiment required the most creativity.
Whereas, contrary to popular belief, there was a mutual agreement that drawing
an illustration was what required the least creativity.
The evaluation,
allowed me analyze that there were no two completely ranks. However, there were
two opposite majors that ranked 60% similar. Both a Biology and Economics major
reported this percentage. All other majors had no significant similarities other
the 60% which ranked that both math and experiments ranked (5) similarly on
creativity. The majors ranged from many that required application, analyzing
and liberal arts yet they had similarities (See
Table 1.4 in appendix).
Although it was
not intended to have five seniors complete this survey (See table 1.2), there was a distinct factor that occurred when
analyzing the five seniors. For starters, they are all completely different
majors; Math, Public Administration, Psychology, Biology, and Secondary Education.
Among these five majors there was an 80% response of those who were not mislead
by the instructions provided in the survey. Also out of the five 100% used the
following words; different and unique (synonyms of one another). This brought
up an interesting point because during this point in-depth of research the
question of, “does the amount of time spent in four-year university impact
creativity,” arose largely in mind. Since once again, the majors are very
different from one another, yet when responding without references they
reported an almost ideal first sentence with specific keywords.
Creativity in
Closing: In Brief, What Went Well
After evaluating
all of the data above, all the information acquired provided the ability of
evaluating characteristics of very different majors. As mentioned earlier,
there was no specific requirement that needed to be met when taking this survey
(i.e.-major, grade, trait, etc). The student-workers that did choose to take it
were not offered anything in exchange and were informed about the manner in
which their survey will be utilized. They also did receive a copy of the
consent form listing their rights as well as the researcher (my) rights.
The
data I have found proves that the discourse’s viewpoint among this small
community is similar yet distinct. When beginning my research, my initial
research question was to, “Characterize similarities in perceptions of
creativity (more than differences) in academic majors.” My data, as well as my supporting
article
supports my belief that creativity does have similarities among academic
majors. However, it also does prove that similarities are very likely. After
evaluating the ranking table (table 1.3),
I realized that despite the common keywords utilized in defining creativity
there is also a significant difference when ranking the activities. The closest
results found in this research was that of a 60% similarity between two rather
opposite majors.
Unlike popular belief, specific majors do not
always consider creativity based solely on their academic major and background.
As state in the analysis, 60% of the survey takers agreed that the most
creative activities among the ones offered were to; solve a math problem and to
design an experiment. This is something that was not expected because the
variety of majors is so large that one would expect to see a high ranking for
one that would correlate to their specific major.
Ten people cannot be the definite
conclusion of the similarity perspectives among academic major. Nor can a
survey with six questions generated provide a final view on undergraduate view
points. However, student-workers in a university of 16,000 in New Jersey is
very distinct and the role of creativity has been impacted by other factors
aside academic majors.
What didn’t go too well
Despite
the eighteen consent forms I had signed by all of my coworkers. I only had a
total of ten surveys returned. Through this first hardship, it was hard to have
the extended variety of majors I originally had anticipated. Also, regardless
the request of having these surveys returned within five days, there was a two
week wait that had to occur therefore make the data analysis time shorter.
Lastly,
out of the ten surveys I received, the wording of the questions wasn’t
sufficiently clear enough for my intended survey takers to understand. There
was a minor confusion since there was a lack of mentioning, “in order” in the
question which stated: “How would you rank the following? (1 being least
creative, 5 being most creative). Due to the format that this was worded in,
the designated survey takers did not all grasp the fact that they had to do it
in order. Therefore, some utilized specific numbers more than once and did not
put it in any order. This unfortunately did not provide 100% accuracy with the
final question in the surveys.
Appendix
(Table 1.3 and 1.4)
Results of
surveys based on ten results attained from eighteen distributed surveys in a
two-week period.
|
Survey 1
|
Survey 2
|
Survey 3
|
Survey 4
|
Survey 5
|
Survey 6
|
Survey 7
|
Survey 8
|
Survey 9
|
Survey 10
|
|
Marketing
|
Psych
|
Public Admin
|
Sec. Education
|
Sec. Math
|
Communication
|
Biology
|
Biology
|
Math
|
Economic
|
|
4. Song
|
1. Illustration
|
5. Song
|
1. Experiment
|
1. Illustration
|
1. Math
|
1. Math
|
1. Illustration
|
1. Song
|
1. Novel
|
|
3. Experiment
|
2. Math
|
3. Experiment
|
2. Illustration
|
2. Song
|
2. Experiment
|
2. Song
|
2. Novel
|
2. Novel
|
2. Song
|
|
4. Math
|
3. Novel
|
2. Math
|
3. Song
|
3. Novel
|
3. Song
|
3. Novel
|
3. Math
|
3. Illustrate
|
3. Math
|
|
4. Novel
|
4. Song
|
5. Novel
|
4. Novel
|
4. Experiment
|
4. Novel
|
4. Illustration
|
4. Experiment
|
4. Experiment
|
 4.
Illustration |
|
3. Illustration
|
5. Experiment
|
5. Illustration
|
5. Math
|
5. Math
|
5. Illustration
|
5. Experiment
|
5. Song
|
5. Math
|
5. Experiment
|
(Table
1. 3)
Majors broken into categories
based on categories of Analytical, Application and Liberal Arts
|
Analytical
|
Application
|
Liberal
Arts
|
|
Psychology
|
Marketing
|
English
|
|
Biology
|
Education
|
Communications
|
|
Science
|
Public Administration
|
|
|
Mathematics
|
|
|
(Table
1.4)
Works Cited
Jackson, Norman, “Creativity in
Higher Education.” Survey Centre for
Excellence in Professional Training and Education (SCEPTrE). Paper 3. pp 1-24.
April, 22, 2013.
