Arlette Herrera
ENG3029
Dr. Chandler
April 29, 2013
Similarities in Creativity among Varied Academic Majors
Introduction
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 nor was it anything people had seen before. According to
Webster Dictionary, “creativity,” is the ability to “create” and “create” is
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 differently
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 student-workers. Also, through this data, I want to analyze the
significant impact the student-worker’s major has in their creativity
perspective.
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. 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.
Literature Review
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 Junior student-worker majoring in
Marketing, she mentions, “If you think about it you do something creative every
day.” This does correlates the fact that the 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, the list of
words frequently used, this reading provides a larger and elaborate list which
contains a large percentage of all the words provided by the survey-takers.
Methodology
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).
Data and Analysis
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). 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.
Word
|
# of times used
|
Innovation
|
1
|
Open-Minded
|
2
|
Uniqueness
|
2
|
Knowledge
|
2
|
Free-Expression
|
2
|
Imagination
|
3
|
Different
|
4
|
Outside the box
|
6
|
Create
|
7
|
(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
|
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).
Song
|
Experiment
|
Novel
|
Math
|
Illustration
|
||
S1
|
Economics
|
2
|
5
|
1
|
3
|
4
|
S2
|
Psychology
|
4
|
5
|
3
|
2
|
1
|
S3
|
Sec. Education
|
3
|
1
|
4
|
5
|
2
|
S4
|
Biology
|
5
|
4
|
2
|
3
|
1
|
S5
|
Sec. Math
|
2
|
4
|
3
|
5
|
1
|
S6
|
Communications
|
3
|
2
|
4
|
1
|
5
|
S7
|
Public Admin.
|
5
|
3
|
5
|
2
|
5
|
S8
|
Biology *Pre-PT
|
2
|
5
|
3
|
1
|
4
|
S9
|
Marketing
|
4
|
3
|
4
|
4
|
3
|
S10
|
Math
|
1
|
4
|
2
|
5
|
3
|
(Table 1.3)
After analyzing
the table above, 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.
Although it was
not intended to have five seniors complete this survey, 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 a
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.
Conclusion
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.
Limitations
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.
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.
