Can Creativity Be Taught and/or Learned? A Sketch from Higher Education Learning Outcomes

Abstract

Creativity embodies the ability to discover new and innovative ideas, links, and problems’ solutions. Creativity is a competitive advantage that enables both individuals and organizations to succeed in increasingly demanding markets. Therefore, the development of this competence has become central to the debate on curricula within education systems and the labor market. So, the present study seeks to address how creativity has been defined in the scope of learning outcomes of the new study programs under quality evaluation and subsequent accreditation in the Portuguese higher education system. Adopting a qualitative approach, a content analysis of these learning outcomes was carried out using a theoretical and empirically validated conceptual matrix. Results point out for universities and the public sector of Portuguese higher education system tend to value more creativity as a desirable learning outcome, as well as some scientific fields, such as Engineering, Information and Media, Humanities, Life Sciences, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and Arts and Architecture. Conversely, Law, Education, Social Sciences and Business Sciences are explicit examples of the undervaluation of competences related to creativity as part of the professional profile of their graduates. Findings help to understand the real importance that Portuguese higher education institutions attribute to creativity in their academic curricula.

1. Introduction

In a global and highly competitive context, the issue of creativity is particularly relevant. Indeed, creativity is a competitive advantage that enables both individuals and organizations to succeed in increasingly demanding markets. Therefore, the development of this competence has become central to the debate on curricula within education systems and the labor market [1]. Several authors stress the significance of promoting creativity skills in areas such as the design of new services, new technologies and production processes within organizations or in areas such as health and education [2, 3]. Montuori and Donnelly [4] identify several fields of knowledge that deal with creativity, such as psychology, sociology, but also marketing, art, or anthropology. However, the influence of creativity is not limited to the organizational dimension. At the individual level, creativity is a form of self-expression and a way of promoting engagement and a sense of accomplishment. Individual creativity is seen as a uniquely human trait that generates personal satisfaction and positive emotions [5]. Literature review suggests that creativity has an impact on individuals’ quality of life, as it generates feelings of satisfaction and pleasure, which are essential for mental health and emotional well-being [6, 7, 8, 9].

It is therefore relevant to realize the concept of creativity. Like other concepts, creativity is approached and consequently defined from different theoretical perspectives, which, when combined, allow for a more robust understanding of the concept, even if they are contested [10].

According to Sarsani [11], there is general agreement that the concept of creativity should be approached in a comprehensive manner, considering its multiple dimensions. The first allusions to the concept of creativity [12] focus on the abilities revealed by creative people. Various authors converge in defining creativity as the production of new ideas with utility or as a problem-solving proposal [13, 14].

The psychological concept of creativity identifies two components: originality, which refers to novelty and uniqueness, and usefulness, which entails suitability and adaptation to a group or culture [15, 16]. In a similar exercise, Rhodes [17] proposes a structure consisting of four components: person, product, process, and press, which are interrelated and overlapping. Thus, person reflects the characteristics that reveal creative potential; process refers to the cognitive and affective processes that drive creativity; product reflects the characteristics of the creative outcome; and press alludes to the effect of the environment and outside influences as stimulators or blockers of creativity. Amabile and Pillemer [18] understand creativity as a socio-psychological phenomenon. On an individual level, Lindqvist [19] argues that creativity is a construct of each individual imagination. However, the individual characteristics of creators are related to their culture and environment [20]. This interconnection with culture and environment reflects that, despite the individual nature of the act of creation, it takes place within a system of social relations [21]. The results of Kampylis and Valtanen [22] work show that the different definitions of creativity intersect in four elements. First, creativity is characterized as an individual talent. It also implies a conscious process that takes place in a specific environment and results in a tangible or intangible output [22]. While listing the various proposed components, Walia [23] defines creativity as an action that arises from the perception of the context, which identifies a certain imbalance that gives rise to a productive activity capable of challenging norms and thought patterns, resulting in something new that appears as a material object or a mental or emotional structure.

Over time, the limits of human potential in several fields have often been redefined by accidental conditions and creative insights. These moments of creativity have stimulated progress, reshaped our lives, and transformed the understanding of individuals, pushing the boundaries of what was once unknown as possible or not [24, 25, 26]. While creativity is influenced by the creative domain and field, individual creativity potential refers to the creative actions that individuals can perform in their everyday lives. All individuals possess this potential, as it corresponds to their ability to construct original interpretations and is identified as a non-specialized creative thinking process that does not depend on a specific domain or field. However, creative thinking is a crucial competence for all learners and therefore for education. Although creativity and innovative thinking are fundamental components of educational technology, their absence in educational curricula is a serious limitation of modern education in all academic disciplines [5, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32].

In fact, creativity becomes increasingly significant for the professional, personal, and social profile of all higher education graduates in all scientific areas. If in the Renaissance, creativity might be a luxury available to only a few, at present, it is an unavoidability for the survival off all [33]. In fact, creativity is assumed as a competence that supports not only the ability to clutch opportunities, but also to cope effectively with challenges and hitches in the personal, social, and professional fields. The advantages of creativity are recognized in the world of work, as it is considered a key competence for innovation and organizational success [3].

Sustainability is more and more linked to each country’s capability to innovate, create new products and services, develop new technologies and production methods, offer products and services to new markets, and, in the global context, address the wide range of challenges in the fields of health, education and labor. [2]. Recommendations to uplifting creativity in higher education curricula from China and Japan governments, as well as by American and European business top managers [34]. In line, Lubart [35] claims that, “in respect to the capital issues, such as those of the social or planetarium equilibrium, the need of new approaches and solutions becomes increasingly urgent” (p. 8). And if creativity is accepted as a fundamental competence for success in the labor market, it should necessarily be a skill to be contemplated in the educational curriculum, with special emphasis on higher education. Particularly for Higher Education, boosting knowledge, innovation, and creativity emerges as an intentional undertaking, appealing for creative research, creative pedagogies, and creative organizational structures. Jackson [36] stresses that higher education must recognize the critical role of creativity in training youth for the unpredictable and challenging labor market. He argues that promoting creativity-related skills would be part of their higher education experience, promoting their potential as far as possible. Several researchers argue that creativity plays a central role in the knowledge society and that higher education should actively promote strategies, methods, procedures, and guidelines for the development of students’ creativity [36, 37, 38, 39]. As stressed by European University Association [40], for creativity to thrive in higher education, higher education institutions and external stakeholders need to promote purposeful and determined efforts to do so. This organization developed the Creativity in Higher Education project, involving 42 higher education institutions based in 21 different countries. This project aimed to understand and explore not only the factors promoting, but also the factors inhibiting the emergence of creativity in the context of higher education. Its approach focused on innovation in teaching and learning and the structure and leadership of higher education institutions [40]. Project findings provide strong endorsement to the idea that diversity and combination of arts and other disciplines can provide a highly favorable environment for addressing a multilayer issue such as creativity. In fact, diversity was recognized as a critical driver for strengthening creativity, whether applied to research teams, to teaching and learning methods, or to joint projects with external partners. However, scientific evidence suggests that creativity decreases with increasing years of formal education [33, 41, 42, 43, 44]. According to these authors, dissuasion and penalization of creativity expression in higher education seem to be the reasons behind this issue. In fact, Cropley [45] presents a clear example of creativity relegation by higher education institutions. The author found that Australian universities do not provide the necessary guidance for students to master successful strategies to cope with new situations, to cope with rapid change and to address changing failures, as 75% of all recent alumni, regardless of their scientific field, were recognized by employers as lacking creativity, problem-solving and critical and independent thinking skills. In the same vein, Jackson et al. [38] argue that the importance of creativity in the teaching and learning process has been rather undervalued, as higher education institutions tend to value skills such as critical thinking more than creativity. Also in Brazil, Castanho [42] detected the diminished importance attached to creativity in higher education curricula. In the same vein, Hosseini [46] draws attention to the faculty’s difficulty in relying on educational practices that intentionally foster students’ motivation and creativity.

Jackson [36] also points to the attitudes and resistance of not only faculty staff but also students themselves to pedagogical methodologies that explicitly foster creativity.

The same author identifies other potential institutional barriers to fostering creativity in higher education, such as structural, cultural and procedural factors, lack of time and other resources, or institutional policies lacking creativity promotion. Despite the recognition that the development of creative skills is an asset to graduates’ personal, social, and professional profiles, creativity is very seldom embedded in higher education curricula as an overt learning outcome.

This chapter aims specifically to explore creativity as an explicit learning outcome in higher education curricula in Portugal. In other words, it aims to understand the weight of creativity in the graduate profile that higher education institutions claim to develop.

2. Methodology

In order to analyze the content of the learning outcomes mentioned by the Portuguese higher education institutions for their courses, the documents that these institutions may have presented to the Assessment and Accreditation Agency for Higher Education (A3ES) were considered. In the initial phase of the accreditation process, the higher education institutions submit to A3ES an accreditation proposal: “Previous Accreditation Request of a New Study Cycle.” For each assessed program, the learning outcomes that students are expected to achieve on graduation are listed. By an internal rule of A3ES, the information provided in this context is limited to 1000 characters.

Thus, 2.926 evaluation and accreditation request processes were analyzed for New Study Cycles and Study Cycles already in operation.

A content analysis of the learning outcomes acknowledged in the proposals of study programs proposed to quality accreditation by the Portuguese Agency for Higher Education Accreditation (A3ES) was carried out using the MAXQDA software (version 12). Six steps were taken to identify patterns (themes) within the data. This analysis followed a conceptual framework, in which 24 technical and generic skills were included. This procedure uses a theme-based analysis approach, rather than a data-driven approach [14]. Creativity was one of the categories found and analyzed. Within the category Creativity, 6 sub-categories were considered: to Create, To be Original, To solve new problems, to go beyond, to think out of the box, and To transform. Learning outcomes examples for each sub-category could be respectively:

• “Ability to create, undertake and innovate”;

• “With the conclusion of the program it is anticipated that the student will be able to solve problems in an original way, alone or in collaboration”;

• “Training of postgraduates prepared to solve new problems with creativity and sensitivity to changes taking place in the present world”;

• “Ability to problematize the dynamics inherent to historical processes in a critical, creative and independent way, and capable of suggesting valid answers, scientifically based”;

• “Ability to innovate, ability to formulate unconventional questions and to think of alternatives”

• “The mission of the program is to train competent and enterprising professionals with the ability to use technology (software and hardware) in a creative way, innovating and adding value to the national ICT business fabric (new applications, products, services).”

As already mentioned, the data analysis was focused on the information included in the documents submitted for quality accreditation and that refers to the “intended learning outcomes” that students are expected to achieve at the end of a given learning period. All learning outcomes (n = 2926) included in all proposals of new study cycles submitted to the A3ES for accreditation were analyzed. Of these 619 documents, 54.8% were 2nd study cycle proposals, while 26.2% referred to the 1st study cycle and 18.9% to the 3rd study cycle.

The content analysis of all learning outcomes in isolated categories, that is, according to the conceptual synthesis matrix, made it possible to obtain a remarkable set of descriptive data, both by competence and by independent variable. These data thus made it possible to understand which competences and knowledge are most valued not only by Portuguese Higher Education in general but by each subsystem, sector, scientific area, etc. To this end, the quantitative data resulting from the previous content analysis were explored using the statistical program IBM SPSS for Windows, version 25 (IBM Corp. Released, 2010).

First, the univariate normality of all variables was confirmed using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and the asymmetry (values <1.0) and kurtosis (values <3.0) criteria, as defined by Kline [47], and the non-existence of outliers (|z| < 3; [47]). Whenever any of the assumptions were not checked, the corresponding non-parametric tests were performed. When both tests were concordant regarding the rejection versus retention of the null hypothesis, the parametric tests were reported [48].

In the analysis of the results, the statistical procedures used included not only descriptive statistics but also parametric tests for independent samples (Student’s t-test and one-factor analysis of variance) and relationships between variables through Pearson’s r coefficient.

It should be noted that, in the ANOVAs, after the homogeneity of the variances of the variables used was tested through Levene’s test, the Gabriel post hoc test was used given the unequal number of subjects in each of the groups studied [49].

3. Results

Results point out the significance ascribed to Creativity as a learning outcome. To do that, the frequency of mentions of creativity in different higher education courses in Portugal was explored.

When it has analyzed the weighting of the competences that appear as expected in the professional profile of each graduate, critical thinking is the most common learning outcome in 74.3% of the study cycles analyzed. Thus, critical thinking could be seen as the main transversal competence that the Portuguese academia intends to develop in its students. Most of the higher education offers (62.7%) tend to also value the competence to solve problem, as well as personal development (52.5%) and information management (50.1%). But, if 49.1% of all study programs mention leadership and 47.1% refer to ethics as a learning outcome expected at the end of the degree, only 46.2% raise creativity as a skill to develop. With smaller percentages, we find communication and entrepreneurship which are referred to by 46.2% and 41.2% of the courses analyzed. Figure 1 shows the percentage of mention of each skill in all study programs.

Figure 1.

Percentage of mention of each skill in all study programs.

As can be observed in Table 1, the Gabriel post hoc test reveals that creativity presented a lower relevance in undergraduate degrees, followed by masters’ degrees. The relevance assigned by the undergraduates to this learning outcome differed significantly from the importance assigned to it in all other degrees. The same was true for masters’ degrees, where significant differences were found in comparison with the other degrees. Only in the integrated masters and doctoral degrees were there no significant differences between the importance attributed to creativity as a learning outcome.

	Bachelor	Master	Integrated Master	PhD	F		ηp^2
	A (SD)	A (SD)	A (SD)	A (SD)	GL	Value
Creativity	0.61 (0.94)	0.77 (1.20)	1.31 (1.47)	1.30 (1.30)	(32922)	40.92***	0.04

Table 1.

Distribution of learning outcomes by academic degree.

Note. A = median; SD = standard deviation. ***p < .0001. According to Cohen (1988): ηp2]0.00–0.05]—small effect size.

Learning outcomes associated with creativity seem to be more valued by the university subsystem, and these differences are statistically significant.

On the other hand, learning outcomes associated with creativity seem to be more valued by the university subsystem and the public sector, and these differences are statistically significant. These differences were not found regarding seniority and geographical location of the higher education institutions integrating the analyzed courses.

When analyzing the importance attributed by each scientific area to creativity as a learning outcome, interesting trends can be observed. Thus, creativity is mentioned for 30.3% of the degrees in Education, 52.2% in Arts and Architecture, 60% in Humanities, 35% in Social Sciences, 61.6% in Information and Media, 35.4% in Business Sciences, 33.3% in Law, 55.6% in Sciences, 68.6% in Engineering, 56.5% in Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, 21.7% in Health Sciences, and 46% in Services.

The Engineering cycles are the ones that most promote innovation and creativity as competences to be developed by their students, significantly different from Education, Arts and Architecture, Humanities, Social Sciences, Information and Journalism, Business Sciences, Law, and Agriculture. On the other hand, it is the courses in the Health area that least report innovation and creativity as an expected learning outcome. In terms of significant differences among the various scientific areas regarding the weight given to creativity in their study cycles are (i) Education in relation to Arts and Architecture, Humanities, Information and Journalism, Sciences, Agriculture and Services, (ii) Arts and Architecture in relation to Social Sciences, Business Sciences, Law and Health; (iii) the Humanities and Information and Journalism, both in relation to Business Sciences and Health; (iv) Business Sciences in relation to Agriculture and Services; (v) Law in relation to Sciences; and (vi) Sciences in relation to Agriculture and Health.

4. Conclusions

For Portuguese academia, creativity could be seen as the skill to create new things or new ideas. Creativity and originality are typically used as synonymous. But could also be noticed to solve new or renew problems. Creativity could be as well the way to go beyond, think out of the box, or to transform problems and to create new answers.

In fact, creativity is a learning outcome cited for only 46.5% of study programs proposed to quality accreditation by the national agency for quality assurance of higher education in Portugal. However, when the focus is put on the frequency of each category coded, creativity is the third learning outcome least cited in the Portuguese academy. If according to Jackson et al. [38], higher education institutions tend to give more importance to critical thinking, but our results give up the idea of the significance of creativity in teaching and learning processes have been widely undervalued in higher education.

Portuguese academia clearly underestimates the importance of fostering creative skills in its bachelor and master students, which clearly runs counter to trends in the world of work and policy guidelines.

Universities (compared to more polytechnic institutions) and the public sector of Portuguese higher education system tend to value more creativity as a desirable learning outcome.

Most of the degrees in Engineering, Information and Media, Humanities, Life Sciences, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and Arts and Architecture mention expressly creativity as a learning outcome. Health Sciences is the scientific area that least values creativity, since less than 22% of its courses refer to creativity as one of its learning outcomes. But if these results can be, at least in part, justified by the fact that the health sciences teaching/learning process is very focused on clinical protocols, as law focused on regulations, the same cannot be justified in the case of other scientific areas. Education, Social Sciences, and Business Sciences are explicit examples of the undervaluation of competences related to creativity as part of the professional profile of their graduates.

Advocating Wisdom [50], Portuguese higher education system seems to need a cultural change, “to help teachers understand and enhance their own creativity and to recognize this as an integral part of their professionalism” (p. 183), as well as warranting an institutional climate that boosts personal development not only of the students but also of the faculty staff.

To fostering creativity in higher education, it is critical the intentional development of an institutional culture that enhances creativity and its expression. Boosting active learning and inspiring students to be creative, originals and innovative is one of the ways of assuring that creativity was in fact a real learning outcome of higher education.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Agency for Assessment and Accreditation of Higher Education—A3ES for providing the data that allowed us to develop this research.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.