PERCEIVING AND PURSUING OVELTY A GROUNDED THEORY OF … · Perceiving and Pursuing Novelty: A Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity v . have broad applicability to researchers

PERCEIVING AND PURSUING NOVELTY: A GROUNDED THEORY OF ADOLESCENT CREATIVITY

Carly Jade Lassig B.Ed. (Hons 1)

Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Centre for Learning Innovation Faculty of Education

Queensland University of Technology

2012

Perceiving and Pursuing Novelty: A Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity i

Keywords

Adolescents; arts; constructivist; creative self-efficacy; creativity; curriculum;

education; educational policy; gifted and talented; grounded theory; International

Baccalaureate; mathematics; motivation; science; selective school; students;

technology

Perceiving and Pursuing Novelty: A Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity iii

Abstract

Creativity plays an increasingly important role in our personal, social,

educational, and community lives. For adolescents, creativity can enable self-

expression, be a means of pushing boundaries, and assist learning, achievement, and

completion of everyday tasks. Moreover, adolescents who demonstrate creativity can

potentially enhance their capacity to face unknown future challenges, address

mounting social and ecological issues in our global society, and improve their career

opportunities and contribution to the economy. For these reasons, creativity is an

essential capacity for young people in their present and future, and is highlighted as a

priority in current educational policy nationally and internationally.

Despite growing recognition of creativity’s importance and attention to

creativity in research, the creative experience from the perspectives of the creators

themselves and the creativity of adolescents are neglected fields of study. Hence, this

research investigated adolescents’ self-reported experiences of creativity to improve

understandings of their creative processes and manifestations, and how these can be

supported or inhibited. Although some aspects of creativity have been extensively

researched, there were no comprehensive, multidisciplinary theoretical frameworks

of adolescent creativity to provide a foundation for this study. Therefore, a grounded

theory methodology was adopted for the purpose of constructing a new theory to

describe and explain adolescents’ creativity in a range of domains. The study’s

constructivist-interpretivist perspective viewed the data and findings as

interpretations of adolescents’ creative experiences, co-constructed by the

participants and the researcher.

The research was conducted in two academically selective high schools in

Australia: one arts school, and one science, mathematics, and technology school.

Twenty adolescent participants (10 from each school) were selected using theoretical

sampling. Data were collected via focus groups, individual interviews, an online

discussion forum, and email communications. Grounded theory methods informed a

process of concurrent data collection and analysis; each iteration of analysis

informed subsequent data collection. Findings portray creativity as it was perceived

iv Perceiving and Pursuing Novelty: A Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity

and experienced by participants, presented in a Grounded Theory of Adolescent

Creativity.

The Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity comprises a core category,

Perceiving and Pursuing Novelty: Not the Norm, which linked all findings in the

study. This core category explains how creativity involved adolescents perceiving

stimuli and experiences differently, approaching tasks or life unconventionally, and

pursuing novel ideas to create outcomes that are not the norm when compared with

outcomes by peers. Elaboration of the core category is provided by the major

categories of findings. That is, adolescent creativity entailed utilising a network of

Sub-Processes of Creativity, using strategies for Managing Constraints and

Challenges, and drawing on different Approaches to Creativity – adaptation, transfer,

synthesis, and genesis – to apply the sub-processes and produce creative outcomes.

Potentially, there were Effects of Creativity on Creators and Audiences, depending

on the adolescent and the task. Three Types of Creativity were identified as the

manifestations of the creative process: creative personal expression, creative

boundary pushing, and creative task achievement. Interactions among adolescents’

dispositions and environments were influential in their creativity. Patterns and

variations of these interactions revealed a framework of four Contexts for Creativity

that offered different levels of support for creativity: high creative disposition–

supportive environment; high creative disposition–inhibiting environment; low

creative disposition–supportive environment; and low creative disposition–inhibiting

environment. These contexts represent dimensional ranges of how dispositions and

environments supported or inhibited creativity, and reveal that the optimal context

for creativity differed depending on the adolescent, task, domain, and environment.

This study makes four main contributions, which have methodological and

theoretical implications for researchers, as well as practical implications for

adolescents, parents, teachers, policy and curriculum developers, and other interested

stakeholders who aim to foster the creativity of adolescents. First, this study

contributes methodologically through its constructivist-interpretivist grounded theory

methodology combining the grounded theory approaches of Corbin and Strauss

(2008) and Charmaz (2006). Innovative data collection was also demonstrated

through integration of data from online and face-to-face interactions with

adolescents, within the grounded theory design. These methodological contributions

Perceiving and Pursuing Novelty: A Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity v

have broad applicability to researchers examining complex constructs and processes,

and with populations who integrate multimedia as a natural form of communication.

Second, applicable to creativity in diverse domains, the Grounded Theory of

Adolescent Creativity supports a hybrid view of creativity as both domain-general

and domain-specific. A third major contribution was identification of a new form of

creativity, educational creativity (ed-c), which categorises creativity for learning or

achievement within the constraints of formal educational contexts. These theoretical

contributions inform further research about creativity in different domains or

multidisciplinary areas, and with populations engaged in formal education. However,

the key contribution of this research is that it presents an original Theory and Model

of Adolescent Creativity to explain the complex, multifaceted phenomenon of

adolescents’ creative experiences.

Perceiving and Pursuing Novelty: A Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity vii

Table of Contents

Keywords .................................................................................................................................................i

Abstract ................................................................................................................................................. iii

Table of Contents ................................................................................................................................. vii

List of Figures ........................................................................................................................................xi

List of Tables ....................................................................................................................................... xii List of Abbreviations ........................................................................................................................... xiii

Statement of Original Authorship ........................................................................................................ xiv

Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................... xv

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Preamble ...................................................................................................................................... 1

1.2 Profile of the Research ................................................................................................................. 3 1.3 Educational Context and Significance of the Research................................................................ 4

1.4 A Creative Challenge ................................................................................................................... 7

1.5 Overview of the Thesis ................................................................................................................ 7

1.6 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 9

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................................... 11 2.1 Literature Reviews in Grounded Theory Research .................................................................... 11 2.2 Creativity ................................................................................................................................... 12

2.2.1 A Personal Conceptualisation of Creativity for this Study ............................................. 13 2.2.2 Evolving Conceptions of Creativity................................................................................ 15 2.2.3 A Continuum of Creativity ............................................................................................. 16 2.2.4 Domains of Creativity ..................................................................................................... 18 2.2.5 Creativity and Giftedness ............................................................................................... 19 2.2.6 Creative Self-Efficacy .................................................................................................... 20

2.3 Approaches to Understanding and Researching Creativity ........................................................ 22 2.3.1 Biographical Approaches ................................................................................................ 22 2.3.2 Psychometric Approaches .............................................................................................. 23 2.3.3 Social-Personality Approaches ....................................................................................... 24 2.3.4 Cognitive Approaches .................................................................................................... 26 2.3.5 Confluence Approaches .................................................................................................. 26 2.3.6 Conclusions about Approaches to Understandings and Studying Creativity .................. 27

2.4 Creativity in Education .............................................................................................................. 28 2.4.1 Creativity, Teaching, and Learning ................................................................................ 29 2.4.2 Learning Environmental Influences on Creativity .......................................................... 30 2.4.3 Need for Further Research about Creativity in Education .............................................. 33

2.5 Adolescence ............................................................................................................................... 34 2.5.1 Creativity in Adolescence ............................................................................................... 35 2.5.2 Creativity and Giftedness in Adolescents ....................................................................... 36

2.6 Chapter Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 37

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY AND RESEARCH DESIGN ..................................................... 39 3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 39

3.2 Constructivist-Interpretivist Perspective .................................................................................... 40

viii Perceiving and Pursuing Novelty: A Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity

3.3 Grounded Theory Methodology ................................................................................................ 41

3.4 Research Sites ............................................................................................................................ 43 3.5 Participant Selection .................................................................................................................. 44

3.5.1 Survey of Creativity Conceptions ................................................................................... 44 3.5.2 Creative Personality Scale .............................................................................................. 45 3.5.3 Creative Self-Efficacy Scale ........................................................................................... 46 3.5.4 Student and Staff Nominations ....................................................................................... 47 3.5.5 Theoretical Sampling: Participation Selection ............................................................... 49 3.5.6 Creative Work Sample Evaluations ................................................................................ 53

3.6 Data Collection .......................................................................................................................... 57 3.6.1 Theoretical Sampling: Guiding Data Collection and Analysis ....................................... 58 3.6.2 Preliminary Focus Groups .............................................................................................. 59 3.6.3 Individual Interviews ...................................................................................................... 61 3.6.4 Discussion Forum ........................................................................................................... 62 3.6.5 Concluding Focus Groups .............................................................................................. 64 3.6.6 Email Communications .................................................................................................. 65 3.6.7 Summary of Data Collection .......................................................................................... 66

3.7 Data Analysis ............................................................................................................................. 66 3.7.1 Coding ............................................................................................................................ 68 3.7.2 Constant Comparative Method ....................................................................................... 70 3.7.3 Memos and Diagrams ..................................................................................................... 71

3.8 Quality Criteria for Grounded Theory Research ........................................................................ 72

3.9 Ethical Considerations ............................................................................................................... 74 3.9.1 Research Merit and Integrity .......................................................................................... 74 3.9.2 Justice ............................................................................................................................. 74 3.9.3 Beneficence .................................................................................................................... 75 3.9.4 Respect ........................................................................................................................... 75

3.10 Summary of the Methodology and Research Design ................................................................. 75

CHAPTER 4 THE ADOLESCENT CREATIVE PROCESS ......................................................... 79 4.1 Overview of the Findings Chapters ........................................................................................... 79

4.2 Introduction................................................................................................................................ 84 4.3 Sub-Processes of Creativity ....................................................................................................... 84

4.3.1 Identifying a Need/Want ................................................................................................ 86 4.3.2 Imagining ........................................................................................................................ 86 4.3.3 Brainstorming ................................................................................................................. 88 4.3.4 Planning .......................................................................................................................... 90 4.3.5 Learning Knowledge and Skills...................................................................................... 91 4.3.6 Assessing Constraints ..................................................................................................... 93 4.3.7 Gathering materials......................................................................................................... 94 4.3.8 Experimenting ................................................................................................................ 95 4.3.9 Achieving Insight ........................................................................................................... 97 4.3.10 Creating Outcomes ......................................................................................................... 99 4.3.11 Evaluating ..................................................................................................................... 103 4.3.12 Conclusions about the Sub-Processes of Creativity ...................................................... 107

4.4 Managing Constraints and Challenges ..................................................................................... 108 4.4.1 Managing Emotions ...................................................................................................... 109 4.4.2 Allowing Incubation ..................................................................................................... 110 4.4.3 Verbalising Ideas .......................................................................................................... 111 4.4.4 Revising ........................................................................................................................ 112 4.4.5 Enhancing the Context for Creativity ........................................................................... 112 4.4.6 Starting Afresh.............................................................................................................. 113 4.4.7 Discontinuing the Creative Process .............................................................................. 114 4.4.8 Summary of Managing Challenges and Constraints ..................................................... 115

4.5 Effects of Creativity on Creators and Audiences ..................................................................... 116

Perceiving and Pursuing Novelty: A Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity ix

4.5.1 Effects of Creativity on Creators .................................................................................. 116 4.5.2 Creators’ Intentions for Affecting Audiences ............................................................... 124 4.5.3 Summary of the Effects of Creativity on Creators and Audiences ............................... 126

4.6 Chapter 4 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 128

CHAPTER 5 ADOLESCENTS’ APPROACHES TO CREATIVITY ......................................... 129 5.1 Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 129

5.2 Adaptation ................................................................................................................................ 129

5.3 Transfer .................................................................................................................................... 131 5.4 Synthesis .................................................................................................................................. 133

5.5 Genesis ..................................................................................................................................... 135

5.6 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 139

CHAPTER 6 CONTEXTS FOR CREATIVITY ............................................................................ 141 6.1 Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 141

6.2 Effects of Disposition and the Environment on Creativity ...................................................... 142 6.2.1 Effects of Disposition on Creativity ............................................................................. 142 6.2.2 Effects of the Environment on Creativity ..................................................................... 144 6.2.3 Contexts for Creativity: Interactions of Disposition and the Environment ................... 150

6.3 High Creative Disposition–Supportive Environment .............................................................. 151 6.3.1 Supporting High Creative Dispositions with Physical Environmental Conditions ....... 151 6.3.2 Supporting High Creative Dispositions with Social Environmental Conditions .......... 157 6.3.3 High Creative Disposition–Supportive Environment Summary: The Optimal

Context for Creativity ................................................................................................... 163

6.4 High Creative Disposition–Inhibiting Environment ................................................................ 163 6.4.1 Inhibiting Environments Constraining High Creative Dispositions ............................. 164 6.4.2 High Creative Dispositions Overcoming Inhibiting Environments .............................. 168 6.4.3 High Creative Disposition–Inhibiting Environment Summary: A Potential Context

for Creativity ................................................................................................................. 170

6.5 Low Creative Disposition–Supportive Environment ............................................................... 170 6.5.1 Supportive Environmental Conditions Enhancing Low Creative Dispositions ............ 171 6.5.2 Low Creative Dispositions Inhibiting Creativity in Supportive Environments ............ 174 6.5.3 Supportive Environment–Low Creative Disposition Summary: A Potential Context

for Creativity ................................................................................................................. 175

6.6 Low Creative Disposition–Inhibiting Environment ................................................................. 176 6.6.1 Physical Environmental Conditions Perpetuating Low Creative Dispositions ............. 177 6.6.2 Social Environmental Conditions Perpetuating Low Creative Dispositions................. 179 6.6.3 Changes to Low Creative Dispositions and Inhibiting Environments .......................... 181 6.6.4 Inhibiting Environment–Low Creative Disposition Summary: The Pessimal Context

for Creativity ................................................................................................................. 183

6.7 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 183

CHAPTER 7 TYPES OF ADOLESCENT CREATIVITY: A SYNTHESIS OF RESULTS ..... 187 7.1 Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 187

7.2 Creative Personal Expression ................................................................................................... 187 7.2.1 Creative Personal Expression in Music: UltraShiny. .................................................... 188 7.2.2 Creative Personal Expression in Art: Kate. .................................................................. 195 7.2.3 Discussion of Creative Personal Expression ................................................................. 202

7.3 Creative Boundary Pushing ..................................................................................................... 207 7.3.1 Creative Boundary Pushing in Science and Mathematics: GLaDOS ........................... 207 7.3.2 Creative Boundary Pushing in Music and in Life: CandleJack .................................... 216 7.3.3 Discussion of creative boundary pushing. .................................................................... 224

x Perceiving and Pursuing Novelty: A Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity

7.4 Creative Task Achievement ..................................................................................................... 229 7.4.1 Creative Task Achievement at School: TuathaDuOrothrim ......................................... 230 7.4.2 Creative Task Achievement Balancing Academic and Creative Success: DaVinci ..... 235 7.4.3 Discussion of Creative Task Achievement ................................................................... 241

7.5 Chapter Conclusion.................................................................................................................. 244

CHAPTER 8 A GROUNDED THEORY AND MODEL OF ADOLESCENT CREATIVITY . 247 8.1 Introduction.............................................................................................................................. 247

8.2 A Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity ......................................................................... 248 8.2.1 The Core of Adolescent Creativity ............................................................................... 249 8.2.2 A Model of Adolescent Creativity ................................................................................ 253 8.2.3 Sub-Processes of Creativity .......................................................................................... 256 8.2.4 Managing Constraints and Challenges. ........................................................................ 258 8.2.5 Approaches to Creativity .............................................................................................. 259 8.2.6 Types of Creativity ....................................................................................................... 262 8.2.7 Contexts for Creativity ................................................................................................. 265

8.3 Forms of Creativity .................................................................................................................. 278 8.3.1 The Four C’s Model of Creativity ................................................................................ 278 8.3.2 The Two C’s of Adolescent Creativity ......................................................................... 279 8.3.3 Introducing A Third C of Adolescent Creativity: ed-c. ................................................ 280 8.3.4 The New Five C’s Model of Creativity ........................................................................ 284

8.4 Inclusive and Exclusive: Domain-Generality and Domain-Specificity ................................... 285

8.5 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 289

CHAPTER 9 CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................... 291 9.1 Preamble .................................................................................................................................. 291

9.2 Introduction.............................................................................................................................. 292 9.3 Addressing the Research Questions ......................................................................................... 292

9.4 Contributions of the Study ....................................................................................................... 296

9.5 Implications of the Study ......................................................................................................... 298

9.6 Limitations of the Study .......................................................................................................... 301

9.7 Future Directions ..................................................................................................................... 303

9.8 Concluding Remarks................................................................................................................ 305

REFERENCES .................................................................................................................................. 307

APPENDICES ................................................................................................................................... 341 Appendix A Glossary............................................................................................................... 341 Appendix B Survey of Creativity Conceptions ........................................................................ 342 Appendix C Creative Personality Scale ................................................................................... 347 Appendix D Creative Self-Efficacy Scale ............................................................................... 348 Appendix E1 Whimsical High School Student Nomination Form .......................................... 349 Appendix E2 Nerdopolis High School Student Nomination Form .......................................... 351 Appendix E3 Whimsical High School Staff Nomination Form ............................................... 353 Appendix E4 Nerdopolis High School Staff Nomination Form .............................................. 355 Appendix F Creativity Work Sample Student Description Form ............................................ 357 Appendix G Creativity Work Sample Evaluation Form .......................................................... 358 Appendix H Preliminary Focus Group Schedule ..................................................................... 359 Appendix I Individual Interview Schedule .............................................................................. 361 Appendix J Example of a Memo ............................................................................................. 363 Appendix K Example of an Early Diagram ............................................................................. 364 Appendix L Examples of Participants’ Creative Outcomes ..................................................... 365

Perceiving and Pursuing Novelty: A Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity xi

List of Figures

Figure 3.1. Data collection sequence. ................................................................................................... 57

Figure 3.2. The grounded theory research process. .............................................................................. 76

Figure 4.1. Sub-processes of adolescent creativity. .............................................................................. 85

Figure 4.2. Managing constraints and challenges within the sub-processes of adolescent creativity. ............................................................................................................................ 108

Figure 4.3. Possible strategy sequences for managing constraints and challenges in the creative process. ............................................................................................................................... 116

Figure 4.4. Potential effects of creativity on creators and intended effects on audiences. .................. 128

Figure 5.1. Approaches to adolescent creativity. ................................................................................ 140

Figure 6.1. Creative disposition matrix. .............................................................................................. 144

Figure 6.2. Supportive environment matrix. ....................................................................................... 146 Figure 6.3. Inhibiting environment for creativity matrix. ................................................................... 148

Figure 6.4. Contexts for adolescent creativity matrix. ........................................................................ 150

Figure 6.5. High creative disposition–supportive environment context. ............................................ 151

Figure 6.6. High creative disposition–inhibiting environment context. .............................................. 164

Figure 6.7. Low creative disposition–supportive environment context. ............................................. 171

Figure 6.8. Low creative disposition–inhibiting environment context. .............................................. 176 Figure 6.9. Adolescent creativity context matrix example: GLaDOS. ............................................... 185

Figure 7.1. Types of adolescent creativity. ......................................................................................... 245

Figure 8.1. Model of Adolescent Creativity. ...................................................................................... 255

Figure 8.2. Approaches to adolescent creativity: Connections to the literature. ................................ 260

Figure 8.3. The self-determination continuum (Deci & Ryan, 2000, p. 237). .................................... 270 Figure 8.4. The Five C’s model of creativity. ..................................................................................... 284

Figure 8.5. A nested hierarchical model of domain-generality and domain-specificity in adolescent creativity. .......................................................................................................... 287

xii Perceiving and Pursuing Novelty: A Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity

List of Tables

Table 2.1 Psychometric Approaches to Creativity Research ................................................................ 24

Table 3.1 Creative Personality Scale: Descriptive Statistics ................................................................ 50

Table 3.2 Creative Self-Efficacy Scale: Descriptive Statistics .............................................................. 50

Table 3.3 Arts School Participants’ Selection Criteria Characteristics ............................................... 51

Table 3.4 Science, Mathematics and Technology School Participants’ Selection Criteria Characteristics ..................................................................................................................... 52

Table 3.5 Arts School: Participant Work Sample Creativity Ratings ................................................... 56

Table 3.6 Science, Mathematics, and Technology School: Participant Work Sample Creativity Ratings ................................................................................................................................. 56

Table 4.1 Participants’ Pseudonyms: Whimsical High School ............................................................. 81

Table 4.2 Participants’ Pseudonyms: Nerdopolis High School ............................................................ 82 Table 4.3 Data Source Codes and Participants .................................................................................... 83

Table 6.1 Dispositional Conditions Influencing Creativity ................................................................. 143

Table 6.2 Environmental Conditions Supporting Creativity ............................................................... 145

Table 6.3 Environmental Conditions Inhibiting Creativity ................................................................. 147

Table 6.4 Environmental Conditions that can Support or Inhibit Creativity ...................................... 149

Table 8.1 Perceiving and Pursuing Novelty: Integration with the Sub-Processes of Creativity ......... 251 Table 8.2 Comparison of the Three C’s of Adolescent Creativity ....................................................... 283

Table 8.3 Environments of the Three C’s of Adolescent Creativity .................................................... 283

Table 8.4 A Nested Hierarchical Model of Domain-Generality and Domain-Specificity in Adolescent Creativity ......................................................................................................... 288

Perceiving and Pursuing Novelty: A Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity xiii

List of Abbreviations

CAS Creativity, Action, Service

EE Extended Essay

IB International Baccalaureate

NHS Nerdopolis High School (pseudonym)

TOK Theory of Knowledge

WHS Whimsical High School (pseudonym)

xiv Perceiving and Pursuing Novelty: A Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity

Statement of Original Authorship

The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted to meet

requirements for an award at this or any other higher education institution. To the

best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously

published or written by another person except where due reference is made.

Signature:_________________________

Date:_________________________

Perceiving and Pursuing Novelty: A Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity xv

Acknowledgements

To speak of the doctoral experience as a journey, while perhaps a cliché, is also

accurate. I travelled down so many interesting and challenging paths that have given

me opportunities to grow in ways I could not have anticipated. Overall, I have

enjoyed the journey as much as I am excited about reaching the destination: a

completed thesis! Although the PhD endeavour is, by nature, often a solitary one,

there are so many people to thank who made this journey possible and unforgettable.

First, this was a study of adolescents’ experiences and voices. There would

have been no study of adolescent creativity without the incredible young people who

participated in my research. It was a privilege getting to know each and every one of

you, and I thank you for your commitment and enthusiasm in my research. My thesis

cannot do justice to you as the talented individuals that you are, but I hope I have

captured your unique and insightful voices and diverse creative experiences. Thank

you also to the participating schools, their principals, and other school staff who

supported my research.

It is with sincere gratitude that I thank my supervisors, Associate Professor Jim

Watters and Professor Carmel Diezmann, for their support, guidance, and wisdom. I

was very fortunate to have such respected and accomplished academics as my

supervisors. Thank you for the ways in which you challenged and encouraged me,

and for your astute feedback on my research and writing. I’m indebted to you for

both mentoring me during the PhD journey and initiating me into the world of

academia.

I was also privileged to meet and learn from renowned grounded theorists,

Julie Corbin and Kathy Charmaz. In particular, I am deeply grateful to Julie Corbin

who so generously gave her time to teach me about grounded theory and offer

invaluable feedback on my early analyses, and who provided ongoing guidance

throughout my research. Thank you, Julie.

In addition to my supervisors, there were many other people at Queensland

University of Technology (QUT) who supported me during the doctoral journey. To

my peers, travelling on our postgraduate research journeys together made the

xvi Perceiving and Pursuing Novelty: A Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity

experience so much more enjoyable. I have deeply valued your camaraderie and

support in sharing all our ups and downs. Thank you to the Centre for Learning

Innovation staff in the Faculty of Education for fostering our postgraduate research

student community, and for all your friendly help and advice. I’d also like to express

my gratitude to other QUT academics who encouraged me and assisted practically

with the evaluations of my participants’ creative work.

Undertaking my PhD would not have been possible without the financial

support that allowed me to focus on my research full-time. Thank you to QUT for

offering me the Australian Postgraduate Award and the QUT Vice Chancellor’s

Initiative Scholarship, and to the Queensland Government for their support through

the Smart State PhD Scholarship Scheme.

These acknowledgements would not be complete without thanking my close

friends and loved ones who have acted as my personal cheer squad. Your friendship,

encouragement, and patience have meant so much to me. Thank you also for your

entertaining diversions that reminded me of life outside my PhD!

Last, but by no means least, I would like to express my deepest appreciation to

my loving parents, Laurie and Carolyn. Your unwavering belief in me has

encouraged me to pursue my dreams and helped me to overcome challenges along

the way. Thank you for being a constant source of strength and support, and for

always being there just to listen. I would not be where I am today without you and I

am eternally grateful.

This thesis is dedicated in loving memory of my brother, Jamie,

who inspires me to be all I can be, for both of us.

Perceiving and Pursuing Novelty: A Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity 1

Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Preamble

Children see a world of possibilities; a world where using imagination and

creativity is a natural part of play and discovery. Rather than steal ninety-nine of

children’s possibilities in life and leave only one, perhaps we should allow young

people to explore and create more of the hundred possibilities for themselves.

Possibility thinking has been argued to be the heart of creativity (e.g., Craft, 2000,

2001, 2002, 2011). Life in the twenty-first century is rapidly changing and we are

less certain than ever about our future reality. It has never been more important to

explore possibilities and “what might be” (Craft, 2011, p. 51), and develop creativity

to face the unknown challenges of the future. Hence, we need to develop

understandings of young people’s creativity, and how it can be fostered. This thesis

presents research from a study of adolescents’ experiences of creativity.

The child is made of one hundred. ... a hundred thoughts a hundred ways of thinking of playing, of speaking ...

a hundred worlds to discover a hundred worlds to invent a hundred worlds to dream.

...but they steal ninety-nine. The school and the culture … They tell the child: to discover the world already there and of the hundred they steal ninety-nine.

They tell the child: that work and play reality and fantasy science and imagination sky and earth reason and dream are things that do not belong together.

And thus they tell the child that the hundred is not there. The child says: No way. The hundred is there.

~ Loris Malaguzzi (translated by Lella Gandini)

Extract from the poem, No way. The hundred is there.

(as cited in Edwards, Gandini, & Forman, 1998, p. 3)

2 Perceiving and Pursuing Novelty: A Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity

Creativity is no longer synonymous with genius or giftedness. The

“democratisation” of creativity (Craft, 2005; Jeffrey & Craft, 2001; McWilliam,

2008) means that creativity is now a capacity required by everyone, to varying

degrees, for successful participation in current and future societies. Although the

construct of creativity is still debated, it is widely accepted that creativity: can be an

individual or collaborative process; results in outcomes that are both novel and

appropriate, useful, meaningful, or relevant; and is influenced by various personal

and environmental factors (e.g., Amabile, 1996; Craft, 2000; Csikszentmihalyi, 1996;

Hennessey & Amabile, 2010; Plucker, Beghetto, & Dow, 2004; Sternberg & Lubart,

1995).

The 21st century knowledge economy is facing a social, technological, and

economic revolution, in which there are changes in the types of intelligences and

human resources that are most valued (Craft, 2005; Robinson, 2001a, 2001b).

Creativity as a human resource “is at a premium” (D. Hartley, 2003, p. 81) in the

global competition for talent in the creative industries (e.g., J. Hartley, 2005) and to

address the talent crisis in the sciences and technology (e.g., Commonwealth of

Australia, 2008). An added consideration is that, largely due to technological

advancements, there will be an emergence of jobs in fields that do not yet exist.

Therefore, as the next generation of workers and leaders, an ensuing priority for

schools is to effectively nurture adolescents’ creative potential to prepare them for

roles in high-demand fields (e.g., creative industries, and science and technology) as

well as the unknown careers of the future. However, in Australia, recognition of the

educational value of creativity often fails to go beyond rhetoric, largely due to the

tensions teachers face with implementing creativity alongside other competing

educational priorities (Burnard & White, 2008). This context sets the scene for

research into the creativity of adolescents in two selective high schools targeting

high-demand domain areas: one is an arts (creative industries) school, and the other

is a science, mathematics, and technology school.

To understand adolescent creativity, a natural place to start is to ask the young

people themselves. Hence, this study invited adolescents to share their creative

experiences, with the goal of co-constructing a theory of adolescent creativity.

Adolescents’ views are important; a provision of the United Nations Educational,

Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989)


is that: “Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own

views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the

views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of

the child”. Hence, adolescents are entitled to share their views on relevant matters,

such as their education and development of their creativity. The participants in this

study demonstrated considerable interest and commitment in sharing their views.

1.2 Profile of the Research

This research investigated the creative experiences of adolescents. Specifically,

the study aimed to develop an understanding and explanation of adolescents’ creative

processes and outcomes, and how their creativity was supported or inhibited by

dispositional qualities and the various environments that they inhabited. A grounded

theory methodology was employed to explore they key research question – What are

adolescents’ experiences of creativity? – to develop a Grounded Theory of

Adolescent Creativity. Using this methodology to develop a theory was the goal of

the study because there were no adequate existing theories of adolescent creativity

that could provide a conceptual framework for this research. Moreover, this study

aimed to explore the phenomenon of creativity from adolescents’ perspectives. This

research viewed creativity as a complex, multidimensional phenomenon that

involves interactions among the following factors that formed the basis of the

research sub-questions guiding the study:

1. What is the adolescent creative process?

2. How does disposition influence adolescent creativity?

3. How does the environment influence adolescent creativity?

4. How is adolescent creativity manifested?

These four sub-questions were derived from Rhodes’ 1961 Four P’s model of

researching creativity, which included a focus on process, person, press, and

product, respectively (see also Section 2.3.6). The final outcome of this research was

a theory and model of adolescent creativity.


1.3 Educational Context and Significance of the Research

The flow down effect of global interest in creativity and the need for more

creative workers in the future (Section 1.1) is that, within the landscape of education,

creativity is moving from the periphery to the core of the curriculum (Craft, 2005).

This can be seen in various policy and curricular documents around the world,

including Australia. For example, “critical and creative thinking” is listed as a

general capability of the new national curriculum (Australian Curriculum,

Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA], 2010), and the 2008 Melbourne

Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians noted that an aim of

education is “to support all young Australians to become ... confident and creative

individuals” (Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth

Affairs [MCEETYA], 2008, p. 8). However, we are at a crossroads of competing

agendas: performativity and creativity (Bragg, Manchester, & Faulkner, 2009; Craft,

2011; Craft & Jeffrey, 2008). A focus on performativity whereby judgments and

comparisons are a measure of quality (Ball, 2003) is leading us down a path of

centralised curricula and standardised testing on concrete outcomes. A focus on

creativity requires embracing teacher and adolescent autonomy, and focusing on

encouraging creative processes in teaching and learning. Educational policy

emphasises a need to increase achievement levels and accountability, and is also

committed to developing young people’s creativity. Both are justifiable aims from

the perspective of ensuring high quality education that equips adolescents with the

necessary knowledge and skills for their lives. However, a tension arises from

balancing these agendas of performativity and creativity when translating policy into

practice. If both are necessary, then it is important to know how to support

performativity and creativity. This thesis focuses on creativity by students in

selective schools that had high expectations of academic performance through the

International Baccalaureate Diploma Program (see also Section 3.4).

Creativity empowers adolescents to learn new knowledge and discover new

possibilities and experiences, manage the challenges and complexities of everyday

life, contribute to their personal expression and self-actualisation, and enrich their

lives through making and experiencing creativity in cultural artefacts such as art,

music, theatre, film, and literature (Craft, 2005; Maslow, 1968; Richards, 2007;

Rogers, 1961; Ward, Smith, & Vaid, 1997). Moreover, adolescents who demonstrate


creativity will be coveted for their potential economic contribution and improve their

opportunities for career success. Where once tertiary qualifications almost

guaranteed employment, academic inflation has occurred due to the large number of

people who now hold degrees, meaning that qualifications are important but often

insufficient (Robinson, 2001b). To succeed, adolescents will need something extra

that differentiates them, and creativity is one such distinguishing capacity. Thus,

creativity will empower adolescents in their personal and work lives.

Discussions in the literature on the benefits of creativity for individuals,

society, and the economy have a tendency to paint creativity as inherently good;

however, it is not value-neutral (Craft, 2006; Craft et al., 2008). In our consumerist,

neophiliac society, a wealth creation rationale for creativity is sometimes at the

expense of consideration of ethical and ecological effects of creative outcomes

(Craft, 2005; Muhr, 2010). Solving the escalating personal, social, health,

environmental, and political problems facing our global society will require creative

thinkers as leaders. In a future where the fabric of society will surely be tested,

individuals and communities will depend on the intellectual skills and creativity of

our young people. Hence, within the landscape of translating creativity policy into

practice, there are arguments for developing “wise creativity” in education that is

underpinned by a moral and ethical framework (Claxton, Craft, & Gardner, 2008;

Craft, 2006; Craft et al., 2008). Sternberg’s (2003) Wisdom, Intelligence, and

Creativity Synthesised (WICS) theory recognises that although creative thinking is

not necessarily wise, to some extent wise thinking must be creative. An emphasis on

the need to use creativity wisely and responsibly will foster the development of

young people who consider how their creativity affects themselves and others, and

how it can be directed towards positively contributing to their world (Claxton et al.,

2008; Craft, 2006; Craft et al., 2008).

Creativity is recognised for its importance, and yet it still battles being

“underrecognised, underdeveloped, and underrewarded” (Richards, 2007, p. 26).

Given the increasing importance of creativity for individuals, society, and the

economy, the nature and development of adolescent creativity warrants further

research. Too often, schools suppress creativity (Dacey, 1989; Robinson, 2001a,

2001b), and often reward abilities that will not be very important for later in life

(Sternberg, 1996). A repression of creative behaviours might, in part, be due to


evidence that the traits of students favoured by teachers (e.g., sincere, reliable) are

often opposite to those displayed by more creative adolescents (e.g., non-

conforming, individualistic, disorganised) (Getzels & Jackson, 1962; Westby &

Dawson, 1995). This is unfortunate given that teaching for creativity and

encouraging creative learning can enhance not only creative ability, but also overall

academic performance when combined with instruction for other types of

intelligence such as analytical and practical abilities (Sternberg, Grigorenko, Ferrari,

& Clinkenbeard, 1999; Sternberg, Torff, & Grigorenko, 1998). Encouraging creative

thinking while learning can make learning more engaging, and can deepen students’

understandings by requiring them to go beyond memorisation or recall (Beghetto,

2010). Developing a clear understanding of what the creative experience entails for

adolescents can inform policy, practice, and teacher training about optimal

educational contexts for creativity. Thus, research is needed to close the “creativity

gap”; the disparity between creative performance being highly valued in adults’

professions but not being sufficiently fostered in adolescents (Makel, 2009).

The significance of targeting an adolescent population for this study is that

there are limited understandings of creativity in this age group (Claxton, Pannells, &

Rhoads, 2005; Oakley, 2007). This gap in research exists despite reports that

adolescence could be the critical period for development of creative capacity

(Rothenberg, 1990). There are ebbs and flows in young people’s creativity

throughout schooling. Creativity often decreases in the early years of formal

education; however, some improvements in creativity have been evidenced in

adolescence (Claxton et al., 2005; Gardner, 1982; Smith & Carlsson, 1990). During

the transitional period from childhood to adulthood, imagination and creativity is

transitioning from the childish fantasy to more mature creativity based on rational

and objective thinking (Vygotsky, 2004). This transitional adolescent period also

entails increases in domain knowledge and experience, which are important for

higher levels of creativity (Amabile, 1996; Craft, 2005; Sternberg & Lubart, 1995;

Weisberg, 1999). Given the significance of adolescence and the developmental and

experiential differences from other age groups, we cannot assume findings about

children or adults are generalisable to adolescents. Therefore, adolescents are an

important but often neglected population in creativity research and were accordingly

selected as the focus for this study.


1.4 A Creative Challenge

That creativity is elusive and difficult to explain is a widely held view: “Of all

the things that is [sic] hard to understand … creativity is certainly one of the hardest,

and most mysterious” (Baer, 2003, p. 37). However, this is not a good reason to

eschew trying. In fact, never one to shy away from a challenge, and driven by an

ardour to make sense of the world and contribute in some way, this type of

observation only served to motivate me. An unforeseen but welcome aspect of my

study was the extent to which it challenged my own creativity to research and

construct an original theory of adolescent creativity. I learned much about creativity

through my own experiences as a researcher, as well as those of my participants.

Reflexivity increased my awareness of the interplay between the data and myself,

and helped to ensure I was not forcing my ideas on the data. An advantage of this

reflexivity was that my creative experiences sensitised me to potentially important

issues (Corbin & Strauss, 2008).

My inspiration for researching creativity was the young people I have met and

taught. I have a particular affection for the imaginative and independent thinkers with

big ideas, and the non-conformists with a clever wit. Unfortunately, sometimes these

same young people are labelled by others as “disruptive”, “weird”, or “hyperactive”.

Although I might not have fully appreciated it in my early years as a teacher, these

were my most creative students. Creative thinking and creative behaviour has always

existed in the classroom, but too often it has been “hidden in plain sight” (Skiba,

Tan, Sternberg, & Grigorenko, 2010, p. 252). It is time to for creativity to step into

the light and share centre stage in education.

1.5 Overview of the Thesis

The first three chapters of this thesis set the scene for the research. This

opening chapter described the importance of creativity for the individual, education,

society, and the economy, and the need for schools to foster creativity in adolescents

now and for the future. A brief overview of the study’s research design and questions

was presented, followed by a discussion of the educational context of the study, the

significance of researching adolescent creativity, a personal reflection on the

challenge of researching creativity, and my inspiration for undertaking this study.

Chapter 2 is a review of the literature regarding key topics anticipated to be


important to the research conducted prior to data collection. This review comprises

literature relating to creativity, approaches to studying creativity, creativity in

education, and adolescence. The rationale and methodology of the constructivist-

interpretivist grounded theory study are explained in Chapter 3. The chapter will also

detail methods of participation selection, data collection, data analysis, and

evaluation of the research, as well as key ethical considerations in the study.

Chapters 4 through 7 present the study’s main findings. Chapter 4 explains the

adolescent creative process in relation to the specific sub-processes of creativity, how

adolescents manage constraints and challenges during the process, and potential

effects of creativity on adolescent creators and their audiences. Chapter 5 outlines

four different approaches adolescents use to apply the creative process described in

Chapter 4 to produce creative outcomes. These approaches are categorised as

adaptation, transfer, synthesis, and genesis. Chapter 6 analyses the influences of

adolescents’ dispositions and environments on their creativity, and how these interact

to form contexts offering varying levels of support for creative development,

thinking, and production. Chapter 7, the last of the findings chapters, uses adolescent

case examples to integrate findings from Chapters 4 to 6 and propose three types of

creativity manifested by adolescents: creative personal expression, creative boundary

pushing, and creative task achievement. The findings in these four chapters were the

basis for constructing a theory of adolescent creativity using a grounded theory

methodology.

Chapters 8 and 9 bring together findings in earlier chapters and present them in

response to the research questions and goal of theory development. Chapter 8

synthesises and abstracts the four findings chapters to: present an original Grounded

Theory of Adolescent Creativity and associated Model of Adolescent Creativity;

discuss how this theory is situated in and contributes to existing literature; and

identify a new form of adolescent creativity, educational creativity (ed-c). Chapter 9

summarises how the Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity addresses the

research questions. It also highlights the key contributions and implications of the

research, acknowledges limitations in the study, and discusses future directions for

research.


1.6 Conclusion

Creativity is important for individuals, education, society, and the economy

(Jeffrey & Craft, 2001). Therefore, it is important to promote the exploration of

possibilities and development of creative capacities. It is anticipated that

opportunities for creative experiences during the school years will enhance young

people’s learning and better prepare them for life now and in the future. This study

addresses a significant gap in existing research about a neglected population in

creativity research: adolescents. The Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity,

constructed from the perspective of creative adolescents, was the culmination of this

research.


Chapter 2 Literature Review

Use the literature, don’t let it use you.

~ Howard Becker (2007, p. 149)

2.1 Literature Reviews in Grounded Theory Research

This study adopted a grounded theory methodology (see Section 3.3). In

grounded theory research, literature reviews are a contested area. Early grounded

theorists cautioned against reviewing the literature prior to conducting a study to

prevent contaminating the data by viewing it through lenses of existing theories and

trying to “force” a fit (Glaser, 1978; Glaser & Strauss, 1967), Later it was accepted

that no researcher can enter the field tabula rasa (Charmaz, 2006; Corbin & Strauss,

2008; Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1998). However, while significant and relevant

existing theories should be given “their due” (Charmaz, 2006, p. 166), grounded

theorists echo Howard Becker’s (2007) caution about the researcher using the

literature rather than allowing the literature to use the researcher. In this study, prior

theoretical and empirical research provided a background for understanding

creativity and highlighted areas in need of research. As a point of design, researchers

have to do some analysis of existing work in order to determine whether the

phenomenon under consideration is already adequately explained. The literature also

enhanced sensitivity to significant issues, and stimulated questions for initial data

collection and analysis. These are acknowledged as useful applications of the

literature prior to data collection in grounded theory research (Charmaz, 2006;

Corbin & Strauss, 2008); it was a way to “use the literature” while preventing it from

defining or limiting the research. This study of adolescent creativity was therefore

not shaped by a particular theoretical framework. On the contrary, in grounded

theory research, the theoretical framework emerges after analysis (Charmaz, 2006).

The initial literature review identified a broad range of theories from within

and beyond educational research. The purpose of this chapter is to present a limited

selection of the literature reviewed prior to the beginning of data collection (pre-

2009) that proved most pertinent to the study, and highlight key foci that guided the


research design. According to grounded theory, a detailed initial literature review is

not necessary and the literature review continues after the study as part of the

constant comparative method (see Section 3.7.2). The literature chapter is organised

into five sections: the nature of creativity, including the scope of relevant existing

literature and areas in need of research (Section 2.2); approaches to understanding

and researching creativity, and a rationale for this study’s approach (Section 2.3);

creativity in education, including aspects of teaching, learning, and the environment

(Section 2.4); a brief focus on adolescence in relation to creativity, and giftedness

and creativity in adolescents (Section 2.5); and a conclusion that identifies significant

issues in the literature that influenced the design of this study (Section 2.6).

2.2 Creativity

This section asserts that creativity can refer to a person, a process, or a product,

and is influenced and defined by a particular environment. The goal here is to explain

the complex nature of creativity, drawing attention to key issues within creativity

research that were relevant to this research. This section begins with a presentation of

my conceptualisation of creativity that underpinned this research, in order to make

my implicit understandings explicit to the reader (Section 2.2.1). Following this is a

presentation of the literature that influenced the formation of this conceptualisation.

First, a brief overview of historical and cultural perspectives is presented to show the

evolving conceptions of creativity over time that have led to current, emerging views

(Section 2.2.2). Second, a continuum of creativity is presented to highlight the

different levels of creativity that can be achieved (Section 2.2.3). Third, a

controversy about the nature of creativity is outlined in regards to the debate about

whether creativity entails factors that are specific to a particular domain, general

factors relevant across domains and tasks, or a combination of both (Section 2.2.4).

Fourth, there is an outline of some proposed relationships between creativity and

giftedness (Section 2.2.5). Finally, creative self-efficacy, an emerging component

from social cognitive theory, is defined and the important relationships between

creative self-efficacy and creative performance are described (Section 2.2.6).


2.2.1 A Personal Conceptualisation of Creativity for this Study

The fundamental beliefs of researchers studying creativity will significantly

influence what the study can contribute to the existing body of knowledge.

Therefore, it is important for researchers to be explicit in their definition and

approach. My personal conceptualisation of creativity that underpinned this research

was developed from a review of the literature.

In this study, I defined creativity as the confluence and interaction among

person, process, and environment by which an individual or group produces an

outcome that is novel and appropriate, as defined within the relevant context.

Everyone has the potential for creativity at the intrapersonal level (an outcome

creative only to oneself), and many people demonstrate creativity at the everyday

level (an outcome creative to those in a particular social context); however, few

people achieve eminent creativity (an outcome considered creative by experts in a

domain or society as a whole). It is not expected that people are creative all the time

or in all domains. This conceptualisation is based largely on the work of three groups

of creativity researchers: Plucker, Beghetto, and Dow; Sternberg and Lubart; and

Beghetto and Kaufman.

My definition is predominately founded on that of Plucker, Beghetto, and Dow

(2004): “Creativity is the interaction among aptitude, process and environment by

which an individual or group produces a perceptible product that is both novel and

useful as defined within a social context” (p. 90, original emphasis). However, there

are four key points of difference. First, instead of proposing an interaction among

aptitude, process and environment, my definition refers to person, process, and

environment. Change of terminology from aptitude to person was made because the

term aptitude denotes ability or inclination, excluding other personal factors that can

contribute to creativity, such as background characteristics, personality, self-efficacy,

and many others. Second, another change in terminology was substituting outcome

for product to prevent possible misconceptions that creativity must result in a

concrete product, when this research also included recognition of creative outcomes

such as ideas, performances, and methods. Plucker et al. (2004) also used outcome in

other places in their defining article and recognise creative behaviours and ideas, but

chose to use the term, product, in their official definition. Third, a prevalent finding

in the literature is that a creative outcome must not only be novel, it must also be


appropriate, useful, valuable, or meaningful in some way. A case could be made for

any of these four terms to be selected for a definition of creativity. A review by

Plucker et al. (2004) converged on the term useful; whereas I chose appropriate

because it is broad, inclusive and can also imply utility, value, and meaningfulness.

Fourth, use of social context by Plucker et al. (2004) could be interpreted to mean

that an intrapersonal outcome that is novel and appropriate to an individual creator is

not considered creative, because it is not judged creative by others in a social

context. Although these authors made reference to an outcome that might be creative

only to an individual, I adopted the phrase, relevant context, to preclude this potential

misinterpretation. Despite these minor terminology differences, our definitions are

largely consistent in meaning.

The phrase, confluence and interaction, in my definition signifies that both the

union and connections of factors are important for creativity. The weighted input and

influence of personal, process, and environmental factors are not necessarily equal;

rather, it is about the best balance of these factors for an individual engaging in a

particular task within a certain environment. This view was founded on Sternberg

and Lubart’s (1991, 1995) investment theory of creativity, in which the confluence of

six “resources” (intelligence/intellectual skills, knowledge, intellectual/thinking

styles, personality, motivation, and the environmental context) are said to underpin

all creativity, and that the contribution of these various resources is unique to a

specific creator, act, or environment.

Recognition of the different forms or levels of creativity – eminent, everyday,

and intrapersonal creativity – is based on the continuum presented by Beghetto and

Kaufman (2007a, 2007b). Eminent or Big-C creativity changes a domain and is

deemed creative by larger society (Beghetto & Kaufman, 2007b). Everyday or little-c

creativity is defined as a smaller contribution that is judged as novel and meaningful

by a relevant group of people (Beghetto & Kaufman, 2007b). There is also a case for

people engaging in intrapersonal or mini-c creativity: ideas judged to be personally

meaningful and creative by the individual experiencing them, but which might not be

creative or meaningful to others (Beghetto & Kaufman, 2007b). This creativity

continuum will be explained in more detail in Section 2.2.3.


In addition to my definition, this study can be summarised as being

underpinned by the following assumptions about creativity:

everyone has the potential to be creative at differing levels, but this

potential will not necessarily result in everyone being creative beyond

intrapersonal creativity (see Section 2.2.3);

creativity can occur in any area of life, and people might be creative in one

domain or in a range of domains (see Section 2.2.4);

creativity research is most comprehensive when it includes all factors that

affect creative engagement and production, including a focus on the

creative person, process, outcomes, and environment (see Sections 2.3.5

and 2.3.6); and

creativity can be encouraged and enhanced through education (see Section

2.4).

This personal conceptualisation of creativity is in place of a traditional conceptual

framework, and aligns with a grounded theory approach. The remainder of this

section will highlight the literature that led to the development of this

conceptualisation, sensitised the researcher to issues and perspectives that are

relevant to researching creativity, and exposed gaps in existing knowledge, some of

which this study aimed to address. See Appendix A for a glossary of key terms

related to creativity.

2.2.2 Evolving Conceptions of Creativity

The concept of creativity has a long history. From its mystical origins in pre-

and early Christian times, conceptions of creativity from the 18th to the 20th centuries

in Western societies moved to an individualist perspective concentrating on genius,

heredity, intelligence, and personality (Albert & Runco, 1999). Since the second half

of the 20th century, a more social perspective has developed to recognise that creative

people and creative outcomes develop within a particular environment, and the

nature of creativity should be considered within its context (e.g., Amabile, 1983,

1996; Csikszentmihalyi, 1988, 1996; Gardner, 1993; Simonton, 2000; Sternberg &

Lubart, 1995, 1996). Western and Eastern perspectives have also traditionally

differed, acknowledging the varied priorities in different cultures. For example, many

Western (particularly English-speaking) cultures’ individualist studies of creativity


assessing observable products reflected their focus on independence, individuality,

self-expression, and personal achievement (Lubart, 1999; Niu & Sternberg, 2001). In

contrast, Eastern culture studies have previously conceptualised creativity as a

discovery process that involves fulfilment and enlightenment (Batey & Furnham,

2006; Lubart, 1999), emphasising interdependence, the collective, duty, and

cooperation (Lubart, 1999; Niu & Sternberg, 2001). However, in all cultures there is

increasing universal focus on empirical, as well as theoretical, research (Simonton,

2006). The conception of creativity emerging in the 21st century is one that includes

multiple perspectives to understand creativity and, perhaps more importantly, how it

can be enhanced to contribute to individual and societal development in different

cultures.

2.2.3 A Continuum of Creativity

Within creativity research, there has been a dichotomy between studying

eminent and non-eminent instances of creative people. This study subscribes to the

belief that everyone has the potential to be creative in different ways and at varying

levels. Creativity research focuses on one or more of the three forms or levels of

creativity: Big-C, little-c, and mini-c creativity (Beghetto & Kaufman, 2007b). The

people who define whether outcomes are novel and appropriate differ for each form

of creativity: for Big-C creativity it is likely to be society at large or experts from a

domain; for little-c creativity it will be members of a particular, relevant context; and

for mini-c the gatekeeper determining creativity is only oneself. Beghetto and

Kaufman (2007b) are not unique in their beliefs and publications about different

levels of creativity, but have united them to offer a useful comparison among the

different levels.

Big-C research that focuses on eminent, unquestionable creativity throughout

history characterises creativity as a rare phenomenon. Big-C has also been referred to

as high creativity (Craft, 2001) and Historical Creativity (H-Creativity) (Boden,

2004). Since the creativity or impact of some eminent work is often not appreciated

during the life of its creator (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996), many studies are conducted

posthumously. Choosing eminent creators to study is more straightforward, because

of their visibility and distinction. Common examples of Big-C creativity include the

work of Einstein, Picasso, Mozart, Dickinson, and Ghandi.


An alternative belief to creativity being reserved for only a select few is that

everyone has the potential for creativity, from children to adults, albeit at different

levels (Amabile, 1996; Boden, 2004; Guilford, 1950; Maslow, 1970; Sternberg &

Lubart, 1991, 1995). The creativity of everyday people is usually referred to as little-

c creativity (e.g., Beghetto & Kaufman, 2007b; Craft, 2001, 2005; Kaufman &

Sternberg, 2007). For example, an original improvisation by a local jazz band judged

creative by those in the local community could be classed as little-c creativity. Non-

eminent, little-c studies have often compared high/low creative groups within a

domain or population, or focused on work-related creativity in particular industries.

The notion of mini-c creativity encompasses individuals’ personal learning

experiences and focuses more on processes than products (Beghetto & Kaufman,

2007b). It is therefore particularly relevant to studying creativity of young people and

the school environment. An example of mini-c creativity includes connections a

student makes to develop new understandings of related scientific concepts. Mini-c is

similar to the concept of personal creativity (Runco, 2003, 2007a, 2007b) and

Psychological Creativity (P-Creativity), which refers to ideas that are original in an

individual’s mind, even if others have also thought of the ideas (Boden, 2004).

Notions similar to mini-c and little-c are also found in the work of Maslow (1970)

and Rogers (1961), who viewed creativity as essential to our everyday adaptation to

and shaping of our world, and as part of self-expression and self-actualisation.

Mini-c creativity is arguably the origin of all creative endeavours (Beghetto &

Kaufman, 2007a, 2007b). That is, there is a developmental continuum of creativity

beginning with mini-c creativity, which might develop into little-c creativity and, in

special cases, can progress to Big-C creativity (Beghetto & Kaufman, 2007a, 2007b).

The continuum of creativity and recognition of mini-c and little-c creativity is

particularly relevant to this study of high school adolescents. The continuum also

implies the developmental nature of creativity, with even eminent creators beginning

with mini-c ideas and, therefore, why it is arguably important to nurture creativity

from an early age.

The continuum of mini-c through to Big-C can also be viewed as

acknowledging the development of knowledge or expertise. That is, to be highly

creative, one requirement is substantial content knowledge relevant to the particular

topic or area. Therefore, it is highly improbable that adolescents will produce work


classed as Big-C creativity because of their limited levels of expert knowledge and

experience in the field. The view of eminent creativity is linked to the argument that

expertise is necessary for creativity (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996; Reilly, 2008). From the

perspective of everyday creativity, people with varied levels of knowledge can be

creative; however, their creative outcomes will show depth commensurate with their

knowledge and experience (Boden, 2004; Craft, 2005). Furthermore, creativity can

result through “collaborative and social shared expertise” of a group of novices,

removing the requirement for an individual expert to possess all the knowledge and

skills (Reilly, 2008, p. 73). Therefore, in a study of creativity, an important

consideration is the expertise and experience of the creative person. This research

explored the creativity of adolescents with varying experiences and levels of

knowledge in different domains.

Following this line of argument, everyone has the potential for intrapersonal

(mini-c) creativity, and many people also demonstrate everyday (little-c) creativity.

Although creativity is not exclusive to the gifted, it is not prudent to be completely

inclusive and argue that everyone is creative beyond a mini-c level (McWilliam,

2008). Overly inclusive views have led to a market overwhelmed with self-help

books and seminars that claim to be able to teach anyone to be creative in one sitting

or after a short course (McWilliam, 2008). Such activities have worthwhile aims

(McWilliam, 2008); however, they could have the detrimental effect of reinforcing a

belief that creativity is a triviality.

2.2.4 Domains of Creativity

People can be creative in numerous domains in life (Runco, 2004). This study

adopted an inclusive belief that creativity can be found in ordinary people in a range

of domains, and investigated, compared, and contrasted the beliefs and experiences

of adolescents creative in diverse domains and tasks. This was for the purpose of

contributing to an ongoing debate in creativity research concerning the domain-

generality or domain-specificity of creativity.

The domain-generality view states that creativity involves general factors, such

as motivation or certain personality traits, which can be applied to a range of tasks

(Chen, Himsel, Kasof, Greenberger, & Dmitrieva, 2006). Domain-generality views

are implied in the widespread use of psychometric data from personality scales (e.g.


Gough, 1979) and divergent thinking tests (e.g., Guilford, 1950, 1967; Torrance,

1974, 1998) (see also Section 2.3.2). In contrast, the domain-specificity view of

creativity asserts that it is domain- or task-specific knowledge and skills that

contribute most to creative achievement, and that these skills do not transfer from

one domain to another (e.g., Baer, 1991, 1998; Diakidoy & Constantinou, 2001;

Diakidoy & Spanoudis, 2002; Dow & Mayer, 2004; Feist, 2005; Han, 2003; Han &

Marvin, 2002). Evidence rejecting the domain-generality perspective in favour of

domain-specificity asserts that general problem solving and divergent thinking

training programs do not generate transferable creative capacities (e.g., Baer, 1994,

1996; Dow & Mayer, 2004), and creativity scores for individuals’ creative

performance in different domains demonstrate weak or no significant correlations

(e.g., Baer, 1991, 1993; Han & Marvin, 2002). Increasingly, there have been efforts

to reconcile these polar opposites by supporting a dual approach. That is, there are

both general and specific factors involved in creativity (e.g., Amabile, 1996; Baer &

Kaufman, 2005; Conti, Coon, & Amabile, 1996; Kaufman & Baer, 2005; Lubart &

Guignard, 2004; Milgram & Livne, 2005; Plucker, 2005; Plucker & Beghetto, 2004;

Singer, 2004; Sternberg, 2005a, 2005b).

Rather than being in opposition, domain-general and domain-specific creative

factors might be interrelated. This study was open to researching domain-general

aspects inclusive of all creativity, as well as aspects specific to particular domains.

Knowledge about adolescents’ general and/or specific creative skills can assist

educators in determining whether adolescents benefit from general or subject-

specific creativity training, or a combination of the two.

2.2.5 Creativity and Giftedness

An area of ongoing interest in relation to the nature of creativity is the

relationship between creativity and giftedness. This view is impacted by some

literature with interchangeable use of the labels, “highly creative”, “gifted”, and

“genius” (Renzulli, 2002).

Definitions and theories of giftedness highlight different relationships with

creativity. For example, Gagné’s (2009) Differentiated Model of Giftedness and

Talent and the landmark Marland (1972) report state that the creative domain is one

area in which a person can be gifted. Renzulli proposes two different relationships


between creativity and giftedness. First, like Gagné and the Marland report, he views

creativity as a type of giftedness, distinguishing between “schoolhouse” giftedness

and “creative productive” giftedness (Renzulli, 1978, 1999). However, his three-ring

conception of giftedness states that high levels of creativity are required, along with

above average ability and high levels of task motivation, for all gifted behaviour

(Renzulli, 1978, 1999). Another perspective, according to Sternberg, is that creative

intelligence is required along with analytical and practical intelligence for

“successful intelligence”, defined as:

... the ability to achieve success in life, given one's personal standards, within

one's sociocultural context. One's ability to achieve success depends on one's

capitalizing on one's strengths and correcting or compensating for one's

weaknesses through a balance of analytical, creative, and practical abilities

to adapt to, shape, and select environments. (Sternberg, 1999, p. 293)

Therefore, someone who is creatively gifted is particularly capable in regard to this

type of intelligence; however, someone might also be analytically gifted or

practically gifted, or may be gifted in their ability to apply high levels of three types

of intelligence (Sternberg & Grigorenko, 2002). These theories reveal two

perspectives about creativity in relation to giftedness: creativity is a type or domain

of giftedness, and creativity is a necessary capacity for giftedness.

There is still no consensus about the relationship between creativity and

giftedness. The adolescents in this study’s research sites demonstrated high

intellectual ability through a standardised achievement test during the schools’

selection process (see Section 3.4). However, IQ or ability test scores were not

available for use in this research, and no claims are made that all participants are

intellectually gifted. Research with high ability adolescents at the selective schools

might have increased the possibility of finding adolescents with high creative

potential. In any case, the selective schools provided a unique context for research by

investigating creativity in adolescents whose high ability had been recognised and

reinforced through selection to their schools (see Section 3.4).

2.2.6 Creative Self-Efficacy

Self-efficacy is one among many aspects of self that comprise one’s global

self-concept (Schunk, 1991). The most influential research in the study of self-

efficacy comes from Bandura’s social cognitive theory, in which he defined it as


“people’s judgments of their capabilities to organise and execute courses of action

required to attain designated types of performances” (1986, p. 391). Although the

terms are sometimes used interchangeably, unlike self-concept, self-efficacy does not

include an affective component, and therefore feelings of self-worth (favourable or

unfavourable), and one’s feelings of superiority or inferiority in relation to others, are

not relevant (Bandura, 1986, 1997; Schunk, 1991; Zimmerman, 1995). The focus is

on beliefs and confidence about what one can do in a given situation with the skills

one possesses, and not a measure of what skills one does or does not have (Bandura,

1986, 1997).

Self-efficacy is one of the central mechanisms of personal agency, and it

regulates action through its significant influence on cognition, motivation, and affect

(Bandura, 1989). According to this theory, efficacy beliefs are multidimensional and

differ in three ways (Bandura, 1986, 1997): level, generality, and strength. That is,

perceived capability depends on: the task’s level of difficulty; whether people feel

efficacious in a variety of situations or only in particular circumstances; and how

strong their beliefs are, with stronger beliefs being more established, while weaker

ones are more unstable and can be easily disconfirmed (Bandura, 1986, 1997).

In relation to creativity, Bandura (1997) recognised the importance of cognitive

self-efficacy in creative engagement. Based on his general definition of self-efficacy,

the specific construct of “creative self-efficacy” has since emerged. This more recent

construct, defined as self-judgments about one’s ability to be creative, was developed

and validated by Tierney and Farmer (2002, 2004). Creative ability alone is not

sufficient for creative performance (Beghetto, 2006; Jaussi, Randel, & Dionne,

2007). Creative self-efficacy is now recognised as instrumental in developing and

demonstrating creativity.

To date, there are few studies of creative self-efficacy, and existing research

was mostly conducted with adults in work environments (e.g., Jaussi et al., 2007;

Laws, 2002, Tierney & Farmer, 2002, 2004), or with university students (e.g., Choi,

2004; Lemons, 2005). Only two studies conducted with school-age adolescents were

found, and both employed quantitative research methods (Beghetto, 2006; Tan, Ho,

& Yong, 2007). One study focused on the development of a scale for measuring

creative self-efficacy of Singaporean high school students (Tan et al., 2007). The

second study indicated that the strongest predictor of creative self-efficacy was


students’ reception of creativity-related feedback from teachers, and creative self-

efficacy was positively associated with students holding mastery-orientation beliefs

(Beghetto, 2006). Interestingly, high levels of creative self-efficacy were also

positively associated with a performance-orientation and with feeling that teachers

have given up on them, and negatively associated with feeling that teachers listen to

them (Beghetto, 2006). Beghetto (2006) suggested that these dissatisfying

experiences (feeling unheard and given up on) can motivate adolescents, who might

use a performance-approach orientation to demonstrate their ability by outperforming

peers. Given the limited studies of school students’ creative self-efficacy, further

research is needed to explore the relationships among self-efficacy, performance, and

achievement. Creative self-efficacy is an emerging area of research, and this study

used quantitative and qualitative methods to explore adolescents’ creative self-

efficacy beliefs.

2.3 Approaches to Understanding and Researching Creativity

Perhaps due to its spiritual and mystical origins, creativity has had a history of

being considered an elusive, fuzzy, or ineffable topic, one that is not necessarily open

to scientific study (Sternberg & Lubart, 1999; Treffinger, 2003). However, although

it is complex, aspects of creativity are both observable and measurable (Treffinger,

2003). Researchers use a number of approaches to study creativity, with some of the

more common ones relevant to this research being biographical (Section 2.3.1),

psychometric (Section 2.3.2), social-personality (Section 2.3.3), cognitive (Section

2.3.4), and confluence (Section 2.3.5) approaches. After reviewing each of these, this

section will conclude by discussing the underlying aspects of research in each

approach, and a rationale for choosing a confluence approach for this study. While

acknowledging there is also a range of other approaches, only those most relevant to

the study will be discussed here.

2.3.1 Biographical Approaches

The most common way to collect rich and authentic data to study historical,

eminent figures is the biographical approach (Mayer, 1999). This includes

historiometric methods, which use quantitative data from historical documents

(Simonton, 1999), and case study methods, which are primarily qualitative

descriptions of people’s lives (Gruber & Wallace, 1999). Biographical research is


either retrospective or involves longitudinal studies. The limited number of eminent

creators and lack of representativeness of the data restricts the development of

consistent, defensible theory about creativity (Mayer, 1999). It could prove fruitful to

conduct longitudinal studies tracking the development of young people who

demonstrate non-eminent creativity from an early age, but that is a difficult, time-

consuming, and expensive type of research and was beyond the scope of this study.

2.3.2 Psychometric Approaches

The introduction of psychometric approaches to studying creativity overcame

some of the biographical approach’s weaknesses by allowing objective, easy-to-

administer measurements of creativity in everyday people (Sternberg & Lubart,

1999). Psychometric studies seek to either directly measure creativity, or to measure

correlates of individuals who demonstrate creativity (Plucker & Renzulli, 1999).

They are used to research four aspects of creativity that can be linked to Rhodes’

(1961) Four P’s: creative persons, creative processes, creative products, and

press/environmental influences (Table 2.1).

Psychometric approaches are widely used, particularly personality scales and

divergent thinking tests (see Table 2.1 for examples). However these types of scales

and tests have been criticised for: their validity (e.g., Gardner, 1993; Wallach, 1976);

a lack of predictive validity (El-Murad & West, 2004; Kogan & Pankove, 1974;

Okuda et al., 1991; Plucker & Renzulli, 1999; Sawyer, 2006; Sternberg &

Grigorenko, 2001); a narrow conceptualisation of creativity (Charles & Runco, 2001;

Nassif & Quevillon, 2008; Sawyer, 2006); focusing on domain-general creativity to

the exclusion of domain- or task-specificity (e.g., Baer, 1994); and their narrow focus

on limited areas and types of creative processes and achievements (Plucker &

Renzulli, 1999). Despite their limitations, when used in conjunction with other

approaches to creativity research they can provide useful insights. This study used

psychometric measures of creative personality (see Section 3.5.2) and creative self-

efficacy (see Section 3.5.3), and judgements by experts about adolescents’ creative

products (see Section 3.5.6). These data assisted participant selection and

interpretation of adolescents’ creativity.


Table 2.1

Psychometric Approaches to Creativity Research

Aspect of research Examples of research foci

Creative persons

Personality scales (e.g., Davis & Rimm, 1982; Costa & McCrae, 1992; Gough, 1979; Torrance & Khatena, 1970)

Self-report behavioural measures (e.g., Colangelo, Kerr, Hallowell, Huesman, & Gaeth, 1992; Hocevar, 1979; Taylor & Ellison, 1966)

Behaviour scales for parents/teachers (e.g. Renzulli, Hartman, & Callahan, 1981; Rimm, 1983; Runco, Plucker, & Lim, 2001)

Attitudes (e.g., Basadur & Finkbeiner, 1985; Basadur, Graen, & Scandura, 1986; Basadur & Hausdorf, 1996; Basadur, Pringle, & Kirkland, 2002; Basadur, Wakabayashi, & Graen, 1990; Runco & Basadur, 1993)

Implicit theories of creativity (e.g., Runco & Johnson, 1993, 2002; Sternberg, 1985; Westby & Dawson, 1995)

Creative processes

Problem-finding or problem discovery (e.g., Okuda, Runco, & Berger, 1991; Runco & Okuda, 1988; Wakefield, 1985)

Divergent thinking (e.g., Getzels & Jackson, 1962; Guilford, 1967; Torrance, 1966, 1974, 1990, 1998; Wallach & Kogan, 1965)

Evaluative thinking (e.g., Runco, 1991)

Creative products

Ratings by teachers/parents, usually aided by rating scales or evaluation forms (e.g., Reis & Renzulli, 1991)

Ratings by experts with rating categories (e.g., Csikszentmihalyi & Getzels, 1971; O’Quin, & Besemer, 1989, 2006)

Ratings by experts with little or no guidance (using implicit theories) (e.g., Amabile, 1982, 1983)

Environmental influences

Organisational climates (e.g., Siegel & Kaemmerer, 1978; Amabile, Conti, Coon, Lazenby, & Herron, 1996; Anderson & West, 1994, 1998; Ekvall, 1996; Isaksen, Lauer, & Ekvall, 1999)

2.3.3 Social-Personality Approaches

The social-personality approach focuses on variables such as personality,

motivational, and socio-cultural environmental factors that are relevant to the

creative process (Sternberg & Lubart, 1999). There are some links between

measuring creativity in social-personality and psychometric approaches, as

evidenced by psychometric measures used to assess these personal, social and


environmental variables. However, social-personality approaches utilise qualitative,

as well as quantitative, data.

To ascertain personality characteristics of creative people, the social-

personality approaches use a range of methods, including those used by other

approaches, such as self-descriptions, personality scales, and biographical

assessments. This study explored personality traits and creative self-efficacy through

quantitative psychometric scales and qualitative methods. The participants were from

schools that cater for adolescents with a strong interest and ability in the arts, or in

science, mathematics, and technology. According to Feist’s (1999) review of creative

personality studies from 1954 to 1999, people creative in the arts and science have

been shown to have some similar personality traits distinguishing them from less

creative people, such as openness to new experiences, self-confidence, self-

acceptance, drive, ambition, flexibility of thought, hostility, and impulsivity. They

also have unique traits. Creative scientists are reportedly more conscientious, while

creative artists tend to be more emotional and emotionally unstable, and less

socialised and accepting of group norms (Feist, 1999). No studies were found

comparing the creative self-efficacy of artists and scientists/mathematicians. A

strength of personality research is that creative personality traits are generally stable

from childhood through to adulthood (Feist, 1999). However, personality measures

are sometimes criticised for their subjective nature and limited evidence of validity

(Fishkin & Johnson, 1998).

Studies of supportive social environments for creativity have, until now,

focused primarily on how creativity is related to aspects of home and family life,

culture, the time/era, and availability of role models and resources (Sternberg &

Lubart, 1999). Variables in businesses and organisations that affect the creativity of

workers have also received increasing attention (Plucker & Renzulli, 1999).

However, there remains a lack of set procedures that have been comprehensively

developed and researched to measure creativity variables in school environments

(Fishkin & Johnson, 1998). Due to the absence of appropriate standardised measures,

this study used qualitative, adolescent self-report data to investigate the effects of

social and environmental conditions on adolescents’ creativity, because such data

allowed exploration of deep understandings of the research participants and contexts.


2.3.4 Cognitive Approaches

The cognitive approach to creativity focuses on the mental representations,

intellectual processes, and thinking skills involved in creative thinking (Runco,

2007a; Sternberg, 2003). These cognitive processes or skills include, but are not

limited to, intelligence, attention, memory, perception, information processing,

associative processes, analogical thinking, metaphorical thinking, problem finding,

problem solving, insight, intuition, unconscious processes, mindfulness, and over-

inclusive thinking (Runco, 2007a). Mednick’s (1962) work on the associative basis

of creativity is still widely cited to describe the cognitive process of creativity. A

cognitive approach focus that is gaining increasing popularity is creative cognition.

Based on experimental methods used in cognitive science, creative cognition aims to

identify the cognitive processes and structures involved in creativity (Finke, Ward, &

Smith, 1992; Ward et al., 1997). This study did not conduct experimental research of

cognitive processes, but asked participants to explain in their own words the

processes they used to be creative (see Section 3.6.3).

2.3.5 Confluence Approaches

Confluence approaches offer a multidimensional perspective, integrating

various approaches of studying and measuring creativity (Sternberg & Lubart, 1996).

The advantages of confluence approaches are that they provide a more

comprehensive view than uni-disciplinary approaches, and allow creativity to be

connected to multiple disciplines of research (Sternberg & Lubart, 1996). There are

three major confluence approaches that have gained widespread acceptance among

creativity researchers: the componential framework of creativity (e.g., Amabile,

1983, 1996); the systems model (e.g., Csikszentmihalyi, 1988, 1996); and the

investment theory of creativity (e.g., Sternberg & Lubart, 1991, 1995, 1996).

Amabile’s (e.g., 1983, 1996) componential framework combines cognitive and

social-psychological approaches to explain creativity. It outlines three components

that interact for creative production: (a) domain-relevant skills, (b) creativity-relevant

skills, and (c) task motivation. Csikszentmihalyi’s (e.g., 1988, 1996) systems model

also consists of three parts to explain creativity: (a) the domain (e.g., biology, dance,

literature), (b) the field, which contains the “gatekeepers” who determine whether an

idea or product is creative enough to be included in the domain; and (c) the person,


who is considered creative when s/he uses the symbols of a domain to create a new

idea that either changes that domain or establishes a new domain that is accepted by

the relevant field. Sternberg and Lubart’s (e.g., 1991, 1995, 1996) investment theory

uses an economic metaphor – buy low and sell high – to explain creativity, and

proposes that creativity is underpinned by a confluence of six resources: (a)

intelligence/intellectual skills; (b) knowledge; (c) intellectual/thinking styles; (d)

personality; (e) motivation; and (f) the environmental context.

From a measurement perspective, confluence approaches require the use of a

combination of measures, some of which might be taken from other approaches. By

conducting research from a confluence approach (although not aligning specifically

with one of the three aforementioned approaches), this study was designed to

contribute a rich explanation of the breadth of elements or conditions that are

involved in and influence creativity.

2.3.6 Conclusions about Approaches to Understandings and Studying Creativity

This section has listed five major approaches to studying creativity, including

biographical, psychometric, social-personality, cognitive, and confluence

approaches. Each of these reveals a focus on one or more of the Four P’s of

creativity: person, process, product, and/or press (Rhodes, 1961). A person focus

includes “information about personality, intellect, temperament, physique, traits,

habits, attitudes, self-concept, value systems, defence mechanisms, and behaviour”

(Rhodes, 1961, p. 307). A process focus applies to studies that explore “motivation,

learning, thinking, and communicating” (Rhodes, 1961, p. 308) involved in creative

engagement and production. A product focus emphasises the outcome of creative

engagement, which can be a tangible product (Rhodes, 1961), behaviour/s or

repertoire, or set of communicated ideas (Richards, 1999). Finally, a press focus

applies to studies exploring the relationship between creative persons, processes, and

products and various social and environmental factors (Rhodes, 1961), and what

facilitates or hinders creative engagement and production.

Two more P’s have been suggested as additions to Rhodes’ (1961) model.

Persuasion was recommended as a fifth P of creativity by Simonton (1990, 1995),

recognising that the judgment of creativity rests on creators persuading others that

they, their process, or their outcomes are creative. This fifth P also acknowledges


that creativity and the environment have a reciprocal relationship: the environment

influences creativity, and creativity can influence the sociocultural or physical

environment. Persuasion is a major focus in the investment theory’s notion of the

need for creators to “buy low” by pursuing uncommon or unpopular ideas that they

perceive have growth potential and to “sell high” when their idea becomes valued

(Sternberg & Lubart, 1995). People will often ignore or oppose these ideas, and it is

the creator’s job to persuade people of its value (Sternberg & Lubart, 1995). A sixth

P of potential was raised by Runco (2003) as of primary concern to educators who

should recognise all young people’s potential for creating meanings and

interpretations that are new to them as individuals. A focus on creative potential is

consistent with the recognition of mini-c creativity (Section 2.2.3). Confluence

approaches for understanding creativity consider many or all of these Four P’s, and

increasingly the additional two P’s, in some manner.

The challenge in studying creativity is for researchers to use a range of

methods from different research approaches to produce more complete and specific,

as opposed to speculative, findings (Mayer, 1999). Addressing this challenge will

help to strengthen the field and allow scholarly empirical testing, distancing

creativity research from its history of “mysticism and pop psychology” (Plucker et

al., 2004, p. 93). This study was underpinned by a confluence approach and

considered the roles of all six P’s (person, process, product, press, persuasion, and

potential) in adolescents’ creative experiences, but focused predominately on

Rhodes’ first Four P’s.

2.4 Creativity in Education

Creativity was once viewed as an entirely innate, and an unteachable ability

demonstrated only by geniuses (Galton, 1892). However, Guilford, in his presidential

address to the American Psychological Association in 1950, contested this perception

and raised many important questions surrounding creativity, which motivated a surge

of interest in this field of research. Particularly pertinent for this section exploring

creativity in education were Guilford’s following questions: “Why is there so little

apparent correlation between education and creative productiveness? ... How can we

discover creative promise in our children and our youth? ... How can we promote the

development of creative personalities?” (Guilford, 1950, pp. 444-445). It is now

widely affirmed that creative ability can be stimulated and taught, at least to some


extent (e.g., Amabile, 1983; Cropley, 1992; Feldhusen, 1993; Finke et al., 1992;

MacKinnon, 1962; McWilliam, 2007; Piirto, 2004; Plucker & Beghetto, 2003;

Sternberg, 2006; Treffinger, 1993; Torrance, 1972; Williams, Markle, Brigockas, &

Sternberg, 2001). However, the effectiveness of many “creative training” programs

show mixed results and limited transferability from the specific context of the

training task (Clapham, 1997; Cropley, 1997; Dow & Mayer, 2004; Huang, 2005;

Rose & Lin, 1984; Scott, Leritz, & Mumford, 2004). More rigorous, empirical

research of the effects of the school environment on creativity is required to explore

factors that positively and negatively affect creative engagement, development and

production, and how these vary depending on the type of adolescent, domain of

learning, and educational context. Such research can be used as a basis for

developing effective practices that promote adolescent creativity. This section will

describe the place of creativity in education by discussing relationships among

creativity, teaching, and learning (Section 2.4.1), environmental influences on

creativity (Section 2.4.2), and the need for further research of creativity in education

(Section 2.4.3).

2.4.1 Creativity, Teaching, and Learning

Creativity in education can be considered in relation to three interrelated

constructs: creative teaching, teaching for creativity, and creative learning. Creative

teaching refers to teachers using imaginative and innovative styles of teaching to

make learning more interesting, and valuing creativity in their own and their

students’ work (e.g., Jeffrey & Craft, 2004; National Advisory Committee on

Creative and Cultural Education [NACCCE], 1999; Woods, 1990). Teaching for

creativity involves teachers using pedagogies that foster, support, and develop young

people’s imagination and creativity (e.g., Jeffrey & Craft, 2004; NACCCE, 1999;

Woods, 1990). In addition to providing opportunities for student creativity, teaching

for creativity could also include teaching students about creativity. Creative learning

lacks a consistent definition. In this thesis, it is interpreted as adolescents having

ownership of their learning, enabling them to develop and use their imagination and

experience to learn and think in novel and appropriate ways (either to the individual

student, or to other relevant stakeholders). This interpretation aligns with other

definitions that focus on the creative process of learning (e.g., Craft, 2005; Jeffrey &

Craft, 2004; Jeffrey & Woods, 2003; Spendlove & Wyse, 2008; Woods, 1990).


Perception of these constructs as a distinct trichotomy of creative teaching, teaching

for creativity, and creative learning could undermine the goals of creativity in

education. The focus should remain on the interrelationships between teacher and

student creativity, rather than separating the three (Jeffrey & Craft, 2004; Craft,

2005).

2.4.2 Learning Environmental Influences on Creativity

The school environment is an important consideration for encouraging and

enhancing creativity. It is generally agreed that schools can positively influence

creative development when learning is more authentic, student-centred, and goes

beyond a focus on reproduction of particular knowledge or skills to students

developing their own contexts, knowledge, and strategies for engaging in creative

challenges (Beghetto & Plucker, 2006). However, a traditional, formal, teacher-

centred classroom where all learning goals are exogenously defined by mandated

policy and curricula leaves little room for creativity (Beghetto & Plucker, 2006).

This section will focus on how the following key aspects of schools can affect

creativity: the general classroom environment, teachers’ practices, and peers.

In relation to the general classroom environment, open and flexible classroom

situations that provide some choice in learning have been known for some time to be

more supportive of creative development than traditional classrooms (Giaconia &

Hedges, 1982; Haddon & Lytton, 1968, 1971; Halpin, Goldenberg, & Halpin, 1990;

Horwitz, 1979). One reason for this is that a traditional classroom is unlikely to

provide an appropriate person-environment fit given the psychological characteristics

commonly observed in creative children and adolescents (e.g., being unconventional

and individualistic). Creativity requires an environment that encourages independent,

autonomous learning (Amabile, 1996), which occurs in a challenging environment

with high expectations (Lucas, 2001, McWilliam, 2008). Some constraints and

obstacles, when provided in a nurturing environment, can also support creative

development (Sternberg & Lubart, 1995). However, a demanding environment

should not create excessive stress for students, as negative stress prevents optimal

brain function (Lucas, 2001). Moreover, creativity should be infused through all

subject areas and across the curriculum, encouraging synthesis and cross-fertilisation

of ideas (Feldhusen & Treffinger, 1980; Sternberg & Williams, 1996; Torrance,

1981).


Teachers can have one of the most significant influences on the development of

students’ creativity. In addition to outlining creativity training programs (which are

often only used as extracurricular or one-off activities), the literature contains

numerous general suggestions about how teachers can facilitate their students’

creativity across all learning. Although there is no single, unequivocal or

incontrovertible approach guaranteed to enhance creativity, some pedagogical

recommendations include:

establishing authentic, meaningful purposes and open-ended tasks for

creativity, (e.g., Cramond, 2005; Lucas, 2001; Mann, 2006; Nickerson,

1999);

stretching students’ imaginations, and encouraging curiosity and possibility

thinking (Craft, 2000, 2005, 2011; Cramond, 2005; Feldhusen &

Treffinger, 1980; Nickerson, 1999);

building relevant knowledge and skills (Boden, 2001; Cropley, 1997;

Mann, 2006; Nickerson, 1999; McWilliam, 2008);

promoting active, shared ownership of learning, experimenting, knowledge

production, and evaluation, rather than allowing students to be passive

consumers of knowledge (Craft, 2011; Feldhusen & Treffinger, 1980;

Lucas, 2001; McWilliam, 2008; Woods & Jeffrey, 1996);

teaching different strategies, techniques, and tools for stimulating creative

thinking and producing creative outcomes, such as divergent thinking,

brainstorming, problem finding, problem redefining, and problem solving

strategies (Feldhusen & Treffinger, 1980; Mann, 2006; Nickerson, 1999;

Runco & Chand, 1995; Starko, 2005; Sternberg & Williams, 1996);

teaching students about their creativity and to think metacognitively about

their creative experiences (Davis, 1991; Nickerson, 1999);

allowing sufficient time for creativity (Feldhusen & Treffinger, 1980;

Sternberg & Williams, 1996; Torrance, 1981);

modelling creativity and creative personality traits as a teacher (Chambers,

1973; Esquivel, 1995; Mann, 2006; Nickerson, 1999; Sternberg &

Williams, 1996); and

accessing other role models for students’ creativity (Sternberg & Lubart,

1995).


These suggestions for pedagogical practices to enhance creativity are based on the

work of researchers from early childhood through to tertiary education settings.

In addition to utilising specific pedagogies to enhance creativity, teachers can

create conditions that contribute to a positive affective climate for creativity, such as:

encouraging intrinsic motivation for creativity, for example by

incorporating students’ interests into their learning (Amabile, 1989, 1996;

Cramond, 2005; Lucas, 2001; Nickerson, 1999; Runco, 2003; Runco &

Chand, 1995; Starko, 2005);

encouraging students to identify their potential and pursue their passions

(Cramond, 2005; Feldhusen & Treffinger, 1980; Torrance, 1981);

creating a climate of psychological safety and mutual respect among

teachers and students, and among peers, to accept, respect and encourage

each others’ ideas (Cramond, 2005; Feldhusen & Treffinger, 1980);

welcoming original and unorthodox ideas, and encouraging imagination of

other viewpoints (Chambers, 1973; Feldhusen & Treffinger, 1980; Mann,

2006; Torrance, 1981);

promoting confidence, risk-taking and facing uncertainties, and acceptance

of failure, and being persistent in overcoming obstacles (Craft, 2011;

Cramond, 2005; Feldhusen & Treffinger, 1980; Joubert, 2001; Mann, 2006;

McWilliam, 2008; Nickerson, 1999; Sternberg & Williams, 1996); and

encouraging students to grow and be comfortable with who they are, and

nurturing their characteristics associated with creativity (Amabile, 1996;

Cramond, 2005; Torrance, 1981).

These strategies recognise that affective support, in addition to cognitive support, is

important in the fostering of student creativity.

In addition to teachers, peers are influential. They can be negative in their

influence when there is peer pressure to conform to group norms (Amabile, 1989;

Craft, 2005; Cropley, 2006; Runco, 2003; Torrance, 1968), which has been said can

begin around the time of the “fourth grade slump” (Torrance, 1968; Runco, 1999).

This pressure to conform can inhibit students’ willingness to take risks and their

confidence in openly displaying unconventional ideas and behaviours (Amabile,

1996). However, although adolescents may conform to peer pressures externally,

internally they are still forming their own ideas (Claxton et al., 2005), allowing for


the possibility that some creative ideas of adolescents are never expressed. Many of

the aforementioned pedagogies and conditions created by teachers might assist in

reducing adolescents’ feelings of needing to conform and instead celebrate

nonconformity.

Peers can also play a positive role in creativity. For example, collaborative

creativity with shared decision making encourages students to support each others’

ideas. In implementing collaborative creativity in education, it is important to

consider the social, emotional, and cognitive components that facilitate collective

success (Craft, 2008b). Collaborations not only with peers, but also with teachers,

community members, industry professionals, and other role models all have the

potential to play a role in creating a supportive environment for creativity. Another

consideration is that the permeation of online environments offers increasing

potential for creative collaboration with people anywhere in the world.

Unfortunately, the value of collaborative creativity at school can be overshadowed

by a focus on competition or individual student achievement (Craft, 2008a). There is

a large literature base on collaborative creativity, particularly within businesses but

also to some extent at the school level; however, it is beyond the scope of this review

to discuss these findings as it was not a major focus of the study.

2.4.3 Need for Further Research about Creativity in Education

The role of formal education in the creative development of adolescents is still

unclear (Beghetto & Plucker, 2006). Many eminent figures throughout history had

negative schooling experiences and were not high achievers (Simonton, 1994). A

study of more than 300 genius creators produced an inverted-U relationship between

formal education and ranked eminence, suggesting that as the level of formal

education increased, the level of eminence decreased (Simonton, 1994). However,

there were also many highly creative individuals who were well educated and

successful honour students (Simonton, 1994). It is generally concluded that the

quality of the school and the teachers, and the climate for learning, can influence

creative development in various ways (Beghetto & Plucker, 2006; Simonton, 1994).

Creative abilities can be developed, but there is no agreed formula or set of

instructions for doing so. Section 2.4 provided a snapshot of literature regarding how

creativity might be encouraged and enhanced in schools, and is by no means


exhaustive. The majority of suggestions and studies cited here are based on

theoretical research, teachers’ experiences, and researchers’ perspectives,

observations, and experiments. A particular gap in research about creativity in

education is the perspectives of young people of school age, an area to which this

study aimed to contribute. Therefore, this study was designed to uncover

adolescents’ perceptions of how their creativity was supported and enhanced, as well

as how it was inhibited or suppressed.

2.5 Adolescence

Who adolescents are or how they are perceived is dependent on the paradigm

to which one subscribes. For the purpose of this study, it was assumed the

participants aged between 14 and 17 were at some phase of adolescence. It was not

necessary for this research to align with any particular theories of adolescence (e.g.,

biological, psychological, sociological); however, this study recognises that

adolescence is defined by society as a time of transition between childhood and

adulthood. This transition does include biological, cognitive, social, and

psychological changes; however, I do not assume that these changes occur at the

same time or in the same ways for all young people. Recognising the subjective,

ambiguous lived experiences of young people, which differ for adolescents as they

move among various contexts, prevents the imposition of pre-conceived conceptions

about their identities (Patel Stevens et al., 2007).

There is still much to learn about the lived experiences of adolescents, and this

research acknowledges the right of young people to be participants, not just

consumers, in their educational lives (Fattore, Mason, & Sidoti, 2005; see also

Section 1.1). Young people are recognised as prospective adults and leaders who will

contribute to shaping our national and global futures, but they are entitled to have

their current (not just their future) experiences taken seriously (Fattore et al., 2005).

The goal of this study was to explore how adolescents currently experienced

creativity and how they were supported or inhibited. This is one aspect of their

development and education to which they could contribute unique insights.


2.5.1 Creativity in Adolescence

Sometimes referred to as creativity, the uniquely spontaneous imagination of

children has been widely studied (e.g., Moran III, Milgram, Sawyers, & Fu, 1983;

Russ, Robins, & Christiano, 1999; Saracho, 2002; Ward, 1968). Children’s

imaginative drawings, unprompted original songs, fantasy play, invented games, and

daydreaming could be regarded as examples of mini-c creativity. Although activities

of adolescence usually differ from those of childhood, adolescents participate in a

range of educational, extracurricular, and leisure activities in which they can

potentially demonstrate creativity.

Limited empirical research of adolescents’ creative experiences is available in

the literature. However, three studies pertinent to this research are discussed here.

Claxton et al.’s (2005) study of 75 students in Years 4, 6, and 9 supports the notion

that creativity develops in adolescence. They found that test scores for two creativity

components – divergent thinking and divergent feeling (non-cognitive factors of

curiosity, complexity, risk-taking, and imagination) – increased with grade level. An

earlier comparative study by Milgram, Milgram, Rosenbloom, and Rabkin (1978)

measured adolescent creativity using verbal ideational fluency scores from the

Wallach and Kogan (1965) Creativity Battery. Students in Year 12 demonstrated

higher quality abstract and complex creativity responses than adolescents in Year 6

(Milgram et al., 1978), which is consistent with older adolescents’ generally having

more advanced cognitive ability. These two studies had a narrow focus, limiting

study of creativity to aspects of divergent thinking and divergent feeling, and verbal

ideational fluency, respectively.

Spooner’s (2006) research of the creative development of young adults (aged

17-31 years) included participants’ reflections on their high school years. In the

researcher’s resulting “evolution” creative process model, high school played an

important role in the phase of adolescents discovering their creativity (Spooner,

2006). For some, it was a time when the school environment and teachers fostered

and celebrated adolescents’ creativity, provided models of how creativity could be

expressed in society, and set the stage for continuing creative development (Spooner,

2006). However, for others, it was an antagonistic experience due to the division

between academic and creative priorities (Spooner, 2006). Finding peers who

supported and motivated their creativity was valued by those participants who had


access to such social connections (Spooner, 2006). These studies highlight the

importance of adolescence as a time of creative development, a time for potentially

higher levels of creativity than are achievable in childhood, and a time where various

environments and social networks can play a significant role in creativity.

2.5.2 Creativity and Giftedness in Adolescents

Interest in the relationship between creativity and giftedness was introduced in

Section 2.2.5. This section adds to that discussion, specifically in relation to

adolescents. This literature was reviewed prior to the study based on the prediction

that the relationship between the two could be potentially important in this study,

given that the research sites were academically selective schools.

Gardner’s (2000) giftedness matrix marks adolescence as a significant time for

creativity. Older adolescents are at an age when they may have had 10 years of

experience in a domain, which is a criterion for attaining expert status (Gardner,

2000). For adolescents, knowledge and experience is attained not only from the

school curriculum, but also in extracurricular and leisure activities. A study of 130

young people identified as gifted revealed that that high levels of intelligence did not

necessarily equate to high achievement later in life, and that their adolescent creative

leisure and extracurricular activities were significantly related to their career choice

and success (Milgram & Hong, 1999). During adolescence, individuals who choose

to take considered risks, test limits, go in a different direction to their mentors, and

challenge themselves and the field, might go on to contribute creatively in their

domains (Gardner, 2000). Other gifted adolescents find this more difficult, which can

temporarily or permanently obstruct their prodigiousness or creative achievement

(Bamberger, 1982; Csikszentmihalyi, Rathunde, & Whalen, 1993).

Recent evidence supporting relationships among intelligence, giftedness, and

creativity comes from longitudinal research of 25 years that tracked intellectually

gifted adolescents (top 1%) from age 13 (Park, Lubinski, & Benbow, 2008). The

study recorded adolescents’ mathematical and verbal Scholastic Aptitude Test scores

from age 13 and their highest qualification after 25 years, and used their number of

publications in the humanities, or scientific or technological patents, as evidence of

creative accomplishment. Park et al. (2008) found that individual differences in


intellectual ability in adolescence, along with differences in qualifications

(bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree), were predictive of future creativity.

In a study of creativity with adolescents in academically selective schools, all

of whom demonstrated high ability or giftedness (see Section 3.4), it was important

to acknowledge the potential interrelationships and implications of giftedness and

creativity. Individuals who are gifted have the potential to be creative, but becoming

creative requires more than simply nurturing giftedness or teaching adolescents to

become experts in their domain (Gardner, 2000). The most intellectually gifted

adolescents will not necessarily be the most creative.

2.6 Chapter Conclusion

Creativity can no longer be thought of as exclusive to eminent figures or to

specific domains, such as the arts. Inspiring the creativity of everyday people in all

domains of life is vital. However, although the importance of creativity is

increasingly recognised, there is still much to be learned. After explaining how the

literature review was used in this grounded theory research, I presented a personal

conceptualisation of creativity that underpinned this study. This research was

informed by a vast but often conflicting or incomplete literature base on the complex

construct of creativity, different approaches to how creativity has been researched,

suggestions for enhancing creativity in education, and development of creativity

within the adolescent age group.

Significant issues identified from this literature that contributed to the design of

the study included: (a) the limited research of intrapersonal or everyday creativity in

comparison with the plethora of eminent creativity studies; (b) debates about the

domain-generality and domain-specificity of creativity; (c) a need for more research

about the important emerging construct of creative self-efficacy, and how it relates to

creative engagement and performance; (d) the importance of using a confluence

approach to comprehensively understand the creative experience; (e) a need for more

empirical studies of how education influences creativity; (f) a dearth of research

about adolescent creativity and no existing theories that adequately explain the

complete creative experience of high school age adolescents; and (g) perhaps most

importantly, a lack of studies that seek and value adolescents’ perspectives of their

own creative processes and outcomes, their creative dispositional qualities, and how


environments influence their creativity. Therefore, this study was designed to

elucidate adolescents’ experiences of creativity, from their perspectives, in order to

develop a theory of adolescent creativity.

A critical review of the literature continues after presentation of the study’s

findings (see Chapters 7 and 8), where existing research was useful for continuing

the constant comparative method of grounded theory (see Section 3.7.2). The

literature will be used to demonstrate how the resulting Grounded Theory of

Adolescent Creativity (Section 8.2) confirms findings, differs from conflicting or

incomplete theories, and extends current ideas in the field of creativity research

(Charmaz, 2006; Corbin & Strauss, 2008).


Chapter 3 Methodology and Research Design

… at my intellectual core perhaps is the sense that – however naïve you may

think this – the world of social phenomena is bafflingly complex. Complexity

has fascinated and puzzled me much of my life. How to unravel some of that

complexity, to order it, not to be dismayed or defeated by it? How not to

avoid the complexity nor distort interpretations of it by oversimplifying it out

of existence? This is of course, an old problem: Abstraction (theory)

inevitably simplifies, yet to comprehend deeply, to order, some degree of

abstraction is necessary.

~ Anselm Strauss (1993, p. 12)

3.1 Introduction

The purpose of this study was to investigate adolescent creativity in order to

construct a clear, comprehensive theory without oversimplifying the complex

phenomenon. The overarching research question guiding this study was: What are

adolescents’ experiences of creativity? In the context of this study, the term

experiences refers to the broad, multifaceted aspects of creativity, including the

creative processes adolescents use, how their creativity is manifested, and the

dispositional and environmental conditions that influence their creativity.

Recall from the literature review that Rhodes’ (1961) Four P’s – process,

person, press, and product – were identified as the four main aspects of creativity

that are researched (Section 2.3.6). As this study adopted a confluence approach to

understanding creativity, each of these Four P’s were examined. Therefore, the

guiding research sub-questions for this study were:

5. What is the adolescent creative process? (process)

6. How does disposition influence adolescent creativity? (person)

7. How does the environment influence adolescent creativity? (press)

8. How is adolescent creativity manifested? (product)


The more recent, additional P’s of potential (Runco, 2003, 2007b) and persuasion

(Simonton, 1990, 1995) were explored in relation to disposition/person and

environment/press, respectively. The culmination of this study was generating a

Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity (Section 8.2). This theorisation explains

shared and unique features of the participating adolescents’ creative experiences.

The subsequent sections of this chapter are organised as follows. First, the

constructivist-interpretivist perspective of this research is described, addressing the

epistemological and ontological foundations of the study (Section 3.2), followed by

an explanation of the grounded theory methodology adopted for this research

(Section 3.3). The research sites (Section 3.4) and methods of participant selection

(Section 3.5) are outlined next. Section 3.6 will describe the methods of data

collection that were implemented in the study, leading to an explanation in Section

3.7 of how the data were analysed using grounded theory methods. Following this is

an outline of the criteria used to judge the quality of this grounded theory research

(Section 3.8) and the ethical considerations pertinent to the study (Section 3.9).

Finally, a summary of this study’s grounded theory research process is presented

graphically and discussed (Section 3.10).

3.2 Constructivist-Interpretivist Perspective

A constructivist-interpretivist perspective guided the research design.

Constructivism and interpretivism are often used interchangeably. They are both

characterised by verstehen, the goal of understanding lived experiences from the

perspectives of those who live them (Schwandt, 1994). Consistent with this belief, a

constructivist-interpretivist perspective recognises that existing theories and personal

world views will influence and shape meanings and research (Willis, 2007), and

“realities” are socially constructed and reconstructed, and should be interpreted

within a context (Schwandt, 1994; Willis, 2007). This perspective rejects the

positivist and post-positivist premise of an external world where everything can be

viewed objectively (Schwandt, 1994; Willis, 2007).

Constructivist-interpretivist studies seek to understand a phenomenon through

explorations of the meanings participants assign to it. Adolescent creativity was the

phenomenon explored in this study; specifically, the meanings that high school

adolescents assigned to their experiences of creativity. Creativity remains an elusive


construct, with no universal agreement about an objective way to measure or study it.

This vagueness indicates a need to acknowledge the role of subjectivity. In research

about creativity, it was deemed appropriate and even advantageous to adopt a

constructivist approach that allowed and acknowledged a need to be creative in

constructing meaning. From a constructivist epistemology, knowledge is a

constructive process of understanding, which is creative when it results in novel and

appropriate interpretations (Runco, 2007b).

3.3 Grounded Theory Methodology

This study adopted a grounded theory methodology. Grounded theory refers to

the overall research approach, the methods of data collection and analysis, and the

theory that culminates from the study. As the name suggests, grounded theory was a

qualitative research approach originally designed to discover theory grounded in data

(Glaser & Strauss, 1967). It was first posited by sociologists Glaser and Strauss

(1967) in The Discovery of Grounded Theory as a rigorous qualitative method, in

reaction to the mid-1900s quantitative emphasis on deductive testing and verifying of

hypotheses. There are various grounded theory approaches now utilised, and

therefore researchers need to be explicit about which version is adopted. This study’s

methodology integrates two grounded theory approaches: the work of Corbin and

Strauss (2008), and the constructivist methods of Charmaz (2006).

Corbin and Strauss’ (2008) grounded theory approach provided the main

foundation for the research. This approach, and therefore my research method, is

founded on Strauss and Corbin’s (1990, 1998) earlier work, but Corbin has

modernised their original approach since Strauss passed away. She acknowledged

her changing epistemological beliefs, influenced by postmodernism and

constructivism, and emphasised a more flexible application of their earlier methods

(Corbin & Strauss, 2008). As a novice grounded theory researcher, flexible

application of their analysis techniques and strategies assisted exploration of data in

different ways. These methods supported the coding process, the development of

concepts, and the integration of concepts, sub-categories and categories to develop

theory. Specific details of the analysis method are explained in Section 3.7. A

glossary of grounded theory terms is presented in Appendix A.


Given the study’s constructivist-interpretivist perspective (Section 3.2),

Charmaz’s (2006) constructivist grounded theory also influenced the research. Her

approach acknowledges contemporary methodological and theoretical perspectives

about knowledge and theory development. In contrast to early versions of grounded

theory, this constructivist version is founded on the belief that a researcher

constructs, rather than discovers, theories (Charmaz, 2006). Corbin’s epistemology

discussed in her 2008 book aligns more closely with Charmaz’s constructivist

beliefs, and therefore these two grounded theory approaches are reconcilable.

Consistent with a constructivist perspective, this study viewed data as participants’

perspectives rather than “facts”, and analysis and theory development as co-

construction of the participants’ and my views and interpretations. Moreover, a

constructivist perspective acknowledges that the researcher is positioned within, not

above or outside the research process (Charmaz, 2006).

Grounded theory was selected for this study for three main reasons. First, given

the limited existing research on adolescents’ experiences of creativity, it was deemed

that there were no suitable theoretical frameworks to guide data collection and

analysis. Therefore, the main aim of the study was to develop a theoretical

framework for understanding the phenomenon of adolescent creativity. Second, in

order to build theory about adolescents’ creativity, it was essential to find a

qualitative approach that provided strategies for analysing process, structure, and

relationships among concepts to understand the complexity of the phenomenon.

Grounded theory goes beyond description of themes to develop a theoretical

explanation of the complex studied phenomenon (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). Third,

grounded theory recognises that constructing theory requires creativity, which was

considered particularly apt in a study about creativity. To develop a rich, theoretical

understanding of adolescent creativity without an existing framework, it was

important to select a research approach that recognised and embraced a researcher’s

creativity required to develop a new theory. As a grounded theory researcher, it is

necessary to be creative to advance existing assumptions, identify categories,

integrate findings, and create new understandings (Strauss & Corbin, 1998).

Grounded theorists must demonstrate flexibility, openness, and a tolerance for

ambiguity (all traits of creativity) to prevent premature closure of the research

process and reliance on existing theories that do not adequately explain a relatively


unknown construct (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). While being creative, grounded theory

is also a scientific method of research, where the combination of inductive and

deductive reasoning ensures all findings are validated by the data (Strauss & Corbin,

1998). The scientific and creative method of grounded theory was considered a

valuable approach for developing an empirical theory of adolescent creativity.

3.4 Research Sites

The specific educational context for this study was two academically selective

high schools in Australia, one specialising in the arts, and one in science,

mathematics and technology. These schools offer selected high ability students the

opportunity to pursue their interest and talent areas. Both schools offer the

International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Program in place of the regular state

government curriculum, and cater for students in Years 10 to 12. Selection

procedures for the schools include the Higher Ability Selection Test (Australian

Council for Educational Research, 2006) to identify high ability and gifted students,

and an interview with school staff. Students applying to the arts school also submit a

portfolio or perform an audition in their area of specialisation. The schools’ target

populations are students who demonstrate high academic ability, and interest and

potential in one or more of the schools’ specialist areas. Researching creativity at

schools with students who have interests and abilities in diverse domains was

designed to surmount the false dichotomy of creativity for the arts and innovation for

science/technology. Therefore, the schools offered a unique context for studying the

diverse creative experiences of high school adolescents.

Students at the two schools studied six subjects from different IB subject

groups: studies in language and literature; language acquisition (a second language);

individuals and societies; experimental sciences; mathematics and computer science;

and the arts. The IB also has three core requirements completed by all students at the

two schools, designed to “broaden the educational experience and challenge students

to apply their knowledge and understanding” (International Baccalaureate

Organisation [IBO], 2005-2011, para. 4): Theory of Knowledge (TOK), an

interdisciplinary course studying the nature of knowledge; Extended Essay (EE), an

independent research project culminating in a 4000 word original essay; and

Creativity, Action, Service (CAS), real-world learning outside the classroom through

creative pursuits, sport, and community service (IBO, 2005-2011). Participation


selection for this study included adolescents who were creative in a range of core

subjects and extracurricular activity domains (see Section 3.5.5).

3.5 Participant Selection

All Year 11 students at the two research sites were invited to respond to an

online survey designed for participant selection. This year level was selected as the

target population because the students had already experienced one year of being in

the selective school environment and, therefore, could reflect on prior experiences.

Thirty-one students at each school completed the survey (N = 62). The respondents

ranged from 14 to 17 years of age at the time of participant selection, with a mean of

15.7 years. Participant selection and triangulation involved an online questionnaire

with a student survey of their conceptions of creativity (Section 3.5.1), the Creative

Personality Scale (Section 3.5.2), the Creative Self-Efficacy Scale (Section 3.5.3),

and a form for nominating creative peers (Section 3.5.4). A survey questionnaire is

the most efficient way of collecting data from a large group of people (Robson,

2002). Additionally, school staff completed a nomination form (Section 3.5.4), and

selected participants submitted work samples that were evaluated by domain experts

(Section 3.5.6).

3.5.1 Survey of Creativity Conceptions

To ascertain a general understanding of adolescents’ conceptions of creativity,

various questions probed adolescents’ beliefs about: how they would define

creativity; characteristics of creative people; who they considered most creative and

why; the presence and importance of creativity in different domains; and personal

and environmental factors that are important for creativity (see Appendix B). An

understanding of their creativity conceptions was important due to its bearing on

interpretations of other data, such as adolescents’ nominations of creative school

peers (Section 3.5.4). It was also used to develop theoretical sensitivity and guide

question development for further data collection. The survey, intended primarily for

selecting participants, was used in a way that was consistent with the constructivist

underpinnings and grounded theory methodology of the study.


3.5.2 Creative Personality Scale

Personality traits are one of the most common themes in research about

creative people. Survey respondents in this study completed the Creative Personality

Scale (Gough, 1979), a 30-item scale that measures personality traits correlated with

higher or lower levels of creativity. It is an established sub-scale of the 300-item

Adjective Check List (Gough & Heilbrun, 1965, 1983). Respondents tick as many

items that they feel best describe them (see Appendix C). The Creative Personality

Scale was scored and reported according to the authors’ instructions. Of the 30 items,

18 are indicative of a creativity personality (e.g., clever, self-confident, insightful)

and 12 are contra-indicative (e.g., conservative, narrow interests, submissive)

(Gough, 1979). This results in a total score between +18 and -12. The higher this

score, the greater the number of personality traits commonly associated with creative

people that respondents perceive they possess.

The Creative Personality Scale was developed and cross-validated with 12

samples totalling 1701 subjects, who were either university students or working

professionals in various fields (Gough, 1979). It has been widely used in studies of

creative personality and as a measure of creative potential (e.g., Dollinger, Urban, &

James, 2004; McCrae, 1987; Meneely & Portillo, 2005; Oldham & Cummings, 1996;

Wolfradt & Pretz, 2001). The scale has also been used in a number of studies with

school-aged children and adolescents (e.g., see Cheung, Lau, Chan, & Wu, 2004; Lee

& Cho, 2007; Niu, 2007; Waller, Bouchard, Lykken, Tellegen, & Blacker, 1993;

Wolfradt, Felfe, & Köster, 2001-2002). Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient for

the Creative Personality Scale was .63 (Gough & Heilbrun, 1983), and its significant

correlation with ratings of creative performance provides evidence of validity

(Gough, 1979; Kaduson & Schaefer, 1991; Oldham & Cummings, 1996; Zhou &

Oldham, 2001). The version given to survey respondents in this study used the title

“Personality Checklist” rather than “Creative Personality Scale” (Gough, 1979). This

was designed to reduce biasing students’ answers towards selecting adjectives they

believed might or might not indicate their creativity.


3.5.3 Creative Self-Efficacy Scale

Creative self-efficacy (Section 2.2.6) is a more recent area of research, and

therefore creative self-efficacy scales have been developed and used in a limited

number of studies (see Beghetto, 2006; Choi, 2004; Jaussi et al., 2007; Tierney &

Farmer, 2002, 2004). However, measuring creative self-efficacy was considered

important for this study given emerging findings of its significant positive

relationships with creative performance (see Section 2.2.6).

The Creative Self-Efficacy Scale developed for this study (see Appendix D)

was a combination of items from Tierney and Farmer’s (2002) and Beghetto’s (2006)

creative self-efficacy measures. The Scale comprised four items:

1. I feel that I am good at generating novel ideas;

2. I have confidence in my ability to solve problems creatively;

3. I have a knack for further developing the ideas of others; and

4. I have a good imagination.

The first three items of the Creative Self-Efficacy Scale used in this study were from

Tierney and Farmer’s (2002) measure, which was based on Bandura’s efficacy

research (see Section 2.2.6). Their measure was originally developed to assess

employees’ creative self-efficacy beliefs at work. It was selected over other creative

self-efficacy measures for the following reasons: (a) it is based on Bandura’s efficacy

research and each of the three items measure three distinct efficacy belief constructs;

(b) the items were first introduced in an earlier study (Tierney, 1997), and then the

scale was formally tested and developed in Tierney and Farmer’s (2002) study,

demonstrating reliability (α = .83 and α = .87 with two different sample populations)

(Tierney & Farmer, 2002); and (c) the measure showed reliability in a number of

subsequent studies (e.g., Dewett & Gruys, 2007; DiLiello & Houghton, 2008; Jaussi

et al., 2007; Tierney & Farmer, 2004; Yang, 2005).

For this study of adolescents, a fourth item about imagination from Beghetto’s

(2006) research was added to Tierney and Farmer’s (2002) three-item scale. The

results of the four-item measure, which I have titled the Creative Self-Efficacy Scale,

will be reported for three main reasons. First, imagination was revealed as important

in the literature on creativity in education (see Section 2.4). Second, the construct of


imagination was frequently emphasised by pilot study survey respondents (N = 35)

and pilot study focus group participants (N = 3) in questions relating to their

conceptions of creativity. Third, imagination’s theoretical importance was similarly

revealed by survey respondents in the participant selection survey phase (N = 62), in

terms of adolescents’ conceptions about how creativity is defined and how

imagination contributes to an individual’s ability to be creative.

Respondents completed the four-item Creative Self-Efficacy Scale using a 7-

point Likert scale from 1 (very strongly disagree) to 7 (very strongly agree), adopted

from Tierney and Farmer’s (2002) measure. Scores of 1 (very strongly disagree) to 3

(disagree) indicated that respondents did not believe they had creative ability, a score

of 4 was neutral, and scores from 5 (agree) to 7 (very strongly agree) indicated

increasing levels of confidence in their creativity. Responses to the four Likert scale

items in the Creative Self-Efficacy Scale are reported as a mean score, as has been

done for similar measures (e.g., see Tierney & Farmer, 2004; Beghetto, 2006).

Although Likert scale scores are not continuous parametric data, it has been

considered a myth by researchers that Likert scales can only be tested using non-

parametric statistics (Carifio & Perla, 2007). Descriptive statistics of Likert scale

scores, such as means, are generally accepted (Brown, 2011). In the survey provided

to adolescents, the measure was titled “Self-Appraisal Inventory”, rather than

“Creative Self-Efficacy Scale” to reduce potential bias in respondents’ answers

towards confirming or denying their creativity. In addition to using these mean

scores for participant selection, the scores were compared with qualitative data

collected from selected participants (see Section 3.6) that described or portrayed their

creative self-efficacy in various domains, tasks, and contexts.

3.5.4 Student and Staff Nominations

Nomination forms were the method used for initial identification of creative

adolescents for the study. Creativity or divergent thinking tests, which are common

methods of identifying creative people, were considered as a possible selection

strategy. However, use of such tests to identify or measure creative abilities has been

criticised due to a number of test limitations (see Section 2.3.2). Moreover, the

research sites did not support the idea of adolescents completing any psychological

tests as a part of the research. Therefore, creativity nominations were determined to

be most appropriate for this study.


The Student Nomination Form was distributed to Year 11 students as part of

the online survey, and electronic and hard copies of the Staff Nomination Form were

given to the Year 11 students’ current Year 11 teachers, their prior Year 10 teachers,

as well as other school staff who had significant interactions with those students. The

forms asked for nominations of Year 11 students at their school who, in the view of

the respondent, were creative in one or more domains, based on the provided

definition of creativity: Creativity is the ability to produce ideas or products that are

both novel (original, unexpected) and appropriate (valuable, useful, or meets the

requirements of a task). Creativity can be found in all fields in life and is not limited

to the arts. This definition was used to generate comparable responses, and is based

on my personal conceptualisation of creativity underpinning this research (see

Section 2.2.1). Given the common conception of creativity pertaining to the arts, the

second part of this definition was designed to encourage respondents not to restrict

their nominations to students demonstrating creativity in artistic domains.

Students and staff were requested to base their nominations on having

witnessed evidence of a creative outcome. Along with the nominee’s name, the

survey respondent was required to provide a reason for nominating the student as

creative. Students were nominated in their range of school subjects and

extracurricular areas (see Appendix E1 for the arts school Student Nomination Form;

Appendix E2 for the science, mathematics, and technology school Student

Nomination Form; Appendix E3 for the arts school Staff Nomination Form; and

Appendix E4 for the science, mathematics, and technology school Staff Nomination

Form). Nominations of creative adolescents were only included if the reasons for the

nomination related to creativity (e.g., “Her ideas & works are original, fresh & reflect

the task set, however maintain her own personality” or “Has displayed natural

constructive discontent. He not only ponders over why but actively improves and

refines outcomes beyond what is expected”). Where the reasons given were vague

but could possibly indicate creativity (e.g., “Interesting ideas in class” or “He is

extremely talented”), the nomination was still included. However, if no reason was

given or the nomination had no apparent link to creativity (e.g., “She actually does

her homework”), the nomination was excluded from participant selection. All but

one of the 62 student survey respondents nominated at least one student for their

creativity. Many student respondents nominated multiple people in different


domains, and there was at least one student nomination for each subject area or

extracurricular activity listed on the nomination form. Not all school staff returned

their nomination form and, therefore, some subject areas at the two schools received

no staff nominations.

3.5.5 Theoretical Sampling: Participation Selection

From the 62 online survey respondents (31 at each school), 20 participants

were selected for the study. An equal number of participants were selected from each

school (n = 10). There was also an even division of males and females, but this

differed between the two schools. At the arts school, there was a female to male ratio

of 6:4, and the reverse at the science, mathematics, and technology school (4:6

female to male ratio). As a grounded theory study, the research used theoretical

sampling, the purpose of which was to maximise the types of data that were collected

to provide an opportunity for a range of concepts and categories, and their

relationships, patterns, and variations to emerge (Corbin & Strauss, 2008).

Theoretical sampling’s goal of maximum variation is a grounded theory procedure

that contrasts to sampling procedures that aim to identify a sample representative of a

population, as if often used in quantitative research.

In terms of domains or subjects in which students were nominated for their

creativity, there was a particular focus on selecting adolescents who demonstrated

creativity in the selective schools’ key areas. At the arts school, purposeful selection

ensured participation by creative individuals in each of the school’s creative arts IB

subjects of Film, Music, Theatre Arts, and Visual Arts. Similarly, at the science,

mathematics and technology school, participants were purposefully selected to

ensure there were adolescents nominated for their creativity in the school’s key IB

subjects, namely, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, and Design

Technology. Computer Studies was also a focus subject at the school, but only one

student was nominated for this subject and he chose not to participate in the study.

Students who demonstrated creativity in other school subjects or extracurricular

areas were also included, creating a diverse group of participants.

Descriptive statistics were used to compare the Creative Personality Scale

scores (Table 3.1) and the Creative Self-Efficacy Scale scores (Table 3.2) of the

online survey respondents. These two scales do not have qualitative interpretations


for what is considered a high, average, or low score. Therefore, for the purpose of

participant selection, quartile comparisons were made within each school. An

adolescent was considered to have a high score if they fell in the upper quartile, an

average score if they were in the middle two quartiles, and a low score if they fell in

the lower quartile.

Table 3.1

Creative Personality Scale: Descriptive Statistics

School School median

School mean

Standard deviation

Minimum individual total score

Maximum individual total score

Arts school 4 3.74 3.29 -3 10

Science, mathematics, and technology school

3 3.83 4.06 -3 11

Table 3.2

Creative Self-Efficacy Scale: Descriptive Statistics

School School median

School mean

Standard deviation

Minimum individual mean score

Maximum individual mean score

Arts school 5.5 5.54 .78 4.00 7

Science, mathematics, and technology school

5 5.18 .81 3.25 7

Theoretical sampling, with the purpose of maximum variation, guided selection

towards including an even ratio of male and female participants from the two schools

with: nominations in different domains; nominations from different sources (staff,

peer, self, a combination of nominations, no nominations); and varying creative

personality and creative self-efficacy mean scores. Primarily, selection was intended

to recruit a diverse group of the most creative adolescents for the study, targeting

adolescents with numerous nominations and upper quartile creative personality or

creative self-efficacy scores. However, a number of adolescents with middle or lower

quartile scores were also selected for variation. For example, the participant group


includes adolescents who were frequently nominated as creative but had low creative

personality or self-efficacy scores, and adolescents who received limited or no

nominations but had high creative personality and self-efficacy scores. Including

these diverse participants in the study is in line with the intention of maximum

variation in grounded theory’s theoretical sampling.

Due to the limitation of which adolescents were willing to participate in the

study, it was not possible to obtain an equal division of participants within the

aforementioned criteria. However, to remain consistent with maximum theoretical

sampling, adolescents were selected on the basis of creating the most diverse group

possible who might offer different dispositions and experiences. See Table 3.3 for

the selection criteria characteristics of the arts school participants selected for the

study and Table 3.4 for the science, mathematics, and technology school participants.

Table 3.3

Arts School Participants’ Selection Criteria Characteristics

Participant pseudonyma

Nominations Subject/domain of nominations CSES scoreb

CPS scorec Staff Peer Self

DaVinci Theatre Arts, Business & Management, TOK

5.25 6

Orange − Theatre Arts, Environmental Systems & Societies, Chinese Mandarin

7 6

Kate − Visual Art, Business and Management, CAS, overall creativity in many fields

6.5 0

Suzuki − Film, English, Business & Management

5.5 3

PatrickBateman − Visual Art, Design Technology, Mathematics, Music

5.25 5

UltraShiny − Music

5 2

CandleJack − Music, Film, TOK

4 3

PeterPan − − Theatre Arts, Film

5.5 7

Incognito − − Visual Art

6.5 10

Esmé − − − 6.5 10

Note. aFor an explanation of participants’ pseudonyms, see Section 4.1. bCSES = Creative Self-Efficacy Scale score. cCPS = Creative Personality Scale score.


Table 3.4

Science, Mathematics and Technology School Participants’ Selection Criteria Characteristics


Nominations Subject/ domain of nomination CSES scoreb

CPS scorec Staff Peer Self

OllieDenverGreen Biology, Chemistry

7 7

JeremiahGonzalez

Music, Biology, CAS 6 11

GLaDOS Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry

5.75 9

Hippopotamus Psychology, French, CAS

5.75 9

TuathaDuOrothrim Design Technology, Psychology

5 1

DayBeforeYouCame

− Music, CAS 5.75 2

Ma’at

− English, Psychology 5 6

AnOptimisticVole − Chemistry, Psychology, Spanish, English, TOK

4.5 8

GLuck

− English 6.25 6

PewPew − Physics, TOK 6 3

Note. aFor an explanation of participants’ pseudonyms, see Section 4.1. bCSES = Creative Self-Efficacy Scale score. cCPS = Creative Personality Scale score.

To provide some insight into participant selection, consider these diverse

examples. At the arts school, DaVinci was nominated by staff and peers in Theatre

Arts, as well as Business and Management. She nominated herself in these subjects,

and was also nominated by peers for Theory of Knowledge (TOK). However,

DaVinci’s creative self-efficacy and creative personality scores were average. Also at

the arts school, Esmé was not nominated by anyone, but she had high creative self-

efficacy and creative personality scores. Among all arts school survey respondents,

her creative personality score was equal highest (shared by Incognito) and her

creative self-efficacy score was the equal second highest score (shared by Kate). At

the science, mathematics and technology school, GLaDOS was nominated in

Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry by staff and/or peers, and he nominated

himself in Chemistry. In addition, he had relatively high creative self-efficacy and


creative personality scores, with his creative personality score the third equal highest

among all survey respondents at his school (shared by GLuck). In contrast, PewPew

received no staff nominations, but was nominated by his peers in Physics and he

nominated himself in TOK. His creative self-efficacy score was high, but his creative

personality score was relatively low.

In summary, theoretical sampling guided participant selection of diverse

participants. The aim of this sampling was to reveal: (a) shared experiences of

different types of creative individuals, allowing development of theoretical patterns;

and (b) unique characteristics and experiences that contribute variation to theory

building.

3.5.6 Creative Work Sample Evaluations

For triangulation purposes, the creativity of adolescents identified through

nomination forms and the creative personality and self-efficacy scales was further

verified by requesting samples of selected participants’ creative work that were

evaluated by domain experts. Each participant submitted two work samples they

considered to be creative, in any domain and task of their choice (e.g., artefacts,

digital and multimedia works, photographs, written work). For each work sample

participants provided, they were asked to complete a description form (see Appendix

F) to provide some context and background to assist the judges of the work samples.

Judges assessing the products were experts in the relevant domains –

professionals in industry and/or academia – who assessed the work samples using a

provided evaluation form (see Appendix G). The evaluation form was designed to be

domain-general, so that it could be used with any piece of creative work submitted

by participants. Some judges assessed one piece of work. Many judges, in domains

where multiple works were submitted from various adolescents, evaluated numerous

pieces of work.


The evaluation form contained three sections, asking judges to rate the

adolescent’s product on a four-point scale on three dimensions:

Creativity (High level of creativity, Moderate level of creativity, Low level

of creativity, or No creativity);

Knowledge (High level of knowledge, Moderate level of knowledge, Low

level of knowledge, or No knowledge); and

Technical Skill (High level of skill, Moderate level of skill, Low level of

skill, or No skill).

Judges also provided brief reasons for their rating in each of the three dimensions.

They were asked to compare the work to what could be expected from a typical high

school adolescent of that age, and therefore a criterion for selecting judges was their

knowledge of high school level work.

The work sample evaluation design was guided by Amabile’s (1982, 1996)

Consensual Assessment Technique. This technique is founded on two principles.

First, reliable judgments of creative products are possible when choosing appropriate

judges (Amabile, 1982). This is because although people might not be able to

articulate it, they recognise creative products when they see them, and can agree on

their perceptions (Amabile, 1982). Second, creativity can be conceptualised as a

continuous dimension, with some creative products more creative than others, and

there is an acceptable level of agreement by people about which products are more or

less creative than others (Amabile, 1982). These principles underscoring the

subjective nature of creativity assessment overcome the difficulty of identifying

objective criteria for creativity (Amabile, 1982).

Aspects of Amabile’s (1982) technique that were applied to this study include

the following:

relying on the expert judges’ personal, subjective definitions of creativity to

complete the assessments, rather than providing external criteria or

definitions;

asking judges to make assessments on other dimensions, in addition to

creativity, which in this case included knowledge and technical skill, both

of which are defined as necessary for creativity according to Amabile’s

(1983, 1996) componential framework of creativity;


selecting judges with sufficient expertise in the domain, so they had

developed some implicit criteria for assessing the dimensions of creativity,

knowledge and skill; and

providing a rating scale for judges to evaluate the creativity, knowledge,

and technical skill of products (with the four aforementioned reference

points of high, moderate, low, no).

In addition, judges provided comments on each of the dimensions, which gave

insight into the judges’ implicit theories. This allowed qualitative assessment of the

reliability of the judges’ evaluations. Judges’ assessments were one among a variety

of sources providing verification of, and data about, participants’ creativity.

Within the scope of this study, it was not possible for all participants to

complete an identical task in their respective, diverse domains of creativity, so that

judges could rate similar products relative to one another. The original goal of

recruiting more than one volunteer judge for each piece of work was also not

achieved. Therefore, the “consensual” criterion of the technique was not met, which

would have enabled quantitative analysis of inter-judge reliability. These and other

limitations relating to participant selection will be discussed in Section 9.6. Details of

the creative work sample evaluations are provided in Table 3.5 for the arts school

and Table 3.6 for the science, mathematics, and technology school. The effectiveness

and representativeness of this participant selection method was limited by the

products received from the adolescents. For example, participants did not necessarily

choose to provide work from the domains in which they were nominated as creative,

or creative work they had described during the study (despite my suggestions when

asked by participants what to submit). At the science, mathematics, and technology

school, there were only five student work samples in the school’s target areas; many

of these adolescents wanted to provide artistic examples, even when this was not

their forte, instead of work in their described areas of strength. At the arts school,

some adolescents in performance-based domains were disadvantaged, such as

adolescents in Theatre Arts who could not provide video recordings of creative

theatrical performances. Due to these various limitations of the work sample

evaluations, adolescents’ creative capacity should not be interpreted solely from

judges’ ratings.


Table 3.5

Arts School: Participant Work Sample Creativity Ratings


Work sample 1 Work sample 2

Domain Creativity rating


CandleJack Music High Film Moderate

DaVinci Business Moderate Theatre Moderate

Esmé Visual art High Visual art Moderate

Incognito Multimedia/digital art High Visual art High

Kate Multimedia/digital art High Multimedia/digital art Moderate

Orange Theory of Knowledge Moderate Visual art Moderate

PatrickBateman Multimedia/digital art Moderate Multimedia/digital art Moderate

PeterPan Film High Film Moderate

Suzuki Visual art High Film Moderate

UltraShiny Music High Music Moderate

Note. aFor an explanation of participants’ pseudonyms, see Section 4.1.

Table 3.6

Science, Mathematics, and Technology School: Participant Work Sample Creativity Ratings


Work sample 1 Work sample 2



AnOptimisticVole English Moderate Physics Low

DayBeforeYouCame Music High Music Moderate

GLaDOS Mathematics Moderate English Moderate

GLuck English High English Low

Hippopotamus Visual art Moderate Interior design Moderate

JeremiahGonzalez Music High Chemistry Low

Ma’at Dance Moderate Visual art Low

OllieDenverGreen English High Film Low

PewPew Visual art Moderate Cooking Low

TuathaDuOrothrim Robotics High Design Technology Moderate

Note. aFor an explanation of participants’ pseudonyms, see Section 4.1.


3.6 Data Collection

Multiple methods of qualitative data collection were used in this grounded

theory study. Data were collected over a period of 20 months. The sequence of

participant selection (Section 3.5) to data collection is presented in Figure 3.1. First

this section will outline grounded theory’s theoretical sampling approach of

concurrent data collection and analysis (Section 3.6.1). This is followed by an

explanation of the data collection methods for this study: preliminary focus groups

(Sections 3.6.2); individual interviews (Section 3.6.3); an online discussion forum

(Section 3.6.4); concluding focus groups (Section 3.6.5); and email communications

(Section 3.6.6). This section focuses on data collection methods that were able to be

implemented in the study; reasons for not utilising other possible methods are

discussed in limitations section (Section 9.6).

Figure 3.1. Data collection sequence.

The methods of data collection selected for this study emphasise the

importance of giving adolescents a voice to share their experiences and perspectives

with a wider audience. Studies of young people’s creativity typically use

standardised measures or tests and the interpretations of adults, without seeking the

perspectives of the young people themselves. Although self-report methods of data

collection are subject to participant biases, accuracy of memory recall, and ability to

articulate their experiences and ideas (Tourangeau, 2000; Yin, 2003), using multiple

methods of data collection assisted corroboration of findings and contributed to

achieving rigour and saturation.


3.6.1 Theoretical Sampling: Guiding Data Collection and Analysis

Concurrent data collection and analysis in grounded theory’s theoretical

sampling enables each step of data collection and analysis to inform subsequent data

collection, in order to explore emerging concepts and questions required for theory

development (Charmaz, 2006; Corbin & Strauss, 2008; Strauss & Corbin, 1990,

1998). In theoretical sampling it is the concepts that are sampled, rather than people;

people provide data for developing those concepts (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). Since

the focus is on conceptual and theoretical development, theoretical sampling differs

from quantitative research sampling that seeks a representative sample for statistical

generalisation (Charmaz, 2006).

Grounded theory researchers cannot predict what questions or issues will be

important because analysis, rather than a theoretical framework, is guiding data

collection: “the researcher follows the analytic trail” (Corbin & Strauss, 2008, p.

146). Data collection is followed immediately by data analysis, early data analyses

reveal emerging concepts, these concepts generate questions, and these questions

drive further data collection (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). In some grounded theory

studies, new participants are enlisted for further data collection. In other cases, the

same participants are involved in additional data collection, which was the method

used in this study. This means that it was not important to ask the same questions of

all participants. The interview guide questions changed and became more specific as

the study progressed, based on questions and insights arising from ongoing analysis.

After developing initial categories, theoretical sampling entails “developing,

densifying, and saturating” categories and their relationships (Strauss & Corbin,

1998, p. 203). The theoretical sampling data collection and analysis cycle continues

until the point of “saturation”, which is when the concepts and categories are well-

defined and can be integrated into a theory (Charmaz, 2006; Corbin & Strauss, 2008;

Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1998). Researchers will never achieve complete saturation

and development as there will always be new data and new possibilities; however,

their role is to determine when sufficient sampling has been achieved, within study

limits such as time or money (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). Theoretical sampling and

saturation should not be confused with collecting data until seeing repetition of

patterns or themes (Charmaz, 2006). The purpose of theoretical sampling is using


ongoing analyses to guide explicit data gathering for comprehensive theoretical

development (Charmaz, 2006).

3.6.2 Preliminary Focus Groups

As the name suggests, focus groups involve a group of individuals with a

shared interest who focus on a limited number of issues for discussion (Stewart,

Shamdasani, & Rook, 2007). Focus groups are effective and efficient in generating

deep, insightful discussions (Anderson, 1998). With young people, focus groups with

peers help to create a more natural context for discussion by emphasising the natural

social learning in groups, and minimising the power differential by having

adolescents outnumber the single adult researcher (Eder & Fingerson, 2003).

Two preliminary focus groups were conducted at each school (all 10

participants joined one preliminary focus group) (see also Section 4.1). Following

suggestions for typical focus groups (Stewart et al., 2007), each discussion lasted for

approximately 1.5 to 2.5 hours. The focus groups were video- and audio-recorded for

transcription and analysis purposes. Open-ended questions probed participants’

conceptions about creativity. Consistent with grounded theory theoretical sampling,

each focus group revealed new issues to be discussed, which added questions to

earlier interview schedules to be followed up in subsequent focus groups and other

methods of data collection (see Appendix H for the final version of the focus group

interview schedule). Students responded verbally as well as visually using concept

maps. A semi-structured approach enabled coverage of specific issues that arose

from the initial literature review and the online survey of adolescents’ creativity

conceptions (see Section 3.5.1), while following the lead of participants’ emerging

views that would have otherwise remained unknown (Stewart et al., 2007).

The preliminary focus groups had an exploratory aim – to explore adolescents’

conceptions about creativity – as well as an aim of constructing some joint

understandings about creativity. Students were asked to share their personal

conceptions of creativity, and to comment on others’ ideas. At the conclusion of the

focus group, participants wrote individual definitions of creativity, read these to the

group, and then looked for commonalities in their opinions to jointly construct an

understanding of creativity that formed the foundation for discussing creativity

throughout the rest of the study. The participants, who all knew each other well and


were in many cases friends, appeared willing to discuss, debate and disagree with

each other, and participants were encouraged to share and explain reasons for their

differences in opinions. There was one exception at the arts school during the

preliminary focus groups: a student who argued that all creation was creative, with

which her peers disagreed. However, while exploring her own experiences of

creativity over the course of the study, her views appeared to change to align more

closely with those of her peers. Although there is no guarantee that peer pressure or a

desire to conform affected participants’ responses, writing individual definitions and

moderating the group in a way that ensured all views were heard enhanced the

likelihood of developing a shared understanding.

Although focus groups are not usually designed to reach consensus (Hennink,

2007), in this study it was necessary to explore the adolescents’ diverse opinions and

then gain some consensus. A focus group offered an efficient means of developing a

prototype of the adolescents’ conceptions of creativity. In this context, a prototype is

a central tendency of all the “typical members” (Rosch, 1973, p. 113) or exemplars

of a category (Sternberg & Horvath, 1995). Although participants within and across

focus groups did not agree about all aspects of the nature of creativity, there were

prototypical elements characteristic of everyone’s conceptions (e.g., newness,

difference, application of imagination, possible in many tasks and domains). Those

characteristics provided a common understanding of creativity that underscored the

remainder of the research. In order to compare data, it was essential that participants

discussed experiences related to at least a basic shared understanding of what was

meant by the term, “creativity”. This shared understanding of creativity enabled

construction of a Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity that reflected all

participants’ experiences.

There were a range of advantages in using focus groups in this study. By

bringing together school peers, the group encouraged replication of adolescents’

natural social interactions, resulting in a comfortable situation for discussion, and it

allowed participants to draw on shared knowledge and experiences (Hennink, 2007).

As a result of decreased researcher influence (in comparison with individual

interviews), participants identified issues that led to issues and insights I had not

anticipated.


3.6.3 Individual Interviews

Individual interviews can be one of the richest sources of qualitative data

(Anderson, 1998). The purpose of in-depth interviews is to glean deep

understandings about individuals’ experiences and the meanings they assign to those

experiences (Seidman, 2006). Multiple interviews in grounded theory encourage

ongoing data analysis to guide data collection, allow researchers to follow up on

leads from earlier interviews, and enable the collection of fuller, more complex data

(Charmaz, 2003).

One face-to-face, semi-structured individual interview was conducted with

each of the participants at their schools. Individual interviews ranged from 40-120

minutes in length, with an average time of 60-90 minutes. Individual interviews were

audio-recorded for the purpose of transcriptions for data analysis, and field notes

were kept to record contextual factors and non-verbal communication.

Charmaz (2006) referred to interviewing in grounded theory as “intensive

interviewing” that enables the researcher to explore participants’ interpretations of

their experiences. The focus of the individual interviews in this study was discussing

the adolescents’ personal experiences of creativity. This included a comprehensive

focus on the Four P’s of creativity (see Section 2.3.6), including: exploring creative

outcomes (products) participants had developed; delineating their creative processes

in a range of tasks; trying to gain insight into each of the adolescents as a creative

person, and their perceptions of the effects of dispositional conditions on their

creativity; and their evaluation of how environmental (press) factors influenced their

creativity.

The same core, open questions were asked of all participants (e.g., “How

would you describe yourself?” and “Tell me about something creative you’ve

done.”); however, the wording and sequence of questions was flexible and new

questions were added as the study progressed (see Appendix I for the final version of

the interview guide). Questions aimed to delve beneath the surface of participants’

explanations, asking for clarification and more detail. To elicit the required

information, it was insufficient to just acknowledge or agree with interviewees’

responses (Charmaz, 2006). As interviewer, my goal was to help participants

articulate their views and experiences, and the meanings they associated with them

(Charmaz, 2006). Asking open, non-judgmental questions as a genuinely interested


researcher played a useful role in achieving this goal and revealing unanticipated

paths of exploration (Charmaz, 2006). Many adolescents in this study were

enthusiastic storytellers about themselves and their experiences, and the openness of

the interview approach allowed the adolescents to share responsibility for guiding

discussion about issues of importance to them.

Advantages of the individual interviews were that they: gave participants a

chance to share their personal experiences in a confidential and non-judgmental

setting; valued the experiences, beliefs, and opinions of participants; and did not rely

on adult interpretations of the adolescents’ lives through methods such as

observations (Eder & Fingerson, 2003). Interviews such as these can also help

participants to gain new understandings of themselves, their actions, their situations,

and how events have shaped them (Charmaz, 2003), a benefit reported by many of

the adolescents in the study (see Sections 6.6.3 and 9.8). The individual interviews

with participants provided the main opportunity for gathering rich data about their

individual experiences of creativity.

3.6.4 Discussion Forum

Given the popularity of the Internet and adolescents’ general enthusiasm for

using multimedia and computers to communicate (Livingstone & Bober, 2004),

online communication was selected alongside face-to-face contact as a source of data

for this study. There are various modes of asynchronous online communication

mediums for groups, such as discussion forums, weblogs, and email lists, offering a

range of advantages for research. This study used a discussion forum.

Due to my moderation of discussion about specific topics, the discussion forum

could be considered a type of online focus group (Stewart & Williams, 2005). Unlike

face-to-face focus groups, the group can be larger without interfering with an

individual’s ability to contribute (Bloor, Frankland, Thomas, & Robson, 2001).

Removing this constraint enabled participants from both schools to interact in one

online space, an opportunity about which they demonstrated much enthusiasm.

However, not all participants were able to contribute to the forum (see also Section

4.1). For those who did participate, the discussion forum created a space for

interesting discussions comparing and contrasting the beliefs and experiences of

adolescents who were creative in diverse domains.


Students replied to researcher- and participant-initiated topics and open-ended

questions related to creativity. Example forum questions included: “How can we

encourage or improve creativity?”; “What do you do when you get stuck for ideas?”;

and “Do you need to take risks to be creative?”. Interactions in the discussion forum

encouraged a collaborative, knowledge-building experience for the adolescents,

consistent with the social constructivist view (Bruns & Humphreys, 2005; Grant,

2006). The discussion forum was an important component of theoretical sampling. It

provided an opportunity to raise specific questions and issues for the purpose of

further developing and saturating concepts and categories that emerged from prior

data collection and analysis. It was also a method of member checking, whereby

participants were asked to confirm emerging findings (Charmaz, 2006).

Asynchronous online research methods, such as discussion forums, can

produce data that is rich and detailed (Bloor et al., 2001; Kenny, 2005). They can

also enable reflective discussions where the fastest thinkers or communicators do not

dominate the group (Anderson & Kanuka, 2003). Discussion forums potentially

foster a more egalitarian format, through which all users can have equal roles and

participation (Straus, 1996). The potential for greater reflectivity and reflexivity of

asynchronous online research methods (Hewson & Laurent, 2008) was particularly

advantageous in a study about creativity, a topic about which participants had not

had many previous opportunities to reflect.

To ensure ethical conduct and confidentiality, the discussion forum was a

secure website hosted on my university’s server. It was password-protected and

accessible only to the researcher and the participants. All participating adolescents

were familiar with using discussion forums. There were no concerns about

differential access for the various participants (Bolger, Davis, & Rafaeli, 2003)

because adolescents at the research sites were provided with a laptop by their

schools, and online communication tools were an integrated part of adolescents’

school and social lives. The discussion forum was thus an ethical, equitable, and

secure method of data collection.

Advantages of online research through the discussion forum included:

convenient, twenty-four hour access for participants and me; an automatic log of

discussion, eliminating the need for transcription; and the ease with which

participants could review and edit their responses (Bolger et al., 2003; Christians &


Chen, 2004). It was also designed to empower participants by allowing them to

engage in research at a time and place that was convenient for them (Bowker and

Tuffin, 2004).

3.6.5 Concluding Focus Groups

In addition to the exploratory purpose of many focus groups (see Section

3.6.2), another common application of this data collection method is evaluation.

Evaluative focus groups can be useful for asking participants to evaluate results of a

study, or for asking a relevant group of people to verify hypotheses developed by a

researcher (Stewart et al., 2007).

The concluding focus groups in this study were for the purpose of member

checking and debriefing. These group discussions were based on the constructivist-

interpretivist underpinnings of the study, and involved sharing analyses with

participants and seeking their feedback. The focus groups emphasised participants’

roles as contributing to a joint construction of meaning about their experiences of

creativity. These interactions acknowledged the constructivist grounded theory

assumption that “data and analyses are social constructions” that include both the

participants’ and researcher’s interpretations of their experiences (Charmaz, 2006, p.

131).

Although initial presentation of findings and member checking was conducted

through the discussion forum, this was of discrete concepts and categories, and did

not include how the categories were linking to form a theory. Therefore, an

additional type of member checking conducted in the concluding focus groups

involved sharing the developing theory (Goulding, 1998). I explained the emerging

major categories and relationships of findings to the adolescents, and asked them to

reflect on how well the categories matched their individual experiences (Charmaz,

2006). Gaining confirmation about the accuracy of findings can provide justification

for dissemination, which can then be tested in further research (Stewart et al., 2007).

Finally, these focus groups also provided participants with a concrete

conclusion to the study by witnessing the results of their significant contributions.

The opportunity for debriefing enabled the adolescents to share their opinions and

feelings about being involved in the research, and brought closure to the experience.


Not all adolescents were available to participate in the concluding focus groups (see

Section 4.1); those participants were sent a follow-up email.

3.6.6 Email Communications

As an asynchronous online research method, email offers many of the

advantages discussed in relation to discussion forums (see Section 3.6.4). For

adolescents, technological tools such as email, instant messaging programs, social

networking sites, and text messaging, are increasing in popularity and are integrated

with offline, face-to-face interactions as natural forms of social communication

(Mesch, 2009; Subrahmanyam & Greenfield, 2008). Using email as a method of

research capitalises on one of the everyday sources of expression and communication

used by young people. Furthermore, email offers an online but private method of

discussion, in this case between just the participant and me, precluding the ethical or

safety concerns found in research using more public forms of online social

communication, such as social networking sites and chat rooms (e.g., Stewart &

Williams, 2005).

Primarily, participants used email to: (a) provide additional reflections after

face-to-face contact; (b) answer follow-up questions to clarify and extend my

interpretations of data; (c) respond to topics raised in the discussion forum (in place

of, or in addition to, using the discussion forum); and (d) share their news,

particularly when it related to the study (e.g., telling me about an upcoming art

exhibition in which their work was featured).

Emails became more frequent, personalised, and detailed as the study

progressed and a trusting and friendly relationship had developed. The concluding

focus groups were the intended conclusion to the study. However, a number of

participants maintained email contact with me in order to share their news about

graduation, holidays, and plans for after high school, and to enquire about my

research progress, conference presentations, and where they could read my published

findings.


3.6.7 Summary of Data Collection

This study of creative adolescents used multiple data collection sources. The

sequence of data collection was presented in Figure 3.1. Preliminary focus groups

explored adolescents’ conceptions of creativity, and enabled the development of a

common understanding about creativity that was used for the remainder of the

research. Individual interviews and a discussion forum allowed adolescents to share

their personal experiences of being creative, and the discussion forum was the initial

method of member checking. Concluding focus groups enabled additional member

checking, further discussion contributing to a joint construction of the adolescent

experience of creativity, and debriefing. Moreover, email communications were an

additional source of data collection and enabled debriefing with adolescents unable

to participate in the concluding focus groups. The grounded theory methods used to

analyse data will be presented in the following section (Section 3.7).

The combination of face-to-face and online research methods was

complementary, and the sustained engagement over 20 months appeared to increase

participants’ trust in me and their willingness, and indeed enthusiasm, for sharing

candid details about themselves and their experiences. Children and adolescents

value face-to-face conversations (as were offered in the focus groups and individual

interviews), but some young people feel more confident discussing issues through

online communication tools (Livingstone & Bober, 2004). Therefore, providing

alternative avenues of interaction catered for participants’ varying communication

preferences. These multiple methods of data collection were used in a way that

elicited deeper insights, rather than simply duplicating earlier findings. This

approach recognises that a comprehensive understanding of young people’s

experiences might not be achieved with a single method (Darbyshire, MacDougall, &

Schiller, 2005).

3.7 Data Analysis

Data were analysed using grounded theory methods. The goal of grounded

theory research is to develop a substantive theory, which is a theory anchored to a

particular context in which the data were collected (Charmaz, 2006; Corbin &

Strauss, 2008). This differs from a formal theory that builds a theoretical

understanding of a general phenomenon applicable across several areas of


substantive theory (Charmaz, 2006; Corbin & Strauss, 2008; Strauss & Corbin, 1990,

1998). A substantive theory should illuminate new understandings about a

phenomenon studied and remain faithful to the data (Strauss & Corbin, 1998).

Theory construction is an open-ended, emergent process that relies on an ongoing

interaction between the researcher and the data (Charmaz, 2006). The culminating

theory is created by taking analysis to a high level of abstraction, which goes beyond

rich description (Corbin & Strauss, 2008).

The term, grounded, indicates the inductive component of grounded theory

research. The method involves inductively deriving findings from data rather than

using an existing theory for coding or framing findings. However, the method is also

deductive in that the concepts and categories are the researcher’s interpretation

(Corbin & Strauss, 2008). There is a constant interplay of induction and deduction;

an interplay between the data and the researcher (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). The

combination of inductive and deductive reasoning is referred to by Charmaz (2006)

as abduction, a type of reasoning originally described by Charles Sanders Peirce.

Abduction involves “considering all possible theoretical explanations for the data,

forming hypotheses for each possible explanation, checking them empirically by

examining data, and pursuing the most plausible explanation” (Charmaz, 2006, pp.

103-104). Charmaz (2006) acknowledged that abductive reasoning was also

emphasised in the work of Strauss and his colleagues (including Corbin). Data

analysis began immediately after the first piece of data collection. The grounded

theory process of concurrent data collection and analysis progresses from description

to abstraction.

This section will explain the three fundamentals of grounded theory analysis

applied to this study: types of coding (Section 3.7.1); the constant comparative

method (Section 3.7.2); and memos and diagrams (Section 3.7.3). The specific data

analysis methods come primarily from the publications of Strauss and Corbin

(Corbin & Strauss, 2008; Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1998), but are also influenced by

Charmaz’s (2006) approach. NVivo 8 computer software (2009) was used as a tool

for recording and organising analyses.


3.7.1 Coding

In grounded theory, coding refers to categorising and naming segments of data

in order to interpret them and develop theory (Charmaz, 2006; Corbin & Strauss,

2008; Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1998). Codes are developed from the data, rather than

being taken from an existing theoretical framework. Three types of coding – open,

axial, and selective coding (Corbin & Strauss, 2008; Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1998) –

provided the foundation for analysis in this study, with influences from Charmaz

(2006).

Data were initially coded inductively, not deductively from constructs in the

literature identified in Chapter 2. Analysis began with open coding and axial coding

(Corbin & Strauss, 2008; Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1998). Open coding involved

breaking the data down into discrete parts (through line-by-line, sentence-by-

sentence, and incident-by-incident coding), examining the parts, developing data into

concepts, grouping them into sub-categories, integrating them into more abstract

categories, and identifying their properties and dimensions. Conducted together with

open coding was axial coding, where sub-categories and categories were linked to

each other and organised to show relationships. These two types of coding were not

separate or sequential; I moved between the two and integrated them.

The third type of coding is selective coding (Corbin & Strauss, 2008; Strauss &

Corbin, 1990, 1998). This phase of analysis involved integrating and refining

categories to develop a theory. While induction was the emphasis in open and axial

coding, selective coding required abstraction. The focus shifted from the specific

data, participants, or concepts to theoretical categories and relationships that

represented and explained these data. From these categories, a core category

emerged. The core category explained and linked all other categories, and was

designed to explain what the research was all about, from a theoretical perspective.

Two analytic strategies assisted analysis: the Paradigm and the Matrix (Corbin

& Strauss, 2008; Strauss and Corbin 1990, 1998). The Paradigm provided a lens for

analysis in which data were examined for process and context, including: conditions

(circumstances that led to or influenced creativity); actions/interactions/emotions

(people’s actions and responses in the creative process); and consequences

(outcomes of the creative process). The Matrix helped to integrate the complex

relationships among process and context, and focused analysis on both the macro and


micro conditions. These strategies were applied flexibly, rather than being viewed as

a step-by-step procedure of analysis:

You don’t have to think about it in a box-like fashion, “Oh, I’m going to

look for conditions. Now I’m going to look for process. Now I’m going to

look for outcomes.” But to me you start with, “What is the main thing here?”

And I’d want to identify what creativity is and how it manifests itself … but

I also need to know what are some of the conditions that foster it …

(J. Corbin, personal communication, November 2, 2009)

Analytic strategies such as the Paradigm and Matrix were useful tools for seeing

what was happening in the data. It took analysis beyond description of discrete

concepts to integrated categories.

Charmaz’s (2006) coding process differs slightly, and does not involve axial

coding using the Paradigm or Matrix. Charmaz (2006) acknowledged that Strauss

and Corbin’s (1990, 1998) analysis methods may assist researchers, but was

concerned that their detailed procedures may limit some researchers’ vision and what

meanings are constructed. In the 2008 edition of her book, Corbin integrated the

sections on the three types of coding, and demonstrated how to integrate the

Paradigm and Matrix into analysis. Deemphasising separation of the three types of

coding was based on a concern similar to Charmaz about coding and procedures

being interpreted as strict, rigidified methods that limit how analysis should be done:

Students tend to use them [types of coding] too rigidly. They come and say,

“My axial coding. I’ve got to do my axial coding”. … I could see how, as a

novice, people want to hold on to things because it makes it easier for them,

but there really is nothing to hold onto. It’s nebulous. … They do it in a

mechanical way. And you can’t use the mechanical way to do it. … I think

that one [the 2008 Corbin and Strauss book] shows what we do and how

open it really is.”

(J. Corbin, personal communication, November 2, 2009)

Charmaz (2006) and Corbin (Corbin & Strauss, 2008) reject grounded theory

methods being applied in a strict prescriptive manner; the method offers a set of

principles and techniques that researchers should apply in the way that is appropriate

to their research. The flexibility of the grounded theory method is one of its greatest

strengths (Charmaz, 2006).


Despite using the different terminology and tools for coding, Corbin and

Strauss (Corbin & Strauss, 2008; Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1998) and Charmaz’s

(2006) approaches share many similarities that underpinned this study’s analysis.

They both focus on analysing actions, which is assisted by coding using gerunds as

well as nouns. This strategy enhances theoretical sensitivity to “enacted processes”

and how they are sequenced and connected, preventing summation of data as “static

topics” where connections remain more implicit (Charmaz, 2006, p. 136).

Furthermore, their analysis methods comprise the following phases: initial

microanalysis that separates data and labels them as tentative concepts, sub-

categories, and categories; constructing relationships among concepts, sub-

categories, and categories, to reconnect data that are pulled apart in initial

microanalysis; and integrating analyses to develop a theory. With these phases of

coding as a basis, assisted by analytic strategies such as the Paradigm and Matrix, I

accepted invitations by Corbin and Strauss (2008) and Charmaz (2006) to flexibly

apply grounded theory methods in a manner that best suited my study.

3.7.2 Constant Comparative Method

Central to all approaches to grounded theory analysis is the constant

comparative method, developed by Glaser and Strauss (1967). Initially, this involves

constant comparisons of data with data, and data with concepts, looking for

similarities and differences (Charmaz, 2006; Corbin & Strauss, 2008; Strauss &

Corbin, 1990, 1998). Progressively the comparisons become more abstract, with

theoretical comparisons among the concepts, sub-categories, and categories

emerging from the data (Charmaz, 2006; Corbin & Strauss, 2008; Strauss & Corbin,

1990, 1998). Charmaz (2006) extends on this to define the core method of grounded

theory to be the interaction between comparative methods and the researcher’s

engagement with these data, codes, concepts, and categories. Constant comparison

continues after data analysis and construction of the substantive theories when the

researcher returns to the literature to situate the findings (Charmaz, 2006; Corbin &

Strauss, 2008).

Constant comparisons help the researcher to focus on abstract meanings rather

than single cases, and to move more quickly from description to abstraction (Corbin

& Strauss, 2008). Furthermore, it forces sensitivity in regards to how the researcher’s

and participants’ assumptions and biases are shaping the research process and the


developing theory (Charmaz, 2006; Corbin & Strauss, 2008). Constant comparisons

used to interrogate the data and developing theory are shaped by interactions among

the researcher’s underlying views and assumptions, interactions between the

researcher and the research sites and participants, and interactions with the data and

emerging ideas (Charmaz, 2006). Therefore, within a constructivist perspective,

grounded theory is a union of constant comparison and interaction (Charmaz, 2006).

3.7.3 Memos and Diagrams

Data collection and analysis took place over approximately two years.

Therefore, I required a method of keeping track of my cumulative and evolving

thinking, which became increasingly complex. Memos and diagrams provided these

records. They are common in various research approaches but considered essential to

grounded theory studies, and greatly facilitate the analysis process (Charmaz, 2006;

Corbin & Strauss, 2008; Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1998).

In the context of grounded theory research, memos are “written records of

analysis” (Corbin & Strauss, 2008, p. 117). Memos are also a form of analysis in

themselves, because analysis and insight occurs while writing. I used the memos as

an ongoing dialogue with myself. Early memos were rudimentary and reflected my

uncertainty; however, this is natural in the initial stages of trying to make sense of

data (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). These memos frequently involved identifying the

properties and dimensions of concepts/categories, making explicit comparisons

among data and concepts, making conjectures to be verified by returning to the data,

and posing questions that required further exploration (Charmaz, 2006; Corbin &

Strauss, 2008; Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1998). Appendix J provides an example of a

memo where an excerpt of data stimulated a point of reflection, and used the constant

comparative method of comparing across data sources. Moreover, it illustrates how

memos were a tool for recording questions for further data collection as part of

theoretical sampling. Progressively, my memos became more abstract, and focused

on refining theoretical categories and their relationships (Charmaz, 2006; Corbin &

Strauss, 2008; Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1998). Most importantly, memos forced me

to raise my analysis from data and individuals to abstract categories and theory

(Charmaz, 2006; Corbin & Strauss, 2008; Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1998).


Diagrams were used to create visual representations depicting relationships

among data. Use of diagrams is not unique to grounded theory, but they are used

specifically by grounded theorists for theoretical development (Charmaz, 2006).

Early diagrams, like early memos, were more simple and descriptive (e.g., see

Appendix K for an example diagram of the creative process that captured my more

descriptive thinking early in the analysis process), whereas later diagrams became

increasingly complex, integrative, and theoretical (e.g., see the culminating visual

model, Figure 8.1). I returned to diagrams regularly, and each one went through

many iterations. They were useful for clarifying my thoughts, revealing gaps in my

understandings, as well as communicating my findings to other people.

Memos and diagrams are an intermediary between data collection and written

reports of the research (Charmaz, 2006), for example, for this thesis. Sorting these

memos and diagrams helped to refine my theory and tell an analytical and theoretical

story (Corbin & Strauss, 2008; Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1998). Many of my later

memos and diagrams provided the foundation for early drafts of my findings

chapters in this thesis.

3.8 Quality Criteria for Grounded Theory Research

The goal of this research was to develop a quality grounded theory that is

meaningful to participants and readers, and makes a valuable contribution to

explaining the phenomenon of adolescent creativity. I adopted Charmaz’s (2006)

four criteria for evaluating grounded theory studies – credibility, originality,

resonance, and usefulness – for their simplicity yet comprehensiveness. Corbin

recommended Charmaz’s criteria as the most comprehensive, due to their attention to

both the scientific and creative components of qualitative research (Corbin &

Strauss, 2008). Elements of these criteria can also be found in the work of Corbin

and Strauss (Corbin & Strauss, 2008; Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1998).

Credibility refers to the believability of the research, judged by evidence of the

rigour of the research method and sufficient substantiation of the findings (Charmaz,

2006; Corbin & Strauss, 2008; Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1998). This research

achieved credibility by: collecting a breadth and depth of data using a range of

methods and over an extended period of time; systematically developing the

categories using the constant comparative method to ensure logical and accurate


links between the data and emerging theory; explaining patterns of relationships

among categories, as well as accounting for variation in the data; conducting member

checks; engaging in peer debriefing; and providing sufficient raw data excerpts as

evidence for readers to assess my interpretations, within the limitations of the thesis.

An audit trail and reflective memos were kept throughout the research, which would

allow for an inquiry audit by an external party. However, grounded theory is

“nebulous” and data analysis cannot be divided into discrete stages (see Section 3.7.1

for Corbin’s comments on this issue). Therefore, the practicalities of providing

evidence for every aspect of coding and category development are beyond the scope

of, and not typically included in, studies applying grounded theory methodology.

However, where possible, the thesis includes general explanations of how the

categories were developed using grounded theory methods (e.g., see Section 4.1).

This research also demonstrated the second criterion of originality (Charmaz,

2006), or perhaps more accurately, creativity (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). Creativity

was achieved by contributing insights about the phenomenon being studied that are

both original and useful for extending existing understandings in the field. Creativity

was important methodologically for grounded theory research, but was also

personally important to me as a researcher given that creativity was the phenomenon

under study.

The ability of participants to see themselves in the findings, for it to make

sense and be applicable to them, and to offer them deeper insights into their

experiences is an evaluation criterion referred to as resonance (Charmaz, 2006) or fit

(Corbin & Strauss, 2008). Resonant findings depict the full, rich experience being

researched, and connect the individuals’ experiences with the groups or institutions

of which they are a part. Participants’ evaluations of my analyses, as part of the

member checking procedures, verified that my findings adequately captured their

diverse range of experiences.

The usefulness (Charmaz, 2006) of the findings is a fourth criterion for

evaluating grounded theory studies. Corbin referred to this as applicability (Corbin &

Strauss, 2008). This study’s usefulness or applicability is evidenced by its ability to

offer interpretations of creativity that other people can apply to their experiences, its

contribution to knowledge about adolescent creativity, and its potential to provide a

foundation for further research in related areas. Peer debriefing provided evidence of


the usefulness of the findings for a variety of contexts. This was garnered from

feedback and discussions with university colleagues, as well as from parent, teacher,

and researcher audiences at national and international conference presentations (e.g.,

Lassig, 2009a, 2009b, 2010, 2011).

Unlike positivist, quantitative research that seeks reliability, validity, and

“truth”, the goal of this constructivist qualitative research was to present quality

findings that make a valuable contribution, as judged by their credibility, originality,

resonance, and usefulness. By presenting evidence of the research methodology, data

collection, and analysis, this study will “let the research findings speak for

themselves” (Corbin & Strauss, 2008, p. 305).

3.9 Ethical Considerations

Ethical clearance for this study was approved by my university (Approval

#0900000231) and the relevant state education department (File #550/27/811). The

research was conducted in accordance with the National Statement on Ethical

Conduct in Human Research, which outlined the following ethical guidelines for

qualitative research: research merit and integrity; justice; beneficence; and respect

(National Health and Medical Research Council, Australian Research Council, &

Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee, 2007).

3.9.1 Research Merit and Integrity

The participating adolescents, their parents, and their schools were fully

informed about the purpose and nature of the research. The merit of this research is

its contribution to knowledge about adolescent creativity, and its potential to enhance

theoretical understandings and educational pedagogies. Integrity was ensured by

conducting honest research and disseminating the findings for public scrutiny.

3.9.2 Justice

Participant selection was conducted fairly in accordance with theoretical

sampling. Efforts were made to ensure there was no unfair burden on the adolescents,

and that their wellbeing took precedence over participation in the research.


3.9.3 Beneficence

The likely benefits of the study and potential risks of the study were

communicated to participants, their parents, and their schools. The potential time

inconvenience for adolescents was managed by adjusting data collection methods

and timing to cause minimum disruption. In addition, adolescents received credit for

their participation through the CAS component of the IB (see Section 3.4 for an

explanation of CAS).

3.9.4 Respect

Participants were respected as mature adolescents capable of determining their

interest in participating in the research. Informed, signed consent was obtained from

the participants, their parents, and the principals of the two participating schools.

Every effort was made to protect the adolescents’ identities. Participants were sent

interview transcripts for their approval, to which they could make changes to protect

their privacy or increase the accuracy of the data. They were informed that a major

goal of this study was to contribute to understandings about adolescent creativity by

sharing their voices and experiences. Moreover, participants were consulted about

how the data would be used and disseminated, and were informed about

opportunities to access publications and presentations of the findings. It was

important to me that the adolescents knew that their voices were valued.

3.10 Summary of the Methodology and Research Design

This chapter outlined the methodology and research design selected to study

adolescents’ experiences of creativity. The study adopted a grounded theory

methodology within a constructivist-interpretivist perspective. Consistent with

grounded theory methods, data analysis was ongoing throughout data collection, and

culminated in the construction of a substantive theory. Figure 3.2 illustrates the

grounded theory process used in this study, commencing from the base of the

diagram.


Figure 3.2. The grounded theory research process.

After identifying the research interest area of adolescent creativity, a broad

literature review was conducted to sensitise me to the pertinent issues and frame the

research problem and questions. Initial theoretical sampling using the Creative

Personality Scale, Creative Self-Efficacy Scale, and nomination forms guided

participant selection. Data from the various sources – preliminary focus groups,


individual interviews, the online discussion forum, concluding focus groups, and

email communications – were analysed using the constant comparative method

within and across data sources. Theoretical sampling, data collection, and analysis

increased in specificity and depth of focus throughout the study. This is because

initial research aimed to elicit as many concepts and categories as possible, whereas

after categories were identified, the focus shifted to developing and elaborating these

categories.

Memos and diagrams were used to record findings, reflections, and questions.

This writing required me to make my thoughts explicit and also provided an ongoing

record of the developing theory. Both tools played a significant role in integrating

and elaborating concepts, sub-categories, and categories. Recurring categories

emerging across all data contributed to selecting the core category (see Section

8.2.1), which is central to this study’s theorisation about adolescent creativity.

The theory was refined and validated by going back to the data, and conducting

member checking and peer debriefing. When writing up the findings, the constant

comparative method was used to compare and contrast the substantive theory with

the literature. Abduction, which involved moving between induction and deduction

during analysis and writing, advanced findings from description to abstraction. This

enabled the construction of the Grounded Theory and Model of Adolescent

Creativity that describes and explains the nature of the adolescents’ creative

experiences, and how they were influenced by dispositional and environmental

conditions (Section 8.2). The next four chapters (Chapters 4 to 7) present these

findings, leading to presentation of the culminating theory in Chapter 8.


Chapter 4 The Adolescent Creative Process

4.1 Overview of the Findings Chapters

This grounded theory study was designed to develop a theoretical explanation

of adolescents’ creativity. Chapter 4 is the first of four chapters presenting findings

from research with 20 adolescents, including 10 participants from an arts school and

10 participants from a science, mathematics and technology school. Each of the

findings chapters is designed to progressively build an understanding of a grounded

theory to explain creativity from the perspectives of these adolescents.

Chapter 4 describes the creative process used by the adolescents. Chapter 5

describes different approaches for engaging in the creative process in order to

develop creative outcomes. The categories of findings constructed in Chapters 4 and

5 emerged from analysing the data for the creative process. Initially, this involved

individually coding all creative experiences described by participants. Further

analysis sought to reveal commonalities and variations across domains and tasks,

leading to the domain-general sub-processes of creativity and strategies for managing

constraints and challenges. This analysis was assisted by using the Paradigm as a

tool for examining data for actions, interactions, and emotions in participants’

creativity, and looking for how these related to one another (see explanation of the

Paradigm in Section 3.7.1). While analysing for this process, I was also looking for

the outcomes and effects of creativity, which from a grounded theory Paradigm

perspective can be described as consequences of the process.

Chapter 6 explains the contexts for creativity that influence adolescent

creativity. This chapter’s findings resulted from analysis identifying the conditions or

circumstances that led to or influenced creativity, when considered using the

Paradigm. Additionally, the Matrix (see Section 3.7.1) guided integration of the

process and contexts for creativity, and led to the conclusion about how interactions

among dispositional and environmental conditions created contexts that supported or

inhibited the creative process to various extents.


Chapter 7 synthesises findings from Chapters 4 to 6, using case examples to

illustrate patterns of adolescent creativity displayed by individual participants. These

patterns reveal that the creative process manifests as different types of adolescent

creativity. Collectively, Chapters 4 to 7 each contribute to an understanding of how

creativity is experienced and manifested by adolescents. The substantive Grounded

Theory of Adolescent Creativity is presented in Chapter 8. This chapter also:

explains how the major categories were synthesised and abstracted around a central

or core category explaining the participating adolescents’ experiences of creativity at

a more general, theoretical level; provides a visual Model of Adolescent Creativity to

illustrate these findings; and discusses significant findings in relation to existing

literature, with a focus on the original contributions of this research.

As a study that valued adolescents’ voices, their unique personalities, and their

creativity, the researcher did not assign pseudonyms for the schools or participants.

Instead, participants developed them. The school pseudonyms were created and

agreed on by participants based on the researcher’s prompt to create a name that they

felt represented their school. The adolescents from the arts school chose Whimsical

High School (WHS). The adolescents from the science, mathematics and technology

school chose Nerdopolis High School (NHS). Participants also developed their own

personal pseudonyms. To prevent possible confusion due to some adolescents using

one word names and some adolescents selecting multiple word names, all

pseudonyms are written as one word, akin to online avatars1. The pseudonyms for

WHS adolescents are presented in Table 4.1, and for NHS adolescents in Table 4.2.

These tables also provide a short explanation of adolescents’ reasons for their choice

of pseudonym.

All participants’ voices are heard at some point in the findings, but it is not

necessary in a grounded theory study to give each participant equal weighting.

Development of a grounded theory requires a focus on concepts and their

relationships, not individuals (Corbin & Strauss, 2008); therefore, the examples and

excerpts most representative of the concepts are presented in this thesis.

1 “Avatar is the common term for representations, either textual or visual, of people’s presence in a digital environment.” (Jones, n.d.)


Table 4.1

Participants’ Pseudonyms: Whimsical High School

Pseudonym (M = Male; F = Female)

Reasons for pseudonym

CandleJack (M) Candle Jack is the name of a “ghostly antagonist” from a children’s cartoon that the adolescent liked.

DaVinci (F) The adolescent often talked about Leonardo da Vinci, whose creativity she admired.

Esmé (F) The adolescent liked the name, Esmé.

Incognito (F) The adolescent wanted to remain incognito.

Kate (F) The adolescent chose the name, Kate, because she thinks it sounds simple and unpretentious, which is what she aspires to be.

Orange (F) Orange was a nickname given to her by the adolescent known as Incognito, based on a private joke.

PatrickBateman (M) The adolescent liked the movie, American Psycho, and Patrick Bateman is the film’s main character.

PeterPan (M) The adolescent was a fan of Disney and said he was inspired by Peter Pan’s outlook on life. He said he wished he could be like Peter Pan.

Suzuki (F) Suzuki Mud is the name of one of the adolescent’s favourite songs by the band, The Gorillaz.

UltraShinyNeonLaserDragonBat (abbreviated to UltraShiny) (M)

The adolescent thinks dragons, lasers and bats are “awesome”, and said “ultra means super-awesome”, and “shiny means shiny”. He wanted to create an unconventional name and challenged other participants to “Top me!”

Note. Where quotation marks are used, the researcher is directly quoting the adolescent’s explanation provided in interviews or email communications.


Table 4.2

Participants’ Pseudonyms: Nerdopolis High School

Pseudonym (M = Male; F = Female)

Reasons for pseudonym

AnOptimisticVole (F) An: The adolescent wanted to use an indefinite article because she thought it would sound better if I referred to her in a presentation (“ie. according to an optimistic vole”). Optimistic: She wanted to include either the word optimistic or pessimistic, and chose the former. Vole: She thinks vole is “a cool word”.

DayBeforeYouCame (M) The name of the adolescent’s favourite song by ABBA.

GLaDOS (M) GLaDOS is a “sentient computer” character from a computer game, Portal, and is an acronym for “Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System”.

Hippopotamus (F) When she was 6 years old, her mother asked her what was the biggest word she knew, and the adolescent was able to spell hippopotamus correctly.

JeremiahGonzalez (M) Jeremiah: The adolescent has a friend named Jeremiah. Gonzalez: In his Spanish class, students refer to each other by Spanish names, and this adolescent chose Gonzalez as his Spanish name.

Ma’at (F) Ma’at was known as “the ancient Egyptian goddess of truth, balance, order, law and justice”. The adolescent hoped to study Law at university.

OllieDenverGreen (M) The adolescent wanted to use his initials, O. D. G., as is done when soldiers are assigned a name in the French Foreign Legion. Ollie: His sister’s name is Holly and he is therefore sometimes referred to as Ollie. Denver: It gives the illusion of being American. Green: Green is the name of an R.E.M album, one of his favourite bands.

PewPew (M) A shortened name for the adolescent’s favourite character in the Pokemon franchise, Pike Pikachu.

TuathaDuOrothrim (M) The phrase, translated as “Tempering the fool's wisdom”, is from the Ancient Language used in the Inheritance Cycle series of novels written by Christopher Paolini.

GLuck (F) The adolescent wished the researcher good luck with the study.

Note. Where quotation marks are used, the researcher is directly quoting the adolescent’s explanation provided in interviews or email communications.


The findings chapters draw on five data sources, as outlined in Chapter 3. The

preliminary focus groups (FG1) were divided into two sessions at both schools

(FG1a and FG1b), with four to six participants in each session. Next, an individual

interview (II) was conducted with each participant. All participants were

subsequently invited to join an online discussion forum (DF), and 13 of the 20

adolescents chose to participate. Seven adolescents did not to engage in the forum.

Some of these non-participants contributed further information by email in place of

using the discussion forum. Concluding focus groups (FG2) were also conducted at

each school. There were two FG2 sessions at the arts school: seven adolescents

participated in the first session (FG2a); two adolescents participated in second

session (FG2b); one participant was unavailable. There was one session at the

science, mathematics and technology school (FG2a): seven adolescents participated;

three were unavailable to participate in a second session at this school. The

adolescents unable to participate in the discussion forum or concluding focus groups

all cited a lack of time due to their heavy academic and extracurricular commitments

as the reason for their non-participation. In addition, email communications (EC)

provided an additional source of data throughout the study. A summary of the data

sources, the codes used to identify them in this thesis, and the number of participants

who participated in each one, is presented in Table 4.3.

Table 4.3

Data Source Codes and Participants

Source Code WHS participants

NHS participants

Focus Group 1: session a FG1a 4 4

Focus Group 1: session b FG1b 6 6

Individual Interview II 10 10

Discussion Forum (online) DF 6 7

Focus Group 2: session a FG2a 7 7

Focus Group 2: session b FG2b 2 −

Email Communications EC 10 10


4.2 Introduction

This chapter addresses findings pertaining to research sub-question 1: What is

the adolescent creative process? The creative process involved utilising a

combination of interacting sub-processes, which were the specific steps the

adolescents took to be creative (Section 4.3). The creative process was complex, and

often involved applying various strategies to overcome constraints and challenges in

order to continue the creative process, where possible (Section 4.4). Both during and

after the creative process, there could be a variety of effects on the adolescent (the

creator), which in some cases was influenced by the creator’s intentions for other

people (the audience) and their perceived reactions (Section 4.5). The chapter

conclusion highlights important points about the interactions among these

components of the creative process (Section 4.6). Common patterns and variations in

the adolescents’ creative processes are presented in this chapter.

4.3 Sub-Processes of Creativity

The creative process consists of various sub-processes that the adolescents

utilised to manifest creativity. This section will explicate the specific sub-processes

participants discussed using for creativity in a range of domains: identifying a

need/want (Section 4.3.1); imagining (Section 4.3.2); brainstorming (Section 4.3.3);

planning (Section 4.3.4); learning knowledge and skills (Section 4.3.5); assessing

constraints (Section 4.3.6); gathering materials (Section 4.3.7); experimenting

(Section 4.3.8); achieving insight (Section 4.3.9); creating outcomes (Section

4.3.10); and evaluating (Section 4.3.11). Although these sub-processes are presented

sequentially, the order is not an indication that the creative process was linear or

hierarchical. Section 4.3 presents one possible order, which applied to some creative

tasks; however, it was common for the adolescents to move among the sub-processes

of creativity in different sequences and repeat some sub-processes where necessary.

The phrase, “sub-processes of creativity”, was chosen rather than “creative

sub-processes” because not all sub-processes were necessarily creative. This

distinction was discussed by the adolescents in a concluding focus group as part of

member checking, when findings were shared with participants for their evaluation

and elaboration:


Kate: Is the process still creative if it’s intellectually driven?

DaVinci: I think so. I think that it takes intelligence to plan

things out. ... It’s that, that if you’re clever enough to

plan things out, it’s, um, in the creation process…

CandleJack: … I would say that the actual creativity, the most

creative aspects are at the beginning and the end of

the process =

Esmé: Whereas everything in between would have been,

like, practical …

CandleJack: = Exactly.

(WHS, FG2a) (emphasis added)

In this focus group, participants clarified that some steps in the creative process, such

as planning, were more analytical and practical. The creative process entailed

drawing on the relevant sub-processes in such a way that the adolescents developed

creative outcomes. The creative process did not require each sub-process to be

creative; it included both divergent and convergent thinking. Each of the 11

identified sub-processes will now be discussed with excerpts demonstrating their

properties, dimensions, and importance in the adolescent creative process. Figure 4.1

illustrates the nature of the relationships among these sub-processes of the adolescent

creative process.

Figure 4.1. Sub-processes of adolescent creativity.


4.3.1 Identifying a Need/Want

A typical, initial sub-process of creativity involved the adolescents identifying

a need or want for a creative outcome. This included personal, social, and

environmental needs and wants. Compare these examples, in which Esmé discussed

personal and social wants, and PatrickBateman described an environmental need:

[For] the semi-formal I decided to make a dress for myself and my

friend. … she, like, looks exactly like me, so I ... thought it’d be funny if

we wore the same thing. ... I, like, created a dress and we, like, made it

together and it was something, it was another thing that was different and

no one else was, like, paired up and was wearing the same thing… I

don’t wanna [sic], like, take something, I’d rather create it myself. … we

could just, like, have fun and didn’t have to spend a lot of money.

(Esmé, WHS, II) (emphasis added)

[A] friend from here [WHS] … His brother is, like, a fitness company CEO

in America, and they’ve released these mats that are like yoga for children,

like DVDs, like the DVD and mat. And they want us to do, like, the

animation that the kids watch while they’re doing the yoga stuff… So, me

and a few other guys are trying to do that.

(PatrickBateman, WHS, II)

Esmé’s example revealed her personal and social desire to create original, matching

semi-formal dresses for herself and her friend. Her aim was to make something that

would be different from what anyone else would wear, would not cost a lot of

money, and would be a fun experience. PatrickBateman’s example was a response to

an environmental need. He and his friends were approached by a fitness company to

design an animated yoga DVD for children to sell with children’s yoga mats.

Perceiving a need or want for an outcome that provided an opportunity for creativity

was an essential sub-process.

4.3.2 Imagining

Imagination has a close relationship with creativity, and was often the source

of the adolescents’ ideas. Imagining possibilities, without being restricted by reality,

assisted their creative ideation. Participants differentiated imagination from creativity

by its unlimited scope and by the fact it did not require a purpose or application:


I think in terms of the difference between imaginative and creative, there’s a

strong link between both. Perhaps the distinction lies in that Imagination

[sic] in itself has no limits, “purpose”, is started by itself and does not

answer a “question”. You could certainly apply those traits to creativity,

however. Perhaps this means that imagination is a tool in creativity.

(CandleJack WHS, DF) (emphasis added)

Imagination was often equated with childhood activities, but was also recognised as a

something that could be applied to be creative. CandleJack’s reference to

imagination as a “tool” of creativity is consistent with this study’s findings that

imagining was one sub-process of creativity applied by the adolescents.

Imagining occurred in two mains ways: free, unfocused imagining that

stimulated initial creative ideas; and focused imagining that was directed at

developing an outcome for a specific task. CandleJack provided an explanation of

each of these contributions of imagination, respectively:

Well I’d say that imagination … has a lot to do with visualisation … you

could have a completely scattered imagination, on purpose, like, so that you

can get inspiration from lots of things collected in your own head.

(CandleJack, WHS, FG1b)

You could try and visualise something specific or you could try and really

think hard and imagine an answer to your brief or your problem.

(CandleJack, WHS, II)

This adolescent explained how various ideas in his “scattered” or free, unfocused

imagination could collectively inspire him. The sub-process was also used to

envisage ideas or solutions for a specific question or task, as part of brainstorming

(Section 4.3.3). His words foreground the importance of visualisation in imagination,

which was mentioned by many participants. However, imagination was not always

visual; it also took other forms of sensory perception (e.g., auditory imagination of a

song).

Imagination was most commonly referred to in the arts, but was not exclusive

to any domain. For example, AnOptimisicVole used her imagination to brainstorm

ideas for Physics tasks:


I think the best example of where you’ve got to be creative [in Physics] is,

um, getting the actual apparatus together. … maybe an image comes to

your head … how do you do that, how do you change that? Um, how do

you make it fit for what you do? And so it’s sort of, it’s almost like moving

pictures around in your head. … And then it’s just, just sort of running a

whole lot of scenarios in your head, which, each one, you’ve got to think,

what could you do here? And just going through everything. What

could make it different? What could you change? And, from them,

deciding which ones you think works best.

(AnOptimisticVole, NHS, II) (emphasis added)

This example highlights how the adolescents sometimes used specific questions (e.g.,

“What could make it different?”) to direct their imagined scenarios. In her case, she

was visualising various possibilities for designing a Physics investigation.

Imagining possible ideas, scenarios, and outcomes can contribute to the

creative process in any task or domain. It can be quite free and unfocused or more

structured. When applied for a particular purpose with consideration of reality and

constraints, imagining became a sub-process of creativity that was often used in

combination with the next sub-process, brainstorming (Section 4.3.3).

4.3.3 Brainstorming

Brainstorming was an important sub-process used by the adolescents in

creative ideation. It occurred individually or collaboratively, and often ideas from the

brainstorming process were recorded in some way. PeterPan highlighted the

importance of brainstorming ideas:

It’s good to never block an idea. Like, any idea is a good idea. And so, if,

if I had a crazy idea that had nothing to do with anything, I’d put it down

anyway. And even though I knew I probably wasn’t going to use it, it

would probably help me go, hang on, maybe if I altered it this way it, it,

it’s a hard process.

(PeterPan, WHS, II) (emphasis added)

Many of the adolescents recognised that even ideas they did not use assisted in

development of ideas that could be implemented. In the early stages, suspending

judgment of ideas was important for brainstorming.


Creative brainstorming occurred in both individual and collaborative tasks.

GLuck gave an example of an individual task:

I … have a basic thing and then I can have ideas around it, like a little mind

map, a mind map that has little things off it.

(GLuck, WHS, II)

Orange discussed collaborative brainstorming for a Theatre Arts task where the

group was writing a script for Romeo and Juliet set in a modern, local setting:

Orange: Well ‘cause [sic] it was a group activity, it was

bouncing everything off one another, so yeah. …

But we’d have one thing going and everyone would

be, “That’s fantastic! That’s so right! Nothing could

be better!” and then someone would suggest one

thing, then it’d completely switch and everyone would

go, “No, that’s the right way!” and yeah …

Researcher: How did you negotiate everyone’s different ideas?

Orange: It wasn’t difficult actually. It was really easy.

Everyone just was, “Okay, that’s, I like that. I like

that.” “Don’t like that too much. Don’t like that too

much.” “Okay, let that one go. Let’s move it on.”

There wasn’t too much, I think everyone just

wanted to get the thing done. There was no

personal attachment to the ideas, so it was fine.

(WHS, II) (emphasis added)

GLuck, like many other participants, particularly from NHS, frequently reported

using mind maps as a constructive form of independent creative brainstorming to

record and make connections among their ideas. Orange’s description of a group

theatre production depicted collaborative oral brainstorming involving ongoing

development of ideas. “Bouncing” ideas off others was a useful aspect of

brainstorming in groups. Her explanation also emphasises that effective collaboration

and acceptance of others’ positive and critical feedback could be achieved by the

adolescents focusing on completing the task and not being personally attached to

their ideas. However, collaborative brainstorming and creativity did not always work

well, particularly if there was not a positive group dynamic (see Section 6.6.1).


Brainstorming was a recurrent theme in the adolescents’ descriptions of their

creative process. Their recounts indicate that there was not one best method for

creative brainstorming. It could be done individually or collaboratively, and be visual

(written/drawn) or oral. Brainstorming was an invaluable sub-process for perceiving

and exploring possible ideas for a creative task.

4.3.4 Planning

The merits of planning in the creative process were debated by participants. All

of them had planned some creative tasks, but there were also participants who argued

that, in certain situations, planning inhibited their creativity.

Kate was one adolescent who described the importance of planning. She used

detailed planning for a machinima2 project:

Kate: This machinima thing … I probably spent more time

planning it than I did making it, ‘cause [sic] I

wanted it to say exactly what my head was

thinking [reason for planning]. … So, I planned it

so that it was abstract [focus of the planning].

Researcher: … What did that planning involve?

Kate: Um, there was just, um, so many options you could

take with each one [reason for planning]. … my art

couldn’t be spontaneous. … Process, plan it, and

then use whatever’s available to make it happen

[need for planning].


In Kate’s task, planning reportedly took more time than production of her art work.

Planning was particularly important for participants when they had a specific vision

or idea and needed to consider various envisaged alternatives for achieving their

goal. This sub-process helped some of the adolescents to focus and refine their

creative thinking and outcomes.

2 “Machinima … is filmmaking within a real-time, 3D virtual environment, often using 3D video-game technologies. … it is the convergence of filmmaking, animation and game development.” (Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences, 2005, para. 1-2)


In contrast, other adolescents revealed that planning was not always helpful for

creativity:

For me, planning is one of the worst things I can do, especially when an idea

I’ve planned really hard on implementing just doesn’t work or isn’t possible

within my means (like in Film particularly).

(CandleJack, WHS, DF)

To use machinima, which is like game footage … I don’t really like to plan a

lot first because it could, like, restrict what is possible.

(Incognito, WHS, II)

These excerpts represent different reasons why some adolescents preferred not to

plan in particular creative tasks. One reason was that the adolescents sometimes

became disappointed when they worked industriously to plan something that they

could not create, as was expressed by CandleJack. Another reason individuals, such

as Incognito, were sometimes cautious about detailed planning was due to concern

that their creativity might be restricted early in the process. An interesting

comparison is that, in the same type of task (machinima), Kate emphasised

metacognition and planning early in the process while Incognito delayed it to prevent

impeding creative ideas. This disparity highlights that even within similar tasks,

individuals had different perceptions of what contributed to an effective creative

process for them.

A cautious attitude about planning was mainly found in the arts domains,

particularly when the adolescents described tasks they did more intuitively. The

adolescents creative in domains such as science and technology primarily regarded

planning as an essential aspect of their creative process. In some cases, planning was

useful for pursuing creative possibilities; in other cases, participants were more

creative when they were able to create spontaneously without preparation. These

comparisons suggest that it was beneficial for the adolescents to identify what

worked most effectively for them in particular tasks.

4.3.5 Learning Knowledge and Skills

Although creativity is about doing something new and different, it did require

the adolescents to draw on existing conceptual or procedural knowledge and


technical skills. Sometimes they had sufficient knowledge and skills to do the task;

other times the adolescents recognised they needed to learn more.

DaVinci was one of many adolescents who emphasised the importance of

researching new knowledge to assist her creativity:

I like to be informed before I go into creating something. You can create

something much more in-depth … Although, it is possible to create

something “successful” … through experimentation alone but you’d be

starting from scratch and it would be most likely, in my opinion, a lucky

fluke. Sometimes you need to look at other people’s views, especially

when they’re opposing views, in order to inform your own view.

(DaVinci, WHS, DF) (emphasis added)

All of the adolescents recognised creativity as being connected in some way to

existing ideas, however remote. In order to diverge from these ideas and do

something creative or different, participants usually needed some understanding of a

domain or task. Many adolescents in this study referred to some variation of the well-

known saying, “learn the rules before you break them” (PatrickBateman, WHS, DF).

As identified by DaVinci, creativity also benefited from researching others’

perspectives and creative outcomes to broaden their views.

In addition to learning new knowledge, learning new skills was sometimes

needed for the adolescents to enact their creative ideas. Esmé provided an example of

new videoing skills she needed in participant Visual Art and how she learned them:

I’m going to go and find some more video-based tutorials so I can get

the technique right, I can find what’s out there, because video isn’t my

field … You gotta learn about what it is you think you might do so you

can do it [reason for learning new skills]. … You can definitely find, like if

it was Photoshop or Final Cut [computer software programs], that stuff

would be on Google [a source of learning new skills]. Otherwise, um, like

people who, in my class, there’s a few really good … they just have so

much practice in it that they just know [a source of learning new skills].


This adolescent acknowledged that she was not experienced at video work, and could

use Internet tutorials and her peers as sources of skill development. The Internet,


social networks, and school tasks were the most common resources for learning new

skills for these adolescents.

Learning necessary knowledge and skills was an essential sub-process of

creativity when the adolescents did not already possess what they needed to know

and be able to do. They used a wide variety of sources for developing

understandings, including print, multimedia, and social resources. This sub-process

was not applicable to all creative tasks because sometimes the adolescents already

had the requisite understandings. In the majority of tasks, however, the participants

in this study reflected that their creativity could benefit from pursuing additional

learning, as long as it did not limit their thinking.

4.3.6 Assessing Constraints

One image of creativity was of a free, unconstrained process, particularly in the

arts:

The arts, they’re … about self-expression and … you can, um, create what

you want to create. You don’t have really have to follow any guidelines set

down by other people.

(GLaDOS, NHS, FG1b)

However, the adolescents did not have complete freedom in all creative tasks. Often,

there were a variety of constraints to work within.

The three most common constraints discussed by the adolescents, as shown in

the following excerpt, were task constraints, practical constraints, and personal

constraints:

For my Extended Essay I’m working on building a robot. … I’ve researched

all the different, um, sort of navigational systems that have been developed.

And I’m looking at which ones I can personally afford to do for my EE

[practical constraint], um, which ones would apply to the scenario [task

constraint], and generally have three or four that, um, are in that category.

Now I’ll just choose the one I think is most personally interesting

[personal constraint].

(TuathaDuOrothrim, NHS, II) (emphasis added)

The adolescents faced different constraints when working creatively, depending on

the individual, task, domain, and context. The constraints for TuathaDuOrothrim’s


robotics project included the practical constraint of what he could afford to make,

task constraints related to what was applicable to that project, and his self-imposed

personal constraint of wanting to do what was most interesting to him. In most

situations, participants were able to use their knowledge and creative thinking to

perceive possibilities that worked around constraints, and could pursue a creative

outcome. The adolescents used a variety of strategies for managing constraints

(Section 4.4). However, sometimes managing constraints entailed making

compromises, if the constraints prevented them from following their best ideas.

4.3.7 Gathering materials.

Most creative work by the adolescents required materials of some kind. Often

they only required a computer (e.g., for graphic design) or pen and paper (e.g., for

poetry), to which they had easy access. Sometimes they needed to access specialised

materials (e.g., art supplies, chemistry apparatus). Although participants said they

typically planned their work and then sourced the materials, in other cases, gathering

materials could also play an important part in brainstorming (Section 4.3.2) and

planning (Section 4.3.4).

DaVinci discussed how gathering materials had assisted brainstorming, and

Esmé described using gathering materials in tandem with planning:

I was doing costuming and makeup [in Theatre]. … So we went into the

costume store. … But I had, we just mucked around a lot, but in the end

it was like a big wave and I went “Ohhhh! I know what it is!”. … Um,

and so, that all came from just mucking around for a good hour in the

costume store with the actors.

(DaVinci, WHS, II) (emphasis added)

In art work … you need material to work with straight away, rather than plan

all of it and realise you can’t actually do one part.

(Esmé, WHS, II)

DaVinci and Esmé presented different reasons for gathering materials. DaVinci used

the task of gathering materials (costumes) as a way of coming up with ideas for a

Theatre production. In Esmé’s art work, planning and gathering materials were

conducted simultaneously. The reason for this mode of working was to prevent Esmé

spending time planning ideas that she did not have the materials to make.


Pursuing physical resources by gathering materials was done at various stages

of the creative process and served different purposes. It could be conducted before

planning as a means of inspiring ideas, concurrently with planning to ensure

feasibility of ideas, and after planning in order to manifest proposed ideas.

4.3.8 Experimenting

Experimenting and making mistakes was often integral to the creative process.

Free experimentation provided stimuli for ideas and more focused experimentation

allowed the adolescents to explore or trial ideas for a specific task. Experimenting

was important for perceiving and pursuing original ideas.

When the adolescents did not have specific ideas for a task, free experimenting

was useful for stimulating ideas. This type of experimenting was reported mostly in

the arts and humanities, such as the following music example from UltraShiny:

Maybe I’ll be mucking around and I’ll have an idea that I come up with on

my instrument and then I’ll write that down and work from there.

(UltraShiny, WHS, II)

This adolescent’s experimentation involved “mucking around” on his musical

instrument until he found an idea that he could extend to compose a song. Creativity

might not be the intention, but trying various ill-defined, experimental ideas

sometimes resulted in creative ideas that the adolescents could explore further.

More focused experimenting was a common sub-process of creativity in

mathematics and science. GLaDOS provided an example of this type of

experimenting with electrical circuits in Physics class:

My teacher brought out a whole heap of resistors and switches and things

like that, and he said, “Just have a go and see what happens when you

attach a resistor and measure the volts and everything.” So I said, this is all

well and good and I set up all the simple circuits pretty easily. … And I

thought, okay, what if I set up a series of switches and resistors, which

allows me to turn on any combination of resistance [focus of

experimenting]. … I kind of spontaneously made this up as I went. …

that’s the interesting thing about when I get a creative idea that just sets

me off is that, um, everything kind of works itself out.

(GLaDOS, NHS, II) (emphasis added)


GLaDOS’ experimentation, which was encouraged by his Physics teacher, led him to

develop a complex electrical circuit through problem-solving using trial and error. It

was not something he had learned or planned how to do; he experimented with

circuits until he found a solution that worked. Successful creative experimentation

required the adolescents to tolerate ambiguity and error as necessary elements of this

sub-process.

Not all experimenting was successful. Learning from mistakes and trial and

error was a part of the process. For example, Orange described the importance of

how even mistakes contributed to her final outcomes in art:

I always keep the original sketch/image, even mistakes, in the final image

because i [sic] feel that they're a part of it to.

(Orange, WHS, EC)

Most of the adolescents accepted trial and error, and making mistakes as an essential,

natural step in developing creative outcomes.

Since making mistakes and risk-taking is often discussed generally in relation

to creativity, participants were asked during the study about whether they felt the

need to take risks to be creative. The term “experimenting” rather than risk-taking is

used in this research because most participants did not feel they needed to take risks

to be creative in their contexts. They argued there were differences between the two

and explained why experimenting best fitted their situation in most cases:

Personally I believe that creative people do take risks, but I don’t think that

means risk taking is integral to creativity. It is more about experimentation

that [sic] risk taking.

(TuathaDuOrothrim, NHS, DF)

I think risk has more to do with the environment in which you’re trying

to be creative in. Like, when you’re by yourself in your room and writing

music or painting then I don’t see any risk in it since you’re the only who

knows what you’re doing at that time and you do whatever you want without

“risking” anything. … it’s more about experimentation than risk. Risk

implies there’s a threat or danger of something. Experimentation is a

better way of saying, I think, because, as I’ve been told many times,

“there is no wrong answer”. I guess, some must say you need to break


down walls to be creative but it’s up to the perspective of the person to

judge whether that’s a threat or danger and therefore a risk.


Experimenting encompasses the idea of trying out ideas and allowing mistakes,

without implying a degree of danger. The adolescents did not usually perceive that

there was any risk to them when trialling different ideas, and therefore thought that

their creativity involved more experimenting than risk-taking. DaVinci

acknowledged that the perception of risk depended on the person and environment,

and therefore some people might feel they need to take risks to be creative in

particular tasks. These adolescents’ comments suggest risk-taking is a contextual

qualifier; if individuals did not tolerate ambiguity and errors during creativity, there

might have been perceived risk to them.

Experimenting was a sub-process of creativity used to stimulate initial ideas or

trial ideas for a specific task or purpose to develop a creative outcome. It was often a

process of trial and error and allowing for mistakes. The adolescents viewed this sub-

process as experimenting rather than risk-taking because when they pursued

possibilities for creative outcomes, in most cases, they did not perceive any sense of

danger or threat to them.

4.3.9 Achieving Insight

A crucial step in the adolescents’ creative processes was the realisation of

having a good idea. This moment of achieving insight could occur either suddenly or

gradually, or sometimes was a combination of the two.

Compare the following two adolescents’ responses to the question of how their

ideas came to them. Orange achieved insight suddenly, while UltraShiny’s was more

gradual:

With art anyway, if I’m looking at a blank surface, I’ll see, you know how

you can, when you look at something long enough, you can see all the

individual bits of light and shadow that reflect off the, yeah. Well I’ll just

kind of be looking at that … and “Ohhhh! That’s what it is!”. And then

I’ll start drawing it and the image will pop into my head really clear, so

I’ll just copy it down from what’s in my head.

(Orange, WHS, II) (emphasis added)


I think it’s a gradual development of ideas. … Like I have to work at it, I

have to keep on honing what I have down to that final idea, trying to perfect

it.


These excerpts provide two different explanations of how participants achieved

insight during the creative process. Orange’s visual art example of insight entailed

her having a sudden vision of the whole idea without having consciously explored

possibilities. In contrast, UltraShiny’s musical compositions required him to work

gradually, refining his ideas until he was happy with the end result. There was no

single moment of epiphany for him. Whether gradual or seemingly from nowhere,

their insight resulted from an integration of ideas that led to a perceptible outcome.

It was not always a case of one or the other; sudden or gradual insight. Some

participants found their ideas resulted from a series of insights, as discussed by

PatrickBateman:

I think it is gradual up until, I think it’s more like a, if we were to draw it on

a curve, it would be gradual and then it would spike at a point, like it’s a

bit of both. Like it’s gradual, like planning, like I think if I just leave it alone

and just don’t move anything, then it’ll never be a [sic] “Aha!”, but if you

just start the ball rolling, momentum to me is a really powerful thing,

and … usually comes out of that, like the “Aha!”.

(PatrickBateman, WHS, II) (emphasis added)

PatrickBateman said that his creative process was a combination of gradual

development of ideas, similar to UltraShiny’s whole process, but then it culminated

in an “Aha!” moment. By thinking gradually through ideas he developed

“momentum”, which at some point led to his major moment of insight.

Achieving insight occurred in various ways. It could be: sudden, as a single,

grand “Aha!”; gradual, until the final outcome was reached; or a combination, where

it was gradual at first, with a final epiphany as the task reached its conclusion. These

moments of illumination are closely related to incubation (Section 4.4.2). When

ideas appeared to come suddenly and from nowhere, some participants perceived

they had subconsciously worked through ideas before achieving insight. Achieving

insight was a crucial step in the creative process because it was when the adolescents

consciously perceived creative ideas worth pursuing.


4.3.10 Creating Outcomes

Adolescent creativity resulted in novel and appropriate outcomes in the form of

products, performances, ideas, and methods. This section describes what constitutes

these four outcomes at the adolescent level, and provides examples to illustrate. The

most obvious outcomes of creativity, that were also more easily identified and

assessable at school, were products or performances; however, students also

described examples of ideas and methods.

An example of a creative product is a piece of art, which provides a concrete

outcome of the creative process:

This art piece [a canvas painting] is quite significant to me. … its [sic] one

of the first experimental pieces of art [for me]. I just went into the garage

and took out some weird chemicals and paste that made some really cool

effects that I’m proud of.

(Suzuki, WHS, EC) (emphasis added)

Other easily identifiable outcomes were performances, which were mostly related to

the arts, for example in Theatre:

Last year we had to, um, as part of school, we were given the task to make a

show on our own. And we got into group of six. … We had to remodel a …

Greek or Shakespearean tragedy.


Creative outcomes such as PeterPan’s theatrical play were perceptible at the moment

in time in which they were performed. Performances were not tangible in the same

way that concrete products were, but were still easily identifiable.

A less concrete form of creative outcome was the adolescents’ ideas. In some

cases the ideas were the intended product; in other cases ideas had the potential to

develop into a product. The following two excerpts provide an illustration of each.

DayBeforeYouCame’s ideas were the goal of his philosophy task in Theory of

Knowledge [TOK], whereas CandleJack’s film idea could have been developed into

a product if he had the resources:


TOK, the philosophy course ... that requires creative thinking. … like

having a question that we have to think of all the different situations

where it might come up, and that would support and not support our

idea. … Well, mine’s [my question is] in music … and it’s, um, “To what

extent does culture affect musical appreciation?” Yep. So we just had to

think of a lot of examples ... and talk about them. … not like saying like,

“This is definite what happens in this situation”, but some of them are

“What would happen if?” So they’re like open-ended questions.

(DayBeforeYouCame, NHS, II) (emphasis added)

CandleJack: My original [film idea] was … making a film about

a person who was afraid of being afraid, so he’d

expose himself to everything people have a fear of to

make sure he wasn’t afraid of everything, like spiders

and heights and everything. But at the end he goes,

well, the final fear is the fear of dying, so I’ve gotta

[sic] die…

Researcher: … So what made you choose the other idea?

CandleJack: Too hard to make. … I had to find some spiders and

a tall building. Just wouldn’t work.


In DayBeforeYouCame’s Theory of Knowledge subject, the goal was for students to

develop a philosophical question and then think of as many different ideas as

possible to address that question. They were not required to do anything with those

ideas; the task focused on creative thinking rather than production. In the second

example, CandleJack explained an idea for a film he was making. However, he

assessed that the practical constraints made it too difficult for him to create the film

in his current context. Since a film was required as a final, concrete product for

assessment, he abandoned the idea and pursued a new one.

A fourth potential outcome of creative thinking was a different method or way

of doing something. The resulting product need not be creative, only the method.

Creative methods were most commonly discussed in relation to science and

mathematics investigations, problem solving, and creative learning methods.

TuathaDuOrothrim described an investigation method example in Physics:


One was we had to test the terminal velocity of a sphere in a liquid,

what’s the maximum speed it can do in a liquid. … And a lot, at the

beginning we were all having trouble in measuring … the speed without,

um, affecting the speed. ... I said … if you were to put a string in, you

know, a fishing sinker and you were to, like, um, Playdough it all up so

it was held in there, then you could drop it, and if you were to cover the

end of the hole then it wouldn’t affect the terminal velocity because it’d

be smooth with the thing.


TuathaDuOrothrim developed his own creative method of doing something, namely,

a way of testing a concept in Physics class.

Other instances of creative methods described by the adolescents were their

creative methods of learning and studying, such as this example from DaVinci:

I try to find the best way to do what’s required of me, and a lot of the time,

that requires creative thinking. For example, I create acronyms and

memory tools to help me remember Biology notes, which is a very

content-focused subject. I think that’s creative thinking.


Participants tried creative methods to assist learning existing knowledge more

effectively. As with the creative method developed by TuathaDuOrothrim, DaVinci’s

individual study methods did not result in new ideas or products. Study techniques

were creative when the adolescents developed them independently, for example by

adapting known strategies (see also Section 5.2).

An outcome was defined as creative when it was novel and also appropriate to

the task or valuable in some way (Section 2.2.1). Whether or not an outcome

(product, performance, idea, or method) was creative, and to what extent, was

determined by either the adolescent as creator and/or other people. Ma’at’s

reflections on who determines whether something is creative provide a useful

comparison. In some cases, outcomes are creative only to the creator:


If creativity denotes originality, then is a piece of work that is new only to

the creator but not the beholder still creative? In my mind yes, it is creative

to the creator and perhaps not creative to the beholder. … If someone

produces a piece of work for themselves and are satisfied with it and its

creativity, why do they need the validation of others?

(Ma’at, WHS, DF)

This participant answered her own question about why creativity might need to be

validated by others, giving the example of creating for a particular audience or

market:

I suppose a person only “needs” other people to view their work as creative

if they have a target market, or are trying to sell it etc.

(Ma’at, WHS, DF)

In some cases, the adolescents created something unique to them, such as a new way

of learning. This level of creativity did not need to be validated by others. In other

cases, the outcomes were intended for a particular group of people in a relevant

context, and therefore needed to be creative to someone other than the creator. Ma’at

gave the example of a target market for a product being sold. At the adolescent level,

common target audiences were people in their schools, extracurricular activities, and

social contexts. The level of creativity achieved depended on the creator’s and/or the

audience’s judgments.

Products, performances, ideas, and methods: these were the four potential

outcomes of the participant adolescents’ creativity (for more examples of

participants’ outcomes, see Appendix L). Tangible creative products were the most

common type of outcome described by adolescents in this study. In the school

setting, products were the most identifiable and assessable. Performances were also

easily assessable; however, they were only perceptible at the specific time they were

performed. Adolescents who developed creative products or performances might be

more easily recognised for their creative ability, and therefore more likely to have

been nominated for this study. Creative ideas as outcomes came in two forms: ideas

that were the only expectation of the task, and ideas that could not be developed into

products or performances due to reasons such as insufficient ability or resources. In

the case of the latter, creative ideas had the potential to later result in creative

products given the right circumstances. In the school context, which focused mainly


on assessable learning, ideas were not commonly the required or recognised

outcomes of creativity. Creative methods were a fourth type outcome of creativity.

The adolescents’ creative ways of doing something did not necessarily result in

creative products or performances, nor were they necessary for a method to be

considered creative. Of the four, no one type of outcome was necessarily more

creative than another.

4.3.11 Evaluating

The final sub-process of creativity presented here is evaluating. Reflecting on

and evaluating the creative process and outcome occurred not only at the end; it

could be ongoing from start to finish. This section describes different aspects of their

work that the adolescents evaluated and how they made those evaluations.

Ultimately, the purpose of reflecting and evaluating was for the adolescents to

develop their best possible creative outcome:

Sometimes it only happens after I’ve worked on something for ages and I

realise it’s bad, and after I realise it’s bad is when I realise, “But it could be

awesome!”


The sentiment expressed by PatrickBateman was that realising one idea was “bad”

(e.g., uncreative, unachievable, impractical) could be viewed as a positive step

towards finding an idea that was “awesome” (e.g., creative, effective). Being able to

critically evaluate ideas assisted them to improve their creative process, and

subsequently their outcomes.

Examples of evaluation and reflection during the creative process included the

following from GLuck and UltraShiny:

Once in Grade 9, I went to an engineering challenge. … I was assigned a

hovercraft. So I had to build it and race the hovercraft. … I had to redo it

once. … I tested it and it didn’t seem right so I had to go back and

figure out what I did wrong and what was a better idea.

(GLuck, NHS, II) (emphasis added)


Well, with DT [Design Technology] we did this solar cooker investigation

where we had to kinda [sic] build a solar cooker from cardboard and alfoil.

… I drafted a few different ideas, seeing which was more practical with

the situation I was in, which was I didn’t really have a lot of access to

resources and I’m not exactly a metal worker or something like that, so um,

that kinda [sic] limited manufacturing process. … I think I went through

about four or five [ideas].

(UltraShiny, WHS, II) (emphasis added)

These adolescents highlighted two different aspects of evaluation. GLuck described

evaluating the quality of her product: she assessed why an idea did not work well so

that she could improve it. UltraShiny discussed evaluating ideas to determine which

one was most feasible and practical in his circumstances. Both types of evaluation

assisted the adolescents to create their best possible outcome in that context.

The preceding excerpts described when and why participants evaluated their

creative ideas. Another consideration is how they conducted evaluations. First,

consider some specific aspects of a creative work evaluation from GLuck’s

hovercraft example:

Like one of the things was the bottom was made out of, like, a rubbish

bag and you had to choose whether you wanted shiny or like, just like more

matte … And I went over and looked at the track we’d race it on and I

realised it’d go faster if it was shiny and it would slide better. ... I think it

was the holes in it where the air came out, I decided I had too many or

something. And like I tested it and it didn’t seem right so I had to go

back and figure out what I did wrong and what was a better idea.


GLuck described how her evaluation process in an engineering challenge involved

observing the environment (the hovercraft race track) and determining the best

materials to suit (shiny materials for speed). Her evaluation also involved testing,

revising, and retesting various ideas until she reached the desired outcome.

Consideration of the environment and testing of practical factors were common

elements for evaluations in domains such as technology and the sciences.


In domains such as the arts, some of the adolescents used a similarly practical

evaluation approach while others relied on more personal assessments. Kate’s

excerpt is representative of the former, and Orange’s is illustrative of the latter:

Researcher: Okay, so when you’re coming up with all these ideas,

how did you narrow down what would be the best one

to go with?

Kate: Well, that’s always hard, I guess. Um, I’m also pretty,

ah, I dunno [sic], logical about some things. Like

pragmatic, time, what fits best. … So, I guess,

creativity then pragmatic, practical.


Researcher: So, how do you choose… what you’re going to do …?

Orange: Um, I guess you’d call it intuition. Just go with

whatever you think would feel good. And sometimes

look good. Sometimes you go with what feels good.


Kate and Orange offer a useful comparison point. Although they both demonstrated

creativity in the arts, they evaluated their work in very different ways. Kate often

spoke of balancing her creative and pragmatic sides, and this balance was applied to

her evaluations. Orange, on the other hand, relied more on her intuition in terms of

what she thought felt or looked good. The adolescents used different methods of

evaluation, which varied depending on the task and domain, and their personalities

and priorities.

Earlier excerpts were participants’ descriptions of judging the quality or

feasibility of their ideas. A different type of evaluation, one that the adolescents said

they rarely did consciously, was evaluating the creativity of their ideas. When asked

to reflect on how they knew whether their outcomes were creative, three evaluation

approaches emerged. The first two employ self-evaluation, while the third relies on

external evaluation.


The first self-evaluation approach was where the adolescents compared

outcomes to their previous work:

Oh, a lot of the times I compare it to myself first, if it’s something different

and if it’s, yeah, if it’s a lot different to my old works I’m like, that’s pretty

creative of me.

(Incognito, WHS, II) (emphasis added)

The second self-evaluation approach involved comparing their own work to what is

considered the norm in one’s context, for example in comparison to peers’ work:

When they’re out of the norm. ... creativity is something different and if

you have, if your ideas are exactly the same as everyone around you,

you’re not being creative. … But if it’s like, even if it’s just a different

view on things, like different ideas, like even just something slightly

different or a different way of going about it.


The third approach emphasised the need for external evaluations from other people:

I probably take, um, recognition from other people as a source of that [his

creativity], because I guess I’ve got an idea in my own mind, my, my ideas

of whether it’s creative is just whether it is what I set out to do, like whether

it’s successful in my mind. And then, I guess, then it comes from other

people, whatever they say about it.


Although adolescents such as PatrickBateman might have also made a self-

evaluation like Incognito and GLuck, this evaluation needed to be confirmed by

other people. Throughout the study, evaluation of creativity was considered very

difficult by participants. However, these excerpts demonstrate ways in which the

adolescents attempted to judge the creativity of their work.

The position of evaluating at the end of this list of sub-processes is not

indicative of its lack of importance, nor does it signify that evaluation was

necessarily the final sub-process of creativity. As this section has shown, the

adolescents reflected on and evaluated their thinking and outcomes throughout the

creative process. They assessed the quality and feasibility of their ideas, relying on

practical factors and/or personal intuition to make these assessments. In terms of

evaluating the creativity of their work, participants relied on their self-evaluations


and/or external evaluations. Essentially, the adolescents evaluated their work to

perceive and pursue the best possible outcome of the creative process.

4.3.12 Conclusions about the Sub-Processes of Creativity

Section 4.3 described the range of actions the adolescents undertook when

being creative, which were categorised into 11 sub-processes: identifying a

need/want; imagining; brainstorming; planning; learning knowledge and skills;

assessing constraints; gathering materials; experimenting; achieving insight;

creating outcomes; and evaluating.

Although these sub-processes were listed sequentially, they did not necessarily

form part of a linear process. They were viewed as a complex network of interacting

strategies that the adolescents could use in any order, and any number of times:

PeterPan: I think it [the creative process] can happen in any

real order. And looking at some of the things, like I

see myself when I create something, I see myself

repeating a lot of these things [the sub-processes] in

different sections. … You need to figure out your

own order, I reckon. And what works best for you

…

DaVinci: Yeah, and the task.

…

Esmé: It can be any combination ‘cause [sic] there’s so

many types.


These sub-processes were relevant to all domains of adolescent creativity; however

the application, sequence, and frequency of sub-processes used during creativity

differed. Figure 4.1, presented earlier in this chapter, illustrated the multidimensional

relationships among sub-processes in the creative process. The adolescents could

start at any point, move between them in any order and skip sub-processes that were

not relevant. Sub-processes could occur concurrently (e.g., brainstorming while

gathering materials) or could build on each other (e.g., assessing constraints in order

to begin planning), with some sub-processes recurring many times throughout the

creative process (e.g., a repeated cycle of brainstorming, experimenting, and


evaluating). Therefore, it was not just the individual sub-processes that were

important, but also the interactive and iterative relationships among sub-processes.

4.4 Managing Constraints and Challenges

Creativity took time and commitment, and often involved various potential

obstacles. The adolescents needed ways of managing constraints, such as task

constraints, practical constraints, and personal constraints (Section 4.3.6), as well as

other challenges, such as having difficulty thinking of or manifesting creative ideas.

Circumventing these potential obstacles enabled the adolescents to navigate the sub-

processes of creativity, as illustrated in Figure 4.2.

Figure 4.2. Managing constraints and challenges within the sub-processes of adolescent creativity.

Participants reported that progress on a creative task occurred differently from

progress on a more logical or analytical task. DaVinci, a hardworking and highly

motivated adolescent, had learned this lesson:

I’m one of those people who if it doesn’t work the first time you need to try

harder, but I’ve learnt that that does not work in the development of ideas.

It’s something you can’t force.

(DaVinci, WHS, DF)


Creativity did not always happen easily. Unlike in many other academic tasks,

working harder was not always the solution to overcoming difficulties. The creative

process required the adolescents to tolerate ambiguity while ideas took shape. To

succeed, they needed to manage their emotions, such as frustration or

disappointment, during the difficult phases of the creative process (Section 4.4.1).

The adolescents identified a number of strategies for managing constraints and

challenges, including: allowing incubation (Section 4.4.2); verbalising ideas (Section

4.4.3); revising (Section 4.4.4); enhancing the context for creativity (Section 4.4.5);

and starting afresh (Section 4.4.6). When these strategies were ineffective,

discontinuing the creative process was another option (Section 4.4.7).

4.4.1 Managing Emotions

Creativity was not a purely cognitive process; it could also be an affective

experience. When the adolescents had difficulty during the creative process, there

was often an emotional element involved. Participants drew attention to a need to

manage their emotions and accept when ideas or actions were unsuccessful. When

they became personally attached to their ideas and upset with perceived failures,

sometimes the adolescents required a “grieving time” before trying other strategies to

manage constraints and challenges. These focus group and discussion forum excerpts

clarify the importance of this acceptance:

Suzuki: There’s a grieving time you have to have.

Group: Yes! (laughs)

Suzuki: … you have to have that stage where you have to let

go of those ideas, and then keep the essence of what

you wanted to do, but allow yourself to have it

differently.

DaVinci: Yeah, yeah.

PeterPan: It’s so hard to let go of ideas.


You need to remember to never hold on to an idea you like too tightly. ... if it

just doesn’t work within a context then you have to be able to let it go.



When ideas were not viable or their process was not effective, some participants

found it important to consciously accept this result and “let go”. It was important for

them to overcome emotional attachment or fixation on a particular idea or process in

order to progress to an achievable outcome. Inability to manage inhibiting emotions

had the potential to prevent adolescent creativity. The adolescents who were able to

disconnect their emotions from their ideas, or who demonstrated resilience when

faced with frustration or disappointment, were more likely to successfully continue

the creative process.

4.4.2 Allowing Incubation

When the adolescents perceived a problem or impasse, allowing time for

incubation was one of the most common strategies for dealing with challenges in the

creative process. Excerpts from participants supported the assertion that incubation

could be a useful way of overcoming difficulties:

I tend to leave my ideas once they have been “exhausted”, and then come

back to them when I feel fresh.

(GLaDOS, NHS, EC)

Sometimes I just leave it. You get to a point where you have worked

yourself up too much and are so stuck that you have to step back and look at

the bigger picture again. So I’ll leave it and come back to it later.

(Ma’at, NHS, DF)

I recently went through a huge block at the beginning of developing an idea

for my Theatre show and after a while. … I actually left it. Instead I went

off and focused on Maths or on Biology. … If it gets really bad and that

doesn’t even work I just try my best not to be disheartened and leave it again

for a longer period of time. Sometimes you just need time to take in before

you give anything back out.

(DaVinci, WHS, DF)

These adolescents’ accounts of incubation offer different points for consideration.

GLaDOS recognised when his ideas were “exhausted” and knew to allow time and

return to the task when he felt he had a “fresh” perspective. Ma’at explained that

incubation for her included not only having a break, but also being able to remove

herself from the details in order to see the “bigger picture”. DaVinci focused on other


work when she had a mental “block”. She added that this strategy did not always

work and, in such cases, it was important for her to allow herself a longer incubation

period and manage her emotions to avoid becoming disheartened. Unfortunately, a

long incubation period was not always possible when the adolescents were working

to meet deadlines, such as school assignment due dates. However, where possible,

participants claimed that incubation time benefited their creativity. Incubation

assisted them to achieve insight (Section 4.3.9). Sometimes this insight occurred

when they least expected it and were not even aware they were thinking about the

task.

4.4.3 Verbalising Ideas

Verbalising ideas by talking to others was also a useful strategy when the

adolescents got “stuck” during the creative process. Participants drew on their social

networks to help them overcome difficulties, including peers, teachers, and family

members. Ma’at explained how talking about ideas with her mother assisted her to

manage creative challenges in her writing:

I have this common problem when trying to write … that I have a vague

idea of what I want to say in my head, but when it comes to actually writing

it, I get stuck. … the most effective thing I find is brain storming [sic] out

loud. I usually go upstairs and bend my mother’s ear. … Sometimes I ask

her for advice (see [sic] is an editor) but I’m really just bouncing my

ideas off her. Mulling over them out in the open, usually helps me see

things more clearly and all the little aspects begin to settle into place.

(Ma’at, NHS, DF) (emphasis added)

Ma’at’s excerpt revealed the two main benefits of verbalising ideas: it encouraged

the adolescents to be explicit about their ideas and gain a clearer understanding,

whether or not they received feedback from others; and they could seek advice from

people who had relevant knowledge and skills. One or both types of verbalising ideas

could play an important role in helping the adolescents overcome difficulties in the

creative process.


4.4.4 Revising

It was rare for the adolescents to be creative effortlessly on the first attempt.

Generally, they made revisions as they worked. For example, AnOptimisticVole

spoke generally about recording and revising ideas, without the expectation of being

creative on the first try:

Normally, my approach to being creative that way is to put something

down even if it’s crap, and work off that, and then come back and keep

editing it and stuff. ‘Cause [sic] I find that works a lot better than trying

to get something good at the beginning, ‘cause [sic] it’s almost impossible.

Especially, um, if you have something that’s not too good going round in

your head it’s really hard to get rid of that, to think of something better. …

when I’m doing poems or whatever, you keep going back to it, write down

something, get something so that your mind’s sort of more clear. And

then just keep going back and proofing it.

(AnOptimisticVole, NHS, II) (emphasis added)

Revising was a part of the adolescents’ creative processes when wanting to improve

their work. In AnOptimsticVole’s creative tasks, particularly in creative writing and

poetry, she explained that her first efforts were rarely successful. However, she wrote

down any ideas she had to clear her mind and allow other ideas to surface, and

revisited and revised them several times. When the adolescents knew that creative

work did not need to be perfect the first time, revising became a natural way to

manage challenges they faced.

4.4.5 Enhancing the Context for Creativity

The context, comprised of interactions between the adolescents’ dispositions

and their environments, had a substantial influence on their creativity (see Chapter

6). When participants’ were aware of the context that best supported their creativity,

they could try to enhance their disposition or environment to assist them in

overcoming difficulties.

For example, UltraShiny recognised that persistence and a growth-oriented

perspective improved his creativity, so he focused on applying these dispositional

conditions:


Even if it is the worst thing in the world, it’s still a part of your development.

You’re working towards a goal and … you gotta [sic] keep working at it for

it to be good one day. So even if it’s bad now, it doesn’t mean it’s going to

be bad forever. If you keep working on it.

(UltraShiny WHS, FG2b)

Identifying aspects of their dispositions that assisted creativity meant that the

adolescents could enhance their context to overcome obstacles.

Many participants were also aware of how the environment affected their

creativity. TuathaDuOrothrim, for instance, realised that if always worked in the

same environment, he could become fixed on a particular “trend” in the way that he

thought:

Well personally I prefer not to work in the same environment all the

time. I like to, like most of the time I work in my room, but if ever I have a

day where I can study, like on the weekend, I’ll take what I need outside or, I

dunno [sic], do whatever it is to get in a new environment… I feel that it

helps me think differently. And, ah, I dunno [sic], I just don’t like to keep

a constant environment because that does, I find, leave you with one

way of thinking and it kind of puts you in … a trend when you want to

look at something differently.

(TuathaDuOrothrim NHS, II) (emphasis added)

Sometimes changing environments helped the adolescents develop new ideas or

ways of thinking, inspired them, or gave their imagination “food for thought”

(Suzuki, WHS, II). For other adolescents, following a routine or going to a particular

place triggered “getting into the zone” for creative thinking (DaVinci, WHS, DF; see

also Table 6.2). Therefore, being able to reflect on the optimal context for their

creativity enabled the adolescents to be proactive in enhancing their disposition and

environment to surmount perceived difficulties.

4.4.6 Starting Afresh

In some creative tasks, incubation, verbalising ideas, and revising were

unsuccessful. When the adolescents accepted that their ideas did not work, which

might require managing emotions (Section 4.4.1), they could start afresh. Another

requirement was the time and autonomy to begin again.


PatrickBateman described how he and his friend tried repeatedly revising a

website they designed for the friend’s photography portfolio; however further

evaluation of their work resulted in them starting again:

He [my friend] wanted a way to get his photography out that wasn’t just the

same as everyone else. … first we work out what we want it to do just

conceptually … And then just revising ... with the website at least because

it’s so, like, functional rather than just a design, we put it, we upload it

and we find all these problems, and we have to go back, and those kinds

of processes. … We rigged something up and then at the end of the year we

both liked it and we put it up. Then over the holidays, we looked back and

went, “Ohhh, there’s such better ways we could’ve done it”, and so now

we’re talking about redoing it. ... I don’t think we’re going to make

changes. I think we’re just going to start again, because … now we’re

looking back and we’re like, “Oooh, it’s not really fitting our, what we

really wanted to set out to do.”


Although they were initially satisfied with their revisions, PatrickBateman explained

that when they later evaluated the website, they realised it did not meet their original

goals. Therefore, instead of making further revisions, they decided it was better to

start afresh.

Starting afresh was rarely the first strategy participants applied when they had

difficulties in the creative process. It was usually invoked when other strategies, such

as allowing incubation, verbalising ideas, and revising, failed to assist in overcoming

constraints and challenges. However, when none of these management strategies

worked, sometimes the creative process came to an end, as the next section will show

(Section 4.4.7).

4.4.7 Discontinuing the Creative Process

The adolescents’ creative processes were not always successful. A final option

in these situations was deciding not to complete the task or even attempt a similar

new task. Discontinuing the creative process was not frequently reported, but

participants such as Suzuki admitted that occasionally it was the best option for

them:


I know there’s like, there’s a practicality as well with creative stuff. I

know that, um, like in a lot of the films or art work or whatever I’m doing,

um, if I imagine something and I go, “Oh, that’s awesome!” and then I don’t

plan, or I don’t research, then it just sort of dies and crumbles ‘cause I

didn’t do any of that. And then I’m like, “Meh! Not going to do it

anymore.”

(Suzuki, WHS, FG2a) (emphasis added)

This adolescent acknowledged that sometimes a project “dies” because of

practicality issues, or because of insufficient planning or research. Usually,

participants had tried various strategies for managing constraints and challenges and

still did not make any progress. If the task was a personal one and not required by

others, deciding to discontinue the creative process was sometimes the easiest or

most practical option for the adolescents. In formal educational tasks, for example

when the outcomes were for school assignments, the adolescents did not have this

option and had to use other strategies to overcome perceived impasses.

4.4.8 Summary of Managing Challenges and Constraints

The creative process was rarely a smooth and simple one. Therefore, the

adolescents drew on a range of strategies for managing constraints and challenges.

Sometimes they first needed to manage their emotions, such as frustration and

disappointment. Then, they could try one or more of the following four strategies –

allowing incubation, verbalising ideas, revising, and enhancing the context for

creativity – in order to continue the creative process. If none of these strategies

worked, the adolescents could try starting afresh, which sometimes provided a viable

solution to continue the creative process. In cases where overcoming difficulties

seemed insurmountable, the adolescents made the decision to discontinue the

creative process. This usually came after emotional acceptance that their creativity in

that task was unsuccessful. There were various possible sequences of events when

managing constraints and challenges in creativity, as illustrated in Figure 4.3.

Participants chose to utilise some or all of these management strategies for pursuing

a creative outcome depending on the task, nature of the difficulty, context, and what

worked best for them.


Figure 4.3. Possible strategy sequences for managing constraints and challenges in the creative process.

4.5 Effects of Creativity on Creators and Audiences

The creative process and outcomes were not independent of the creator or other

people in the relevant context. Section 4.5 will explore how successful and

unsuccessful creativity affected adolescent creators (Section 4.5.1) and creators’

potential intentions for affecting an audience when they shared their work (Section

4.5.2). The effects of creativity were influential at various stages during and after the

creative process. An audience is defined here as anyone who saw, heard, or

experienced a participant’s creative work.

4.5.1 Effects of Creativity on Creators

The creative process had two major effects on the adolescent creators: (a)

emotional effects; and (b) effects on their future creativity. Participating adolescents

were influenced by their own evaluations and feelings about the task, and by others’

reactions to their outcomes.


4.5.1.1 Emotional effects.

Adolescent creators’ actions throughout the creative process were interrelated

with the emotions they experienced. One emotional aspect of creativity was explored

in regards to managing constraints and challenges (Section 4.4.1). Another aspect

was the emotional effect of the overall creative experience.

PewPew from NHS and Suzuki from WHS described two potential emotional

effects of creativity; that is, positive and negative effects:

Researcher: How does it make you feel when you’ve done

something creative?

PewPew: Happy! ... because it’s something new, and I

haven’t done it before. And like with some

examples ... looking at it is like I’m never going to

be able to do this, but then I can do it. It makes me

happy.

(NHS, II) (emphasis added)

Um, if I’m making a film I generally have a lot of time where I come up

with an idea, I’m really happy with it, want to make it. Halfway through,

something goes wrong, and I get really, really, really depressed. And it’s

like real “PPHH!” (Suzuki made the sound and action of an explosion)

(Suzuki, WHS, II) (emphasis added)

A successful creative process was a positive experience for the adolescents. As

PewPew described, it was rewarding to achieve something difficult or new for them.

However, the creative process was not always a positive experience. Suzuki, an

adolescent who frequently described feelings of low creative self-efficacy, reported

mixed emotions: when the process was going well she was happy, but she became

very upset when things did not go according to plan. Other participants similarly

reported that sometimes there were negative emotions associated with not achieving

the creative outcomes they had anticipated.

The preceding examples described the emotional effects of the adolescents’

personal engagement in creativity. An additional source of emotional influence was

the response of other people. Not all of the adolescents were affected by others in

everything they did. When they were affected, as expected, positive feedback was


typically well received and critical feedback was difficult to deal with. However, at

other times the adolescents had different reactions:

Suzuki: One of the worst positions I always find myself in is

when I make something and I hate what I make,

but everyone else likes it.

Group: Yeah!

PatrickBateman: Oh, I hate that! Like my machinima.

Suzuki: Like that film I made with the animation,

everyone’s like, “Oh my god! It’s amazing!” That

was the film that failed.

CandleJack: And that’s what they remember and it defines you.

DaVinci: Yeah. And then you’re like, but I don’t think I

deserve it.


Suzuki and her peers agreed that it was not always enough for others to like their

work; sometimes it was more important to them that they, as creators, were satisfied

with it. Some participants claimed that they were unhappy when others liked work

they as the creators disliked. Reasons for this unhappiness were that the adolescents:

did not want the work they thought had “failed” to define them, even if it was liked

by others; or felt they did not deserve the praise.

Although critical feedback was sometimes difficult to accept, this next focus

group excerpt introduces an alternative view of critical feedback:

PeterPan: As an actor, um, you’re always getting people who are

saying you’re horrible and saying you’re a bad actor

and you’ve got people saying you’re nice and good.

So you need to kind of separate yourself from the

work you create.

DaVinci: What’s the quote from, “Love the art in yourself,

don’t love the artist in yourself.”

PeterPan: That’s right, yeah. Because … I don’t like any

medium sort of response, like “It’s okay.” And

sometimes I don’t even like good response, I only

want to look at things that I can work on. … you

just get thicker skin and, um, you know in what

areas your work needs to improve…


PatrickBateman: Like when you mess up and no one bothers to tell

you about it, that’s when you’ve really failed.


These adolescents highlighted the importance and acceptance of some critical

feedback. When the adolescents perceived criticism as feedback on the creation and

not on them as creators, they used negative reactions to improve their creativity.

PeterPan said that, since developing a “thicker skin” to accept criticism, sometimes

he intentionally sought critical feedback in order to grow. PatrickBateman added, and

others agreed, that critical feedback was sometimes better than no feedback because

at least people cared enough to share their thoughts with the adolescents. Therefore,

criticism did not always have a negative effect on the adolescents’ emotions;

sometimes creators framed it positively as a challenge or goal, or someone showing

interest in their work.

Further exploration of participants’ emotional reactions revealed important

distinctions about the effects of feedback being dependent on the person offering

those comments. First, consider this discussion at WHS, which commenced with

CandleJack’s comment about whose feedback he valued:

There are some people’s comments that I do take into consideration and

some people that I don’t. And the people that I do are usually fellow

musicians whose creative stuff that I respect myself. Um, so in that way,

if someone whose passion was music said, “This is good” I would, that

would make me feel a lot better than if regular person, staple human

said, “Oh, I like it.” ‘Cause, I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but in, at the

end of the day, that second one sort of means nothing to me personally.

(CandleJack, WHS, FG2a) (emphasis added)

When other focus group members were asked whether or not they agreed that some

people’s opinions affected them more or was worth more than others, they initially

concurred and then some participants reflected that they valued different aspects of

people’s feedback:


I think actually for me, it’s not that … I value one more, it’s just that I

value different things. So if … someone is … educated in what I’m

doing, if they say it’s good … I would ask them for specific feedback and

what made it good because they’d be able to analyse and evaluate why it

was good… Whereas someone who, I’m just thinking of the Theatre

show right now, who went in and just thought it was amazing or they

thought, they felt something, ‘cause [sic] for me in the Theatre show … the

physical reaction is just as important and who says that their instinct, their

physical reaction is any less valued than someone educated.

(DaVinci, WHS, FG2a) (emphasis added)

Esmé, PeterPan, and Suzuki agreed with DaVinci. Although most participants had

initially agreed with CandleJack, DaVinci amended her view to say that she valued

different things in people’s opinions. Like CandleJack, she valued the technical

feedback of those knowledgeable in the domain, but she equally valued everyone’s

affective feedback about her work. These views appeared to reflect the opinions of

most participants.

Next, consider how opinions of those close to the creator (e.g., family, friends)

could be valued differently from opinions of other audiences:

Researcher: What about the band you’re in with CandleJack and

PatrickBateman. … Have you performed for anyone?

UltraShiny: We’ve performed twice. Yeah, um, generally they’ve

been really terrible … But the second time we played

was a lot better than the first time. … often people in

the audience were our friends, it was hard to get a

really non-biased reaction. You know, they felt,

they might have felt it was appropriate to say,

“You guys did really well” when we might not

have. So, I s’pose [sic] the people that have vested

interests in you aren’t really-

Orange: Honest.

UltraShiny: Yeah.

(WHS, FG2b) (emphasis added)

This conversation focused on creators’ relationships with the people giving feedback,

rather than their knowledge or skill. Some of the participants assumed that friends

and family were biased in their reactions and likely to give positive feedback,


regardless of their “honest” opinions. Therefore, these adolescents were less likely to

believe compliments from those with whom they had close relationships.

Participants reported predominantly positive feelings during and after the

creative process, unless they had significant difficulties or were unsatisfied with the

final outcomes. Their emotions were also affected by other people’s reactions to their

work, but the creator and audience did not always have analogous feelings. The

emotional effects of external feedback on the adolescents’ creativity depended not

only on how creators felt about their work, but also on the knowledge and skill of

people offering their opinions, and their relationships to the creators. The adolescents

were sometimes more likely to accept and value the feedback of those who were not

too close to them and who had expertise in the relevant domain. This latter criterion

(expertise) did not necessarily apply to non-technical feedback; anyone’s affective

response was usually appreciated. In most cases, however, the effects of others’

opinions differed depending on who offered the feedback. This section has shown

that in addition to being a cognitive process, creativity was often an emotional

experience.

4.5.1.2 Effects on future creativity.

The adolescents’ creative processes and outcomes also affected their future

creativity. As was previously discussed, future creativity could be influenced by

educated audience feedback. However, the most commonly reported factors

influencing subsequent creativity came from creators themselves. Future creativity

was affected by the themes and perceived success or failure of previous work.

Previous creative experiences affected the adolescents’ future creativity in

different ways. Sometimes they wanted to try new things, as discussed by PeterPan:

When I create something, if I go to create something else, I’ll try and make

sure it’s as far different from what I did before, just because I wanted to try

something completely new. … I try to make something different. So what

I’ve done in the past affects that.

(PeterPan, WHS, FG2a)


Other times the adolescents continued similar types of work on one theme:

I have stages and they’re long, like it’s over a couple of years or a year,

where everything I create it all interlinks because it’s over this one idea.

And sometimes it’s not conscious, because I realise in assignments,

especially in the Theatre ones, where I create, when I create a play or if I

think about something, it’s always revolved around one central idea, one

abstract, general view. And I find that when I work on it through the

process every new thing, it evolves, it evolves. And then sometimes I’ll

just be, “I’m over it” or I’ll, like, watch another, I’ll watch a film or I’ll

find out something new or read a book, and then I’m like, “Ahhh” and then

I’ll become obsessed with that different idea.

(DaVinci, WHS, FG2a) (emphasis added)

PeterPan is an example of adolescents who wanted their new work to be substantially

different from earlier work, so that they could try new things. This view was

common among participants when they prioritised their creative development. In

contrast, DaVinci was typical of the adolescents who recognised that much of their

creative work during a particular time became interrelated. For example, the ideas

evolved over time but the work might be based on a similar theme or view. After a

certain period, when their ideas were exhausted or no longer interested the

adolescents, they moved onto something different. This attitude was typical when

participants were intensely passionate about a particular topic, or when they chose to

prioritise achievement and used previous ideas or methods that had been successful.

These contrasting examples illustrate how the ideas or themes of one creative task

affected the ideas used in future creativity.

The adolescents’ perceived success or failure of a previous task also affected

their creativity in future tasks. Orange and UltraShiny said they wanted to improve

on most tasks, even those that had gone well:

Researcher: When it works … or when it doesn’t … how does

that affect what you do in the future? How does it

affect future creativity, if it does at all?

Orange: Either way it makes me want to do better.

Researcher: Mhm. So if you do well, you still want to improve?

Orange: Yeah, and if I do badly, I want to improve doubly

as hard.


Researcher: So you’re not discouraged?

Orange: No.

UltraShiny: And it’s all important, even if it is the worst thing in

the world, it’s still a part of your development.

You’re working towards a goal and that’s gotta [sic]

be, you gotta [sic] keep working at it for it to be good

one day. So even if it’s bad now, it doesn’t mean it’s

going to be bad forever. If you keep working on it.


When asked whether they wanted to repeat tasks or themes when they had been

satisfied with the outcome, these two adolescents replied that this was not always the

case:

Orange: Um, I generally wanna [sic] try something new.

UltraShiny: I mean, if you do make something that you’re happy

with it, you can get worried about trying to make

something else that’s similar, but stuffing it up.

‘Cause [sic] it won’t, if you’re forcing yourself to do

something, it won’t be as spontaneous or as fun as

one where you’re not forcing yourself to make

something that way.


This conversation with Orange and UltraShiny encapsulates the attitude of those

adolescents who, like PeterPan in the earlier extract, wanted to continually improve,

whether previous creative tasks were successful or not. Some participants were

especially motivated to revise and improve work when outcomes were not

successful. Their reasoning was that failures were a part of the learning and creative

process, and they could improve with effort. This view might have prevented the

adolescents’ mistakes and failures from damaging their creative self-efficacy. Often

when the adolescents did succeed, they reported not wanting to do anything similar

because they wanted to try new things, or were concerned that a repeated attempt in

the same vein would not be as successful or enjoyable. Overall, the desire to grow

and improve was a dominating theme that emerged. A willingness to accept failures,

and use past creativity to shape future creative growth, was an important element of

the adolescents developing their creative capacity. Participants reflected that the


desire to continually improve had become stronger due to the culture of their

selective schools.

Previous creative processes or outcomes had a potential impact on subsequent

creativity. The ideas the adolescents used in the past could be a source of inspiration

for ensuing tasks, or could motivate them to seek and pursue new ideas and tasks.

How successful or unsuccessful the adolescents perceived their creative work to be

also influenced what they did in the future. Connections between their past and

future work were another indicator that creativity was not a linear process that

concluded with a creative outcome or evaluation.

4.5.2 Creators’ Intentions for Affecting Audiences

Adolescent creativity also had the potential to affect its audience, which could

in turn affect the creator. Some participants had specific intentions about how they

wanted other people to react; some had less explicit aims. In a few cases, the

adolescents did not have any conscious intention for their audience, or did not share

their work with other people. Three main intended effects of the adolescents who

shared their creative outcomes emerged: affecting others to receive a reaction;

affecting others to receive recognition; and affecting others to make a contribution.

4.5.2.1 Affecting an audience to receive a reaction.

Even when the adolescents did not have a specific intention for an audience,

they usually enjoyed sharing their creative outcomes with others. The purpose of

sharing was generally to prompt and witness audiences’ reactions.

AnOptimisticVole enjoyed sharing her creative poetry because she liked to see

how other people reacted and especially liked to see people laugh:

I normally, do them [poems] because I’ll enjoy other people’s reactions.

Like, I can think that, I think this will make other people laugh. … normally,

um, I’m kinda [sic] proud that I can do it. … but if I finish something and

there’s no one around I always feel disappointed.

(AnOptimisticVole, NHS, II)

For PeterPan, receiving a reaction, whether positive or negative, was the main reason

he liked to share his creative work:


We had a film showing of German Expressionism, no a film night. … And it

[his film] was being projected out onto one of the walls and stuff, and people

would walk by and they’d look at it, and they’d have these expressions

on their faces, like, “What is this?” And then you’d have some people

who’d sit there captivated … if someone watches it and says, “Oh, that’s

weird. I don’t like it” then that’s okay. I see that as a response. I’d

rather them not like what I make rather than walk away lukewarm

about it.


Some participants only shared work they thought would receive a positive reaction.

For other participants, any reaction, even a negative one, was preferable to

indifference. Not having an audience from whom to receive a reaction, as was

pointed out by AnOptimisticVole, could be “disappointing”. Receiving reactions

from an audience gave many of the adolescents a purpose for their creativity and

increased their enjoyment.

4.5.2.2 Affecting an audience to receive recognition.

Another reason some participants wanted to share outcomes and see or hear

how their creativity affected audiences was to receive recognition for the quality or

creativity of their work. The adolescents often used other people’s feedback to gauge

whether or not their work was creative:

Researcher: How do you know whether your ideas are creative or

not?

Ma’at: Um, I think it’s when someone else, um, well, not tells

you, but like, they’re like, “Oh, I didn’t think of

that”, or when someone else, you know, appreciates

it. … Because I mean for me, I may do something and

I may think it’s perfectly normal, and then

someone’s like, “That, that’s new” or “That’s

strange”. And then you’re like maybe that was,

you know, kind of creative.


Many participants found it difficult to accurately assess their own creativity, and

therefore relied on recognition from others (see also Section 4.3.11). For example,

Ma’at said she often did not realise her ideas were unique until others commented on


them. Audience recognition was a useful source of information about the level of

quality or creativity demonstrated in a particular task, and therefore potentially

influenced their creative self-efficacy and future creativity.

4.5.2.3 Affecting an audience to make a contribution.

A less commonly reported intended effect for the adolescents was to use their

creativity to make a contribution and “give” something to an audience. For example,

DaVinci liked to offer people a new perspective, and Orange saw her role as creator

as providing a particular experience:

A lot of the time it’s [being creative is] because I want to show people a

different way. Um, and I want to kind of open people’s views. … a lot of the

things I do is [sic] always because, to somehow educate a person.

(DaVinci, WHS, II)

Ultimately the purpose of theatre is to affect your audience. It’s not

theatre if you don’t take that into consideration. Um, that probably affected

my art too … so the person has to be able to see into it and get from the

character something, that they have to get something from it. I mean, yeah

… I like to give things when I can.


Sometimes when the adolescents were creative, they engaged in the task for

themselves and their own interests. Other times the adolescents also created for the

benefit of an audience. DaVinci and Orange highlighted examples of more selfless

reasons for being creative, such as wanting to share a different perspective and

educate, or wanting to provide a meaningful experience for an audience. A desire to

use creativity to affect or benefit others demonstrated that some participants had an

awareness of the potential for their creativity to make a positive contribution to other

people.

4.5.3 Summary of the Effects of Creativity on Creators and Audiences

The creative process did not conclude with a creative outcome or its

evaluation. An important aspect of the creative process was how creativity

potentially affected the adolescents as creators, as well as how creators intended their

creativity to affect the audiences of that work. What the adolescents created and their

audiences’ responses affected them emotionally and also influenced what they


created in the future. The strength of impact of other people’s feedback depended on

who the audience was, including their relationship to the creator and their knowledge

of the domain. In regards to how the adolescents hoped to affect others using their

creativity, often the reasons were largely self-serving: they enjoyed seeing others

react to their creative outcome in some way, or they relied on others to recognise the

quality or creativity of their work. A few participants also demonstrated a more

community-oriented focus of using their creativity to make a contribution to others

(see also Section 9.7).

The main source of excerpts in this section was from participants at WHS (the

arts school), who displayed a greater emphasis on the effects of creativity. A possible

reason for this finding is that the arts often entailed: (a) outcomes designed to be

seen, heard or experienced by an audience, often with broad audiences outside the

school context; and (b) a personal and emotional connection between the creator and

the process/outcome. There were few examples from participants at NHS (the

science, mathematics and technology school) about the emotional effects of their

creativity and it was not reported as a major focus for them. This might have been

due to the finding that participants’ science, mathematics and technology outcomes

were not usually shared with as broad an audience as arts outcomes.

Figure 4.4 illustrates the potential relationships among the effects of creativity

on the creator and the audience. Emotions related to creativity affected the creator,

which could also affect future creativity. Creators’ intended effects of their creativity

on the audience also had a potential subsequent effect on the creators, their emotions,

and their future creativity. Recognition of the effects of the creative process and

outcome on the creator and audience was important for a comprehensive

understanding of the adolescent experience of creativity.


Figure 4.4. Potential effects of creativity on creators and intended effects on audiences.

4.6 Chapter 4 Conclusion

This chapter presented results that emerged about the adolescent creative

process. It outlined the sub-processes of creativity, how the adolescents managed

constraints and challenges, and the effects of creativity on creators and their intended

effects on audiences. There are two points of particular note. First, creativity was not

linear and use of the sub-processes, management of constraints and challenges, and

the potential effects of creativity varied depending on the individual, task, domain,

and environment. Second, although manifested differently, this process was

applicable to creativity in any domain. Together these three components – sub-

processes, management strategies, and effects – explained the creative process as

experienced by the participating adolescents. The next chapter will discuss four

different approaches the adolescents used to engage in the creative process.


Chapter 5 Adolescents’ Approaches to Creativity

5.1 Introduction

The adolescent creative process was presented in Chapter 4. Chapter 5

describes four approaches to engaging in the creative process utilised by the

adolescents; that is, how they applied the process described in Chapter 4 to create

outcomes. These four approaches have been categorised as: (a) adaptation (Section

5.2); (b) transfer (Section 5.3); (c) synthesis (Section 5.4); and (d) genesis (Section

5.5). This chapter explicates each approach, provides excerpts illustrating their

different properties and dimensions, and concludes with a visual illustration of how

the approaches relate to the creative process (Section 5.6). Alongside Chapter 4, this

chapter’s findings contribute to answering research sub-question 1: What is the

adolescent creative process?

5.2 Adaptation

This study revealed that one way of achieving adolescent creativity was by

adapting existing ideas within a particular domain in which an individual was

working (e.g., visual art, mathematics). By modifying existing work, the adolescents

created something new in the same domain, an approach to creativity categorised in

this study as adaptation. This section will present participants’ descriptions of

adaptation as an approach to creativity, and illustrate the approach using participant

examples.

When discussing their conceptions of creativity in the focus groups, many

participants made reference to creativity that involved adapting something that

already existed:

Take old things and make them into something new …

(Suzuki, WHS, FG1a)

Variation of … deviation from something.

(UltraShiny, WHS, FG1b)


Manipulation, rearrangement …


Varying, manipulating or rearranging existing ideas can all be referred to as

adaptation.

When the adolescents used an adaptation approach to creativity, they took

inspiration from an existing work and changed it to make it their own. For example,

Esmé was working on a visual art work based on Barbie dolls and adapted an idea by

another artist:

I’m portraying … perfection. … I had already known about one artist

who worked with Barbies, um, Chris Jordan. … he does, like, this massive

digital works like, um, down to the pixel it could be an image of something

and he repeats, and so in this sense it was 36 000 [sic] Barbie dolls and they

were all, like, in circles with feet to head outwards and it made a circle. And

he portrayed, um, a woman’s belly button to chest, and it was 36 000

[sic] breast augmentations that are done in a month in the US. So, that

was like a statistic. … I didn’t use a solid statistic, I just did a minority,

a majority and then an individual. So things like that, that’s where you

get inspiration from. Instead of copying you just change it to suit what

you’re doing. Without taking exactly what they do, you just take a little

part.


Esmé was inspired by an established artist’s social statement using Barbie dolls, and

chose to adapt the artist’s concept to represent the issue of perfection in her own art.

She perceived that her creativity was a result of taking a part of another person’s idea

and changing it for her own purposes, creating something that was different from the

original creator’s work.

Adaptation was also evidenced by the adolescents adapting existing methods of

doing something. In some cases, this adaptation involved adjusting a way of doing

something in their personal lives, such as daily resourcefulness (e.g., cleaning

methods, different ways of doing typically routine tasks); however, the most

common examples were participants’ reports of creative learning or studying:


At school when I learn, I kind of, instead of just listening, I kind of process

what I’m learning in my head first and then I figure out ways of

remembering it better. Like, there’s this thing in Biology that how a

muscle contracts, and there’s all these big words and I decided I didn’t want

to remember the big words. So I turned it into, like, a party scene. And,

like, calcium comes up to triphosphate, which is like the bouncer …

(Hippopotamus, NHS, II) (emphasis added)

In this excerpt, an adolescent utilised a known memory tool – story mnemonics – and

adapted it to learn something in the best way for her. Personal creative learning or

studying was an example of adaptation when the adolescents were not given a

completed mnemonic or strategy to use; rather, they modified a learning tool to suit

their needs. Participants’ methods of learning the content were creative, even when

the content they learned was not new.

This section explained adaptation, an approach to creativity that involved the

adolescents adapting an existing outcome to develop something new in the same

domain. Adaptation was one of the most common approaches to creativity described

by participants at both schools.

5.3 Transfer

When the adolescents applied existing ideas from one task or domain to

another, it resulted in an approach to creativity categorised here as transfer. This

section will describe transfer as an approach to creativity, and provide examples of

how it could occur between similar or dissimilar tasks/domains.

Transfer occurred between two different tasks or domains, and was described

as the following:

PatrickBateman: Apply things … in an unexpected or divergent manner

…

Suzuki: I’d say that creativity could be said to be … a new

application of old techniques or methods to make new

things or new perspectives.

(WHS, FG1a)

As summarised by PatrickBateman and Suzuki, some creativity was the result of a

new application of an existing product, performance, idea, or method. It required the


adolescents to make remote associations between two different tasks or domains.

Creative transfer was demonstrated in the creative process or the resulting creative

outcome.

Often the transfer approach was between related domains. For example,

JeremiahGonzalez used messages from a prayer book to apply to writing song lyrics:

My sister, she is, she’s like a singer and guitarist. So she’s wrote [sic] an

album, and I wrote one of the songs for it. … I had like, she wanted it to

be about, ‘cause [sic] it’s kinda [sic] like a religious album … I had this

[prayer] book idea, and I kinda [sic] worked off that. … I had it in front

of me, like the book and stuff, and I was just kinda[sic] looking at it and

finding stuff about what people do when they read it, so through that

was the way it was, how it makes you feel, yeah.

(JeremiahGonzalez, NHS, II) (emphasis added)

Rather than copy a prayer and set it to music, JeremiahGonzalez wrote his own

lyrics. His lyrics reflected messages from the prayer book, as well as how the book

might affect what people do and how they feel. The adolescent recognised that this

type of transfer – from written prayers to music lyrics – is commonly found in

religion. As two forms of written text, the application was between similar domains.

Other cases of the transfer approach occurred between tasks or domains that

were less similar. CandleJack provided examples of how he and PatrickBateman

applied their personal interests to a Mathematics assignment:

We’re all doing Maths Internal Assessments … basically we have to choose

our own topic and write a, pretty much a report on that given field so long as

it’s related to the curriculum of what we do in Maths studies. … And

PatrickBateman … did his on the mathematics behind the game

Asteroids, because he’s really interested in, you know, game physics

[transfer from video games to mathematics]. ... I did mine testing to see if

there’s a mathematical correlation between a specific song in a Beatles

album and how many instruments can be heard on a track [transfer from

music to mathematics]. And I suppose they work in what they call symbiosis

‘cause [sic], um, you know, that then actually gives me motivation to meet

criteria, to make it something that I can, I s’pose [sic] they say be proud

of… I think that’s the key, always having something that sparks your


interest and motivates you to meet whatever, whatever it is that comes

from the outside [reasons for transfer creativity].

(CandleJack, WHS, II) (emphasis added)

CandleJack’s excerpts draw attention to two main points. First, he provided two

different examples of transfer: CandleJack applied his passion for music to his

Mathematics assignment, and his peer, PatrickBateman, applied his interest in video

games. These examples of transfer required the adolescents to go beyond the bounds

of what they studied in class to think about how their personal interests could be

related and transferred to the domain of mathematics. Second, CandleJack provided a

justification for why this was a beneficial approach to creativity: it was motivating to

apply a passion area (e.g., music) to tasks that were less interesting to him (e.g., a

Mathematics school assignment). By drawing on interests in one task or domain and

applying it to a seemingly unrelated one, transfer potentially promoted not only

creativity but also intrinsic motivation.

This section outlined transfer as an approach to creativity where the

adolescents applied existing outcomes to a new task or domain. This task or domain

was different from where and how an individual previously learned or experienced

the original product, performance, idea, or method. Transfer required the adolescents

to make unusual associations between different ideas and domains. In some cases,

the transfer of outcomes occurred between related areas; in other cases, the transfer

was between less similar tasks or domains. Participants applying their interests and

knowledge from one domain to another could be very motivating. However, transfer

was the least common approach to creativity reported by adolescents in this study.

5.4 Synthesis

A third adolescent approach to creativity was synthesis. For synthesis, the

adolescents combined two or more existing ideas, either from the same or different

domains, and this combination resulted in something new. This section will explain

the synthesis approach to creativity, and provide examples of synthesis within one

domain and from various domains.


The adolescents discussed the idea of synthesis as an approach to creativity when

using terms such as “combine”, “mix”, or these examples from CandleJack and

OllieDenverGreen:

Conglomeration of accumulated ideas …


The idea of fusing them [ideas] altogether into one set.

(OllieDenverGreen, NHS, FG1b)

Unlike adaptation and transfer, where one thing was adapted or transferred to create

something new, synthesis involved associating two or more existing outcomes, and

combining them in a novel way.

Most adolescent examples of synthesis referred to integrating ideas within a

single domain. For instance, Suzuki combined the techniques of German

Expressionism and animation to produce a creative film for her IB assessment:

We did German Expressionism. … I ended up, um, making animation to go

with it. ... I was just happy that it, it still looked German Expressionism in

the medium that I used, in animation.

(Suzuki, WHS, II)

In this case, the participant synthesised two types of film techniques. Her creative

product was a combination of the genre of German Expressionism within the

medium of animation. Suzuki won an award from a local multimedia company for

her film. It illustrates a type of synthesis that can occur within a domain.

Synthesis also occurred when the adolescents connected existing ideas from

two or more different domains. GLuck described an example of how her team

combined ideas from a range of areas to develop a creative response to the Language

Literature Challenge for Opti-MINDS, a creative problem-solving competition3.

Their task was to create a picture book and present it at a hypothetical book launch:

3 Opti-MINDS is a team, creative problem-solving competition. There are three categories of challenges: Language Literature; Science Engineering; and Social Sciences. One component of the competition is the Long Term Challenge, where adolescents have up to six weeks to prepare a response. (The Opti-MINDS Challenge, 2008)


In Opti-MINDS we were coming up with a theme. … everyone was

doing fairytales and twists on fairytales. I didn’t like that, I think it’s just

like stealing someone else’s idea and changing the characters’ names. And

we were doing the environment and, like, environmental impact. … and

so instead I picked a how to play chess book as the basis, and then all my

characters were chess pieces. … So it’s, like, how to play chess and, but

the queen was like a water waster and yeah. And like, the judges said like,

no one else has done, like, a “how to” book. They’ve all stuck with Alice

in Wonderland and Alice is an environmental crusader. And they said, yeah,

so we did really well on that.


These adolescents’ creative performance demonstrated a synthesis of three areas –

chess, environmental issues, and children’s literature – by using chess pieces and

rules as the basis of a hypothetical children’s picture book about human impact on

the environment. The judges of the competition recognised the adolescents’

originality in using a non-fiction book as the foundation instead of fictional literature.

Creativity resulted from synthesising ideas from domains that did not have obvious

connections.

Adolescent synthesis was a creative combination of existing ideas from one or

more domains. This approach entailed associative thinking by the adolescents who

were able to perceive relationships between ideas that might seem, to others, to be

only remotely or subtly connected. Participants who used this approach either

consciously synthesised existing ideas or could, on reflection, identify that they had

unconsciously merged various existing outcomes they had learned or experienced.

Synthesis, along with adaptation, was one of the most common approaches to

creativity described by adolescents in this study.

5.5 Genesis

Genesis was an adolescent approach to creativity that encompassed outcomes

that were, to the best of the creators’ knowledge, significantly different from existing

work to which they had been exposed. These were the types of outcomes that the

adolescents perceived demonstrated their greatest originality. This section will

illustrate how the adolescents conceptualised the term, originality, in relation to

genesis, and present different examples of adolescent creativity using this approach.


Although originality could be said to be part of all creativity, originality in this

context had a distinct meaning. As an approach to creativity, genesis describes

creativity based on an aggregate of ideas and experiences. This differed from

synthesis because the origin of the ideas was not apparent or identifiable, even on

reflection after the outcome was produced. Excerpts from interviews with

CandleJack and PeterPan encapsulated the notion that people are always being

influenced by things they have been exposed to, but are still able to create something

that is the creator’s original idea:

You know, my stance is that you will never, ever, ever make something

that’s 100% original. ... it’s impossible to create something that isn’t

influenced by culture. … your brain, is never empty. I don’t think you

ever truly start from zero and go, “Let’s be creative.” … I’m not saying that

creativity doesn’t exist. Of course it does exist. … So, you can say, yes this

is creative because it’s nothing like anything I’ve personally ever seen

before.


What, what one of my teachers says is, “You can never really have an

original idea, and even though you’ve thought of it on your own and you

know that you have, someone else has thought of it before you.” So, um, I

suppose, yes, everything I’ve seen in life and everything. … So, yes, it’s,

what you create is influenced by, by what you see and what you learn,

and where, where you’re at with knowledge, but some, some of your

ideas that you can come up with can be on your own.


CandleJack acknowledged that all ideas are based on something that already exists

and are influenced by the culture in which the creator works. However, the

adolescents were able to be creative when they used their unique perspective and

when the outcome was different to anything they had experienced, as far as they

were aware. Similarly, PeterPan justified original work as ideas creators developed

on their own, even though these were influenced in some way by the variety of

things they had seen and learned (and had possibly been created by someone else,

without the creator knowing). These two excerpts portray how originality was


conceptualised by participants, with the recognition that no ideas are entirely

original.

This type of originality was demonstrated in the approach of genesis, and was

found predominately within the arts domains. In music, CandleJack described how

he developed original compositions, and how this music differed from work that used

other approaches or was not creative at all:

CandleJack: Well, let’s say for example I’m writing a piece of

music for the band [that he plays in with friends]. Um,

usually the, the idea will, at its absolute beginning,

it will sprout from an accident. You know, because

when I play the piano, half the time I’m just

improvising. … And if I come across something

that’s, that’s, you know, it’s a cool idea, um, you

know, I’ll keep that. … Other times it’ll start from

theoretical experimentation. …

Researcher: Does a tune ever just kind of pop into your head …?

CandleJack: No, because whenever that happens, I’ll think it’s

really great for about a week, and then I’ll hear the

song that I plagiarised it from. (laughs) … And

sometimes I don’t realise it until I’ve actually

composed a bit more of it that, you know, hey, I’m

ripping this off [unoriginal work]. ... Um, so usually

the song that I write will start with a subtlety and

you may not even hear the original idea in the

finished product [original work]. And that’s how it

sort of arises, I think.


CandleJack outlined one strategy for producing original compositions that could be

categorised as genesis. This involved perceiving the potential of his improvisations

and experimentations as stimuli for a song. By reflecting on his work, the adolescent

could differentiate between his original music and other music he realised was

similar to existing songs.

Another form of genesis was when the adolescents expressed themselves in a

unique way. Expressing individuality could be inherently original because it


originated from within the individual and not from external stimuli. An example of

genesis through individual expression presented here is from Incognito. For a school

Visual Art assignment, students were given autonomy to create any art work of their

choice, as long as it related to the topic of possession of a place. Incognito chose to

focus on her personal feelings of possession of locations in her homes in Taiwan

(where she was born) and Australia (where she currently lived). She composed an

image combining two landscapes: the rooftop of her Taiwanese home, and the wine

cellar in her previous Australian home. This was created using digitally manipulated

photographs and other digital art techniques. She described how she used this art

work to express her feelings:

The wine cellar [in Australia] was where my sister and I used to escape

to, from the noises of a big family. The roof in Taiwan was part of our

house … and it felt detached from the world. When I went back to Taiwan

again, very recently, I was curious to what the roof looked like. … It looked

abandoned and had absolutely been forgotten by the rest of the family, and I

felt a special connection to it. When my sister and I were in the cellar,

our imagination was unlimited … and we felt we could travel anywhere

from our imagination. … this piece is named “nostalgia” due to the feeling

of previously having possessed theses [sic] lands, and the sadness that these

places have been abandoned and forgotten now.

(Incognito, WHS, EC) (emphasis added)

Through this art work, Incognito found a way to express her feelings about the two

places and cultures in which she had lived. Incognito said that the work was inspired

by a variety of memories and experiences and that all the ideas were hers, rather than

being a modification of a particular existing idea or image. Therefore, this product

can be classed as an example of genesis.

Some adolescent creativity does not appear to be based on particular existing

work; rather, an aggregate of various experiences and thoughts influences the

generation of something particularly original. This approach to adolescent creativity

is categorised in this study as genesis. Although acknowledging that no idea is

entirely original, creativity using this approach was significantly different from

existing work the creators knew, to the best of their knowledge. Most genesis

examples in this study were found in the arts domains. This finding might be

because, in many cases, genesis resulted from a self-expression of individuality and


emotions that came from within, not from external stimuli (see also Section 7.2).

Genesis, unlike adaptation, transfer, and synthesis, was not based on modifying,

transferring, or combining specific existing work.

5.6 Conclusion

Four different adolescent approaches to creativity emerged from this study.

These have been categorised as adaptation, transfer, synthesis, and genesis.

Adaptation involved modifying existing ideas within a domain to make something

new. Transfer was the practice of associating and applying ideas from one

task/domain to a different one. Synthesis required combining two or more ideas,

which might have been from the same or different domains. Genesis was an

approach to creativity that involved creating something that was significantly

different from existing ideas, to the best of the creators’ knowledge.

In many cases, the adolescents’ use of an approach was conscious and

intentional; however, sometimes the approach was not recognised until the individual

later reflected on the work and their inspiration for it. Although the adolescents’

work could show evidence of overlapping approaches to creativity, usually one

approach was dominant, and that depended on the individual, task, domain, and

environment. The four approaches to creativity discussed in this chapter do not

represent a hierarchy of creativity. They refer to four distinct subsets of approaches

that can all be used to achieve varying levels of creativity.

Figure 5.1 connects the four approaches to creativity outlined in this chapter

and the creative process described in Chapter 4. For each approach to creativity, the

adolescents used different combinations of sub-processes (Section 4.3) that aligned

with the task and context. For example, learning knowledge and skills (Section 4.3.5)

might be less important for self-expression genesis than for adaptation, transfer, and

synthesis. Conversely, recurring experimenting (Section 4.3.8) of a range of

possibilities might be more important for genesis, because the creative outcome is

not a modification of a specific existing work. The outer ellipse in Figure 5.1 is not

fixed and there is no connection between the proximity of the four approaches and

the 11 sub-processes. Rather, it was about the effective alignment of sub-processes

for a particular approach that resulted in successful creative outcomes. The creative

process, and choice of approach to creativity, was influenced by contexts established


by dispositional and environmental conditions. These contexts will be presented in

Chapter 6.

Figure 5.1. Approaches to adolescent creativity.


Chapter 6 Contexts for Creativity

6.1 Introduction

Chapter 6 is the third findings chapter. Chapter 4 presented the adolescent

creative process, and Chapter 5 explained how the adolescents approached the

creative process in four ways to create outcomes. The purpose of this chapter is to

present an analysis of the influence of disposition and environment on creativity, as

experienced by adolescents at Nerdopolis High School (NHS) and Whimsical High

School (WHS). These findings inform research sub-questions 2 and 3: How does

disposition influence adolescent creativity? and How does the environment influence

adolescent creativity?

Disposition refers to the adolescents’ personal characteristics, potential, and

abilities, and the environment includes socio-cultural and physical aspects of the

macro environment (e.g., the educational milieu), as well as the adolescents’ micro

environments (e.g., home and school) (Section 6.2). The dispositional and

environmental conditions that influenced the adolescents’ creativity did not work in

isolation. Interactions between them provided four, broad contexts: high creative

disposition–supportive environment (Section 6.3); high creative disposition–

inhibiting environment (Section 6.4); low creative disposition–supportive

environment (Section 6.5); and low creative disposition–inhibiting environment

(Section 6.6). Each of these contexts provided varying levels of support for

creativity. Creativity resulted when the right equilibrium or person-environment fit

was found for an individual, task, domain, and environment, and the adolescents

could experience any or all of these contexts at some stage (Section 6.7). Participants

differed to some extent in what they considered to be the most supportive or

inhibiting conditions, and it is beyond the scope of this chapter to discuss each

condition in detail. The aim here is to present typical patterns and variations of how

disposition and the environment interacted to influence adolescent creativity.


6.2 Effects of Disposition and the Environment on Creativity

This section outlines some of the most prominent effects of disposition and the

environment on creativity, as experienced by the adolescents in this study. The

different dimensions of these conditions form continua from low to high creative

disposition, and inhibiting to supportive environment.

6.2.1 Effects of Disposition on Creativity

The primary effects of disposition on adolescent creativity that emerged were:

(a) creative self-efficacy; (b) knowledge and skill; (c) intellectual ability; (d) intrinsic

motivation; (e) creative personality traits; (f) interest; (g) the “right” mood; and (h)

focus. These factors all contributed positively to creativity and will, therefore,

henceforth be referred to as creative dispositional conditions. Table 6.1 outlines the

main properties and representative examples of these creative dispositional

conditions.

The influence of disposition on adolescent creativity can be viewed as a matrix

(Figure 6.1). One continuum ranges from having all the listed creative dispositional

conditions to having none; the other continuum spans between having high and low

levels of these creative dispositional conditions (e.g., high creative self-efficacy to

low creative self-efficacy). The importance of the number and level of conditions

depended on the individual, task, domain, and environment. The most obvious high

creative disposition comprised high levels of all or many creative dispositional

conditions. However, some participants had a high creative disposition when they

had high levels of only a few pertinent conditions for a particular task or domain. For

example, some of the adolescents with high creative self-efficacy, intrinsic

motivation, and interest in visual art were able to be creative without possessing

other conditions that were less critical for the task, such as knowledge, intellectual

ability, and creative personality traits. The most obvious low creative disposition

entailed low levels of only one or a few conditions. Alternatively, the adolescents

with high levels of a few creative dispositional conditions that were not very

supportive of a particular task or domain, and who lacked the most important

conditions for the situation, also had low creative dispositions in that situation. For

example, some of the adolescents had high levels of various creative personality

traits and were focused in their science tasks at school, but they lacked the specific


knowledge, skill, and intellectual ability required for high levels of creativity in that

domain.

Table 6.1

Dispositional Conditions Influencing Creativity

Dispositional conditions Properties Example

Creative self-efficacy

Varies by task, domain, environment

Basically my whole life I’ve kinda [sic] been perceived and also perceived myself as a creative person. (Incognito, WHS, II)

Knowledge and skill

Contributes to any domain; perceived as more important in science and mathematics than in the arts

The more information you know the wider an area you can become creative in. … everything you know helps you learn something else or helps you discover something else, which also pushes the boundaries, I guess. (Esmé, WHS, FG1b) I can say there’s so much more in science and maths that you need to know by heart, by exact definition, more than in art. (Suzuki, WHS, FG1a)

Intellectual ability

Can be beneficial for creativity; not essential for all creativity

I think maybe, without sounding, like, up myself, intelligence [has had the greatest effect on her creativity]. … the background knowledge to have it in the first place, and the intelligence to understand it, I think, is the most important thing for having new ideas. (AnOptimisticVole, NHS, II) Intelligence isn’t necessarily required to be creative. … I think you can go further if you are both intelligent AND creative but they aren’t dependent on each other. You don’t need one to have the other. (DaVinci, WHS, DF)

Intrinsic motivation

In areas of passion; creativity a reward in itself

I’m kind of internally motivated to … expand on areas I’m interested in. So, um, I suppose just being creative in general is a reward itself. (GLaDOS, NHS, II)

Creative personality traits

Imaginative; unconventional; persistent; growth-orientated; open-minded; curious; resilient; reflective

I have a big imagination and I like to draw on my imagination. (PeterPan, WHS, II) I find myself innovative, I can make use of what I’ve got and turn it into something different. (Esmé, WHS, II) I think the most importantest [sic] thing is that… I question everything and think about anything. (CandleJack, WHS, II)

Interest Ranges from interest to passion

Productivity is fueled [sic] by enjoyment. When you are really into a certain topic, creativity often comes more easily. (Ma’at, NHS, DF)

The “right” mood

No single optimal mood; depends on the individual and task

All your moods … like, happy, sad, angry, whatever, they’ve all got qualities that work. But I think you need to be on a different plane of that mood. … it’s an accessible quality in every mood, but it’s something extra. (Orange, WHS, II)

Focus Individual focus; group focus in collaborative creativity

I like to be focused on what I’m doing. So definitely alone in my room or something like that. Or even like having a discussion with someone about it might be good. But on topic … not just about anything. (DayBeforeYouCame, NHS, II)


Figure 6.1. Creative disposition matrix.

6.2.2 Effects of the Environment on Creativity

Adolescent creativity did not take place in a vacuum. The creative process was

affected not only by personal disposition, but also by the environment. Conditions

that positively or negatively influenced the establishment of an environment for

creativity can be divided into three categories: supportive environmental conditions

for creativity; inhibiting environmental conditions for creativity; and conditions that

could either support or inhibit creativity.

A favourable context for creativity identified in this study comprised the

following main supportive environmental conditions: (a) opportunities for creativity;

(b) autonomy; (c) structure; (d) challenge; (e) stimuli; (f) congruous physical

conditions; (g) like minds; (h) experts; (i) cognitive support; and (j) affective support.

Table 6.2 outlines these environmental conditions, the key properties that support

creativity, and representative examples of each condition.


Table 6.2

Environmental Conditions Supporting Creativity

Environmental condition Properties Example

Opportunities for creativity

Tasks valuing creativity; time

“The Hub”, um, the TOK, CAS and EE. … I think that is the most creative thing [at school]. (Ma’at, NHS, II)

Autonomy Task, intellectual, environmental autonomy

A lot of the time, creativity comes from autonomy. (CandleJack, WHS, DF)

Structure Structure without excessive constraints

It’s really a threshold between being informative and being, not being restrictive, in that there’s things you need, you can’t just like walk into a lesson and say, “Go for it!”. But you can’t talk the whole lesson about concepts and not let any freedom happen. (PatrickBateman, WHS, II)

Challenge Intellectual rigour, complexity, higher-order thinking

Well, when I first went to do it [the IB], I thought it wouldn’t help at all because it is such a strict, hard thing to deal with. But I think that in that it requires you to be creative, otherwise you wouldn’t think of the different ways they want to think. (TuathaDuOrothrim, NHS, II)

Stimuli Exposure to new outcomes, people, places, and experiences

I think one of the most significant things a person can do to enhance their [sic] own creativity is to immerse themselves in the creativity or ideas of others. To be exposed to new ideas, and perspectives other than their [sic] own in order to draw inspiration and fuel their [sic] own creativity. (Ma’at, NHS, DF)

Congruous physical conditions

Ritual vs. change; internal vs. external locations; sound; lighting; comfort; resources

I think you need to have a physical state that can actually tell your body, “Hey, it's time to be creative,” and your mind goes back into that mindset of uninhibited imagination. … to trigger my mind into “getting into the zone”. It is a psychosomatic effect where physically being in the same situation where you were last creative can trigger that same mindset. (DaVinci, WHS, DF)

Like minds Like-minded in creativity, interests, abilities, personality

We have a good network of people, and so, therefore, you don’t have to be afraid to be creative. … how we can be creative at this school is we accept each other’s creativity … and originality and imagination. (PeterPan, WHS, II)

Experts Experts in the field; teachers working in industry; mentors

Generally the teachers themselves are actually working within the industry, and they themselves have, bring their experience to whatever they might say. … Yeah, mainly it’s just them bringing their way of thinking and their experience to what you do, and using it to help you improve it by suggesting new ways of thinking about things. (UltraShiny, WHS, II)

Cognitive support

Open to creative ideas; feedback; creative teaching; encouraging creative learning; teacher-student collaboration

And the teachers, like, oh wow, I can’t think of the word, they kinda [sic] promote learning creatively… They have a big influence on me to be creative, ‘cause [sic] the way that you learn best in those subjects is to learn creatively. …they encourage me to learn creatively. (Hippopotamus, NHS, II)

Affective support

Acceptance; trust; high expectations; recognition; encouragement

Environment-wise, it’s pretty much, they’ve nailed it… You don’t feel as restricted. … they’re [teachers and peers are] very, generally really accepting of what, of how people practise their art or whatever. (UltraShiny, WHS, II)


Like dispositional conditions, the influence of a supportive environment on

adolescent creativity can be viewed as a matrix (Figure 6.2). One continuum scales

from having all identified supportive environmental conditions to having none; the

other continuum ranges from having high to low levels of these supportive

environmental conditions (e.g., high levels of autonomy to low levels of autonomy).

Supportive environments had: high levels of all or many supportive environmental

conditions; high levels of a few supportive environmental conditions important for a

task or domain (e.g., high levels of structure and cognitive support for a mathematics

problem-solving task); or low to average levels of many or all of these environmental

conditions that collectively created a supportive environment for creativity.

Figure 6.2. Supportive environment matrix.

An unfavourable context for creativity was established by inhibiting

environmental conditions. In this study, the following major inhibiting environmental

conditions were identified: (a) curriculum constraints; (b) lack of time; (c) pressure;

(d) distractions; (e) lack of resources; and (f) negative social interactions. The main

properties and representative examples of these conditions are presented in Table 6.3.


Table 6.3

Environmental Conditions Inhibiting Creativity

Environmental condition Properties Example

Curriculum constraints

Strict and inflexible curriculum and assessment; creativity not valued

What the teachers, um, say to us, not to discredit the IB or anything, they say, “IB doesn’t like creativity”. And what they mean about that is they don’t like original thought and they don’t, they prefer you stick by the structure and the way that they work. (PeterPan, WHS, II)

Lack of time Lack of time for creative pursuits; lack of time for ideation, incubation, production

As far as time is a factor, it’s [the IB has] stopped me from doing as much artistically as I’d want to. Um, and I think it also, ‘cause [sic] I don’t have as much free time as I did beforehand, then it stops me from, um, accessing that little, the extra bit of the mood [to be creative]. (Orange, WHS, II)

Pressure School or extra-curricular activity workload; stressful situations; social pressure

Situations when I’m getting very stressed, like, I’m not creative in any way and I can’t, like I’ll keep coming back to the same idea even though I know it’s wrong and won’t work. (TuathaDuOrothrim, NHS, II)

Distractions Physical; social I can’t work in my room because there are magazines in my room. There’s [sic] so many distractions in my room. There’s always music playing and it’s always this big distraction. So, and there’s a phone in my room, so I can’t be in my room. (Hippopotamus NHS, II)

Lack of resources

Lack of required materials/ environments; lack of social supports; lack of intellectual stimuli

I was home-schooled for most of my life … I didn't have friends I could see everyday and bounce things off. (GLaDOS, NHS, DF)

Negative social interactions

Lack of support; disrespect; judgment; criticism

People who don’t respect your ideas. Like, it’s okay to not agree with some other ideas, but to disrespect them I don’t think is appropriate. Like, you can disagree and that’s fine, but if you say, like, “That’s stupid”, it doesn’t really help anything. … I had another English teacher who rewrote all my sentences in her own words. And I was, like, what’s the point? That’s all my originality and creativity translated into your words, it’s just not the same. (GLuck, NHS, II)

A matrix can similarly be used to illustrate how inhibiting environments

influenced adolescent creativity (Figure 6.3). The range of all to no identified

inhibiting environmental conditions forms one continuum; the second continuum

spans between having high and low levels of these inhibiting environmental

conditions (e.g., high levels of pressure to low levels of pressure). An inhibiting

environment for creativity usually had: high levels of all or many inhibiting


environmental conditions; high levels of a few inhibiting environmental conditions

that strongly impacted on a task or domain (e.g., high levels of negative social

interactions and distractions in a collaborative creativity task); or low or average

levels of many or all of these conditions that collectively formed an inhibiting

environment for creativity.

Figure 6.3. Inhibiting environment for creativity matrix.

In this study, there were also environmental conditions that emerged as having

the potential to either support or inhibit creativity, depending on the individual or

situation. These two conditions – extrinsic motivation and the educational milieu –

are presented Table 6.4, with supportive and inhibiting examples of each. Extrinsic

motivation supported creativity when it complemented existing intrinsic motivation,

motivated the adolescents to do a creative task in which they were otherwise

unmotivated, or supplemented other supportive environmental conditions (e.g.,

interest in a task). Extrinsic motivation appeared to inhibit creativity when it

undermined supportive environmental conditions (e.g., existing intrinsic motivation),

or reinforced or added inhibiting environmental conditions (e.g., limited time). An

educational milieu positively influenced creativity when it promoted creative

dispositional conditions (e.g., intellectual ability), introduced supportive

environmental conditions (e.g., grouping like minds), or decreased inhibiting

environmental conditions (e.g., addressing a lack of resources). Conversely,

creativity was negatively influenced when an environmental milieu reinforced


inhibiting environmental conditions or added new inhibitors (e.g., more pressure to

be creative; lack of time to be creative), or when it undermined or reduced supportive

environmental conditions (e.g., reduced opportunities for creativity).

Table 6.4

Environmental Conditions that can Support or Inhibit Creativity

Environmental conditions

Supportive/ Inhibiting

Example

Extrinsic motivation

Supportive

Inhibiting

A friend of a few different people from WHS … wanted to start up a magazine. … she wanted me to do some graphic design … I said yes because I’m really poor, and I would like some money. (PatrickBateman, WHS, II)

I find that one of the scariest things about being creative within a school environment is the worry that you will be penalised for it. Often it feels like teachers or assignments want you to be creative, as long as you come up with what they are thinking of. (AnOptimisticVole, NHS, II)

Educational milieu

Supportive Inhibiting

I’d been the smartest kid in my school my entire life, until I came here, and now I’m average. And I’ve never been average, ever! … I was like, this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of, like, I have to work harder to get the same mark I would if I did nothing. But now, looking back, I think it was so worth it. ‘Cause [sic] even though I’ll probably get the same mark as I would at another school and my work’s like a thousand times harder, it’s not about the marks. It’s about you and what you’ve become, and not so much what you know, but who you’ve become and how you think, and, like, how you learn. … To be creativity, creative, you do have to think. … by making kids think it really, like, it helps with their creativity. (GLuck, NHS, II)

Last year [2009] I think it was the Year of Creativity and, I think I brought it up in the focus group, it’s like they [the government] think creativity is this new energy that will power our nation and take us to new heights (laughs) and, that bugs me! Like, just being creative, I don’t think it, forced creativity ridiculously annoys me! And sometimes that’s what WHS makes you do. (Kate, WHS, II)


6.2.3 Contexts for Creativity: Interactions of Disposition and the Environment

This section has outlined dispositional and environmental influences that

emerged as salient in the creative experiences of adolescents participating in this

study. It does not provide a definitive list of supporting or inhibiting conditions for

creativity. Moreover, the conditions listed in this section are not in order of

importance. Within the scope of this thesis, there was insufficient space to discuss

and elaborate on each of these conditions. However, examples of their influence will

be given in following sections of this chapter.

The remainder of this chapter is organised around four contexts for creativity:

high creative disposition–supportive environment (Section 6.3); high creative

disposition–inhibiting environment (Section 6.4); low creative disposition–supportive

environment (Section 6.5); and low creative disposition–inhibiting environment

(Section 6.6). These contexts explain how disposition and the environment interacted

to affect the adolescents’ creativity. These interactions and their resulting influence

on creativity can be presented as a matrix (Figure 6.4). Although specific reference is

not made to every condition and its varying properties or impact, examples of the

four contexts for creativity presented in this chapter provide a variety of illustrative

interactions.

Figure 6.4. Contexts for adolescent creativity matrix.


6.3 High Creative Disposition–Supportive Environment

High levels of creativity were most easily achieved by the adolescents with

high creative dispositions in environments that were supportive of creativity.

Individuals’ high creative dispositions, and their creative processes and outcomes,

were enhanced by supportive physical environmental conditions (Section 6.3.1) and

social environmental conditions (Section 6.3.2). The high creative disposition–

supportive environment context (Figure 6.5) was the optimal context for creativity

(Section 6.3.3).

Figure 6.5. High creative disposition–supportive environment context.

6.3.1 Supporting High Creative Dispositions with Physical Environmental Conditions

One way in which the environment encouraged participating adolescents with

high creative dispositions was by providing supportive physical conditions. This

included factors such as opportunities and time for creativity, autonomy, exposure to

stimuli, and congruous physical conditions.

Participants with high creative dispositions craved opportunities to be creative.

Much of the adolescents’ lives were spent at school, and therefore they embraced

creative opportunities in the core curriculum and extracurricular activities. PeterPan,


who had a high creative disposition in his passion areas of theatre and film-making,

demonstrated many of the personality traits associated with creative individuals:

I would describe myself as creative because I like to think, like, outside

the normal. I like to think answers that maybe not every person would try

and find. … and try and put two and two together to make something

that’s, that’s really quite, like, beyond the norm. … I have a massive

imagination. … you have to be reflective. … you can’t say to yourself, no, I

must look this way because everyone else does. I think some of the most

creative people I know throw that all away and they present themselves as

who they are. … Like, some of the people … think really differently to

other people that I know. And that, like, I am one of them because I am

a bit of a nutter!


Creative personality traits emphasised by PeterPan were being unconventional,

imaginative, and reflective. The adolescents with high creative dispositions displayed

these traits along with others such as being persistent, resilient, growth-oriented,

open-minded, and curious (see Table 6.1).

PeterPan found many opportunities for creativity at WHS in classroom learning

and other activities offered by the school:

[The school principal] is always saying how what makes us [WHS] special is

… we do get opportunities that another IB school otherwise may not

have. Um, for example, for Theatre we do extra performances and stuff to

help our theoretical learning and stuff. So we have to put practical to theory.

So we’ll do extra shows, and stuff. We get opportunities to put, to submit

our work into competitions outside of school. … So, yeah, we have, we

have, I reckon we have a lot of opportunities. … we have CAS, where

we, we essentially have to make our own activities. … Like Theory of

Knowledge, this has to be the most craziest [sic] subject. It’s like trying to

figure out how do we know? … do we exist? ... I’m a big believer that

imagination has a lot to do with creativity too. … imagining something

that’s, that’s beyond you.


This adolescent reported that, because they were at a selective arts school, they were

offered more arts opportunities than most other schools with the IB curriculum. It


was through these arts opportunities that WHS adolescents mostly demonstrated their

creativity. Moreover, like PeterPan, all participants at both schools referred to

opportunities for creativity within one or more of the three central IB components:

Theory of Knowledge (TOK), Extended Essay (EE), and Creativity, Action, Service

(CAS) (see Section 3.4 for an explanation of these). In addition to creative

opportunities in their regular subjects and arts activities, these three IB components

encouraged the adolescents to initiate their own activities, try new things, think

deeply and philosophically, and explore different perspectives.

NHS participants with high creative dispositions also sought opportunities for

creativity in science, mathematics, and technology domains. For example,

OllieDenverGreen appeared to have a high creative disposition in mathematics and

enjoyed opportunities for problem-solving:

I would describe myself as creative. … I continually develop new ways of

doing things or new things. I think maths is one area that I’m definitely

creative because a lot of the time you get a problem, and you have to work

out ways to solve it. So that definitely will take creativity.

(OllieDenverGreen, NHS, II)

At NHS, in mathematical and scientific subjects, students had opportunities for

creativity when they were encouraged to develop their own methods of problem-

solving and experimentation, instead of always being given steps or formulae to

follow.

Two other adolescents with high creative dispositions were CandleJack and

DaVinci. CandleJack was an adolescent known for his creativity in most areas. He

demonstrated a number of creative personality traits, such as being imaginative,

open-minded, curious, and particularly unconventional:

I have a tendency to be different to everybody else … in just what I do and

what I like.



DaVinci also demonstrated some of these creative personality traits, and explained

specifically how open-mindedness and curiosity contribute to a positive creative

disposition:

I am an avid fan of Leonardo da Vinci and the way he thinks and

created. He had a major impact on my creativity and how I looked at my

education. He was the epitome of the “Renaissance Man”, someone who

masters many different areas and is able to transfer and meld concepts

and ideas across these barriers. I actually wrote a theatre paper inspired by

him and his philosophies, that the key is to always be learning and to

always be curious.


DaVinci tried to model herself on Leonardo da Vinci, in that she valued the

importance of traits such as being curious and open-minded, and making

multidisciplinary connections. She was intrinsically motivated to apply these

personality traits and be creative in her areas of passion, emphasising that passion

was the “fuel” for creativity:

Passion, definitely the interest… And I think that’s what drives it, it’s like

the fuel for it… I think that creativity just needs, it needs passion. … I

couldn’t stress it enough.

(DaVinci, WHS, II)

Although different in their overall personality and interests, both adolescents

demonstrated high creative dispositions in domains in which they were passionate.

CandleJack and DaVinci were two adolescents with high creative dispositions

who explained why providing opportunities for creativity was about more than

offering open-ended tasks and providing resources. Other important components of a

supportive environment for their creativity were sufficient time for creativity and

autonomy. One important type of autonomy for these adolescents was intellectual

autonomy:

[It’s] about schools … providing opportunities to be creative. And that’s not

necessarily about facilities, although they certainly do help. It's about

leaving the time, and academic freedom to approach a task in a manner

that’s thought out and unique.

(CandleJack, WHS, DF) (emphasis added)


I think a lot of the teachers here are really supportive of the fact that we’re

not, that we don’t just want to pass. A lot of us want to have that, um, to

feed our brains a bit more. And so I think just their approach to us as equals

in terms of, um, being as creative as them has kind of, um, given us a

freedom, you know, that our opinions can also stand up to theirs. Um,

yeah, it’s that freedom, that intellectual freedom that they give us, I

think, that really helps us.


CandleJack and DaVinci said teachers provided intellectual autonomy when they

gave students the time and freedom to share their ideas and opinions. Supportive

teachers also recognised that these selective school students were motivated to learn,

wanted to be challenged to “feed” their brains, and were capable of producing

original and valuable ideas. Many other participants similarly reported that their

creativity was supported when they felt free to form and share their own views,

which were respected by others around them. In the absence of any substantially

inhibiting environmental conditions, opportunities, time, and autonomy were often

all that was required of an environment for creativity by the adolescents with high

creative dispositions.

Another physical environmental condition that supported the creativity of high

creative disposition adolescents was exposure to diverse stimuli that helped inspire

and promote creative thinking. This type of support was commonly gained through

seeking new ideas, experiences, and networks outside school, as well as by engaging

in new learning through the school curriculum.

GLaDOS was a very curious adolescent who loved learning new things. He

had a high creative disposition, and said he was particularly creative when he was

passionate about a topic and was in the “right” mood or state of focus:

When I’m really interested in something I can feel a different mindset or

mood towards the situation and ideas just spring at me from all angles. So,

I’d say when I really get going on something, yeah, I’m really creative.

(GLaDOS, NHS, II)

In addition to these dispositional conditions, GLaDOS’ creativity was enhanced by

learning new things. For example, he described how his beliefs about the

contribution of the IB curriculum to his creativity had evolved:


In terms of creativity, the IB takes some getting used to. I think, I think if

you’d asked me at the same time last year I would’ve said, “No, the IB is

killing me and my creativity with me”. …I think now I’ve got the hang of

that, I’m a lot more well-equipped to deal with the IB, and it’s actually

inspiring in some ways to be more creative, once I get past the hard work

issue. …It’s the level of the content and the breadth of the content, that it

explores a lot of different areas but also in enough detail to get you very

interested in it.


GLaDOS initially thought the IB hindered his creativity. However, once he “got the

hang of” the curriculum, he found that it inspired his creativity through the depth,

breadth, and challenging level of the new content. New knowledge and skills the

adolescents gained from the IB curriculum, and the way that it challenged them, had

the potential to assist creative thinking, especially when high levels of knowledge

were a foundation for creativity in a task.

Participants perceived that exposure to high levels of knowledge and skills

were particularly important in the domains of the sciences and mathematics.

GLaDOS, who was particularly passionate about those areas, was one of many

participants who emphasised this:

Because, ah, science and mathematics have a lot of um, rules and guidelines

which have been set down already. … you have to learn a lot of set, um,

ideas and knowledge before you can get to the areas where you can be

creative. Whereas art and, um, music and things like that, the arts, they’re

more based on creativity from the start. They’re about self-expression.

(GLaDOS, NHS, FG1b)

That the arts domains required less prerequisite knowledge and fewer skills for

creativity than science and mathematics was a perception common to both schools.

Therefore, the adolescents at the arts school were more likely to consider the IB

curriculum, with its high content focus, as a constraint rather than a support (see also

Section 6.4.1). However, exposure to new information and other stimuli assisted

creativity in any domain when it provided a foundation for their thinking and opened

the adolescents’ minds to new ideas and experiences.


For participants with high creative dispositions, opportunities and time for

creativity, autonomy, and exposure to diverse stimuli were particularly supportive

physical environmental conditions for creativity. Although the adolescents could

sometimes pursue these outside of school hours, often physical environmental

conditions were beyond the adolescents’ control, for example in the externally

imposed elements of a school environment. At school, the adolescents with high

creative dispositions were skilled at perceiving the potential for creative

opportunities and autonomy, which further enhanced their creative disposition.

6.3.2 Supporting High Creative Dispositions with Social Environmental Conditions

In addition to supportive physical environmental conditions, there were various

effective social supports for creativity. The main ones identified by participants with

high creative dispositions were like minds and experts, and cognitive and affective

support.

The adolescents in this study attended selective schools targeted at students

interested and capable in science, mathematics and technology (NHS) or the arts

(WHS). Participants identified that one of the most valuable aspects of their schools

was being in an environment with like-minded peers who had similar interests and

abilities:

It helped with other people being, uh, I was being around other people who

had the same passions.

(DaVinci, WHS, II)

Um, I really draw on other people for inspiration as well. It’s good for

brainstorming, being around other people who are the same, ah, how do I say

it? Like-minded to myself. I find it really good and motivational to be

like that, yeah. … if I ever need to talk anything over with someone, I know

that I’ll get like an intelligent answer or an intelligent, “I’m busy at the

moment” and not just, “Huh?” kind of thing. … having that support and …

intelligence pool to draw on.


All participating adolescents discussed how helpful it was to be with peers who were

like-minded in their passions and abilities, or in their creativity and personality.


Together they brainstormed ideas and provided stimuli for each other’s creative

thinking, while also motivating and encouraging one another. Like minds were also

said to create an accepting and supportive environment where the adolescents were

not afraid to be themselves, try new things, and make mistakes. With like-minded

peers, participants generally felt more comfortable displaying their creativity and

unconventional traits and thinking, because they perceived it was accepted and

appreciated.

In addition to like minds, the adolescents’ creativity was positively influenced

by interactions with more experienced minds or experts. In particular, WHS

participants with high creative dispositions referred to the influence of experts in the

field and teachers who also worked as industry professionals:

I’ve always been interested in ideas and new things. … The ordinary’s never

really been enough for me. ... The people who excel in what I want to be

doing, like the people that inspire me to just want to do it, example of great

things that just take my breath away and I say, “Wow! That’s really cool!”


Um, my old art teacher … he did a lot of art stuff himself and I’m like, oh

wow, he’s really good, I wanna [sic] be like more like him. And just asking

him for tips and watching him draw, I learnt a lot.

(Incognito, WHS, II)

Participating adolescents were inspired and influenced by those with expertise in

their field. PatrickBateman, who had a high creative disposition in multimedia and

graphic design, was enthusiastic about learning from experts and applying what he

learned to go beyond “the ordinary” to be creative. It was not necessary for the

adolescents to have met the experts to be influenced by them; PatrickBateman gave

examples of inspiration he received from simply researching the work of expert

creative artists. However, Incognito’s excerpt highlights that being able to learn

directly from experts, such as teachers who also worked in the arts industry, was very

beneficial. The adolescents learned from their teachers’ modelling of creativity,

hearing about teachers’ industry experiences, and following up on their teachers’

suggestions about the adolescents’ work and about others in the industry. Participants

at NHS did not report any opportunities to work with industry experts.


This study’s findings revealed that the adolescents’ creativity was inspired,

supported, accepted, and appreciated by interacting with peers who were like-minded

in their interests, abilities, and in their acceptance of each other’s individuality and

creativity. Likewise, experts had similar interests, but also offered more advanced

knowledge and capabilities to assist development of the adolescents’ creativity.

These two types of social interactions provided both cognitive and affective support.

Cognitive support received from like minds, experts, and other people in the

adolescents’ social networks (e.g., family members) took various forms. Cognitive

supports that most strongly and positively influenced participants with high creative

dispositions were constructive feedback on ideas, encouraging creative learning, and

teachers working as collaborators with students.

Teachers, peers, and family were all useful sources of feedback on creative

ideas. Most participants, including UltraShiny, discussed the benefits of being able to

“bounce ideas” off others:

I mean, you can get some really, like it helps to hone your ideas down a lot

more. … if you’re just talking to people you can bounce ideas off each

other and really see, whilst coming up with these ideas, you’re also seeing

how effective they are and how other people will react to them. So that’s

also really, really important I feel.


Bouncing ideas was previously identified as a useful technique in brainstorming

(Section 4.3.3), and was shown to also be a useful form of feedback. Adolescents in

this study sought feedback from people who gave thoughtful and honest comments

that assisted them to refine and evaluate their ideas.

Kate, a WHS adolescent with high creative self-efficacy, motivation, passion,

knowledge, and skill for creativity in the arts and other domains said:

Being creative motivates me because it makes me happy. … I find it really

exciting to do things a different way. … I'm excited … that there will always

be the unexplored to explore.

(Kate, WHS, EC)


To encourage this type of intrinsic motivation and passion, Kate said that it was

important for others to be open to her and her peers’ creative ideas and encourage

their creative thinking and learning:

Yeah, well, they’re [teachers are] always open to new things. They’ve

never, like, they only teach things that get, not completely closed. Like,

you can take things as far as you want it to, as you want to, without

them saying, “No, bring it back”. Well, you know, within reason. …

Yeah, I think that’s great here, what the teachers are. ‘Cause [sic] they’re so

allowing.

(Kate, WHS, II) (emphasis added)

Kate’s reference to teachers going beyond “closed” content suggests that they

provided cognitive support by allowing divergent thinking. Encouraging open-ended

learning offered the adolescents some autonomy to pursue their creative ideas.

A cognitive support identified only by participants with high creative

dispositions was teachers acting as collaborators with students. CandleJack gave an

example of his Film teacher collaborating with students during class to ensure their

success in creative film-making:

My Film teacher … he has to teach us the curriculum and what the IB

expects and stuff, but when we’re actually making films, I think, you know,

watching him talk to individual students about what their film’s going to

be, he’s, he’s actually interested in what the outcome’s going to be and

when he, you ask him for advice for, for something, he’ll, he’ll actually

treat it as if he’s collaborating with you, if, if, because he’s actually

interested in, in how things are going to turn out.


Collaboration did not always have to occur in the classroom. For instance, GLaDOS

appreciated when his teacher worked with him outside class time on a personal

interest task of building a mathematical model:

My teacher and I worked on it when we had free time and built it. ... It was

good.

(GLaDOS, NHS, II)


Teacher-student collaboration was discussed at both schools. By collaborating with

their students, teachers’ interest, intellectual input, and feedback positively supported

the adolescents’ creative thinking and their development of creative outcomes.

Interconnected with cognitive support was the ways in which feeling

emotionally supported and encouraged positively influenced the adolescents’

creativity. One way in which the school environment provided positive affective

support was through accepting and trusting the adolescents’ abilities. Her

unconventional way of doing things and high creative self-efficacy contributed to

Orange’s high creative disposition in a range of areas:

I think very differently to normal. … I think you need to be confident in your

ability in order to be more creative… I think being comfortable with myself.

(Orange, WHS, II)

Orange said it was important to her for others to also believe in her ability to be

creative:

I think the worst thing anyone can do in the arts or any learning is to

try, is to act condescending to you or to make assumptions that you’re

less capable than you are, ‘cause [sic] it makes you feel like you’re less

capable than you are… But, yeah, here [at WHS] it’s good ... everyone’s

intelligent and capable and doing things, and the teachers know that. I

think every time new teachers come in it takes them a bit, they start off with

the condescending attitude. You really notice it. But it goes quickly, so that’s

a good thing.


If the adolescents felt they were in a restrictive or “condescending” environment, it

usually had a negative influence on their creativity. However, being in an

environment where teachers and students accepted, trusted, and held high

expectations of each others’ practices and capabilities had a positive influence.

Participants from both schools reported positive affective support at their schools;

however, those at WHS made more specific references to how this influenced their

creativity. Although the adolescents said it was not common for teachers to

specifically comment on the “creativity” of their work; some teachers did

acknowledge students’ unconventional or unique ideas and original ways of learning.


Positive affective support was also received by some participants at home.

Gluck, who had a high creative disposition in English, said her mother was very

supportive:

Researcher: Who do you think has had a big effect on your

creativity?

GLuck: Mm, probably my Mum. Because my Dad’s more

like, it’s right or it’s wrong. Whereas my Mum, like

she took me to art classes, and she always wanted to

put me in Steiner, and she’d say, like, “Nothing’s

wrong if you believe in it”. And that, whatever you

think, just follow what you think. Don’t always

follow what everyone else does. Like, be original.

She always pushed there’s nothing wrong with

being original. I think that was really important,

especially growing up.


GLuck was strongly influenced by her mother’s encouragement to believe in her own

ideas and to be original. At a Steiner school her mother sent her to for Year 9, and

then at NHS, GLuck found that this support had enhanced her ability and interest in

being creative in her writing. Parents who encouraged their children to be original,

resist pressure to conform, and do things differently played an important role in

supporting creativity.

The most supportive social interactions for participating adolescents with high

creative dispositions were with like minds and experts, but anyone who provided

cognitive and affective support could encourage creativity. Cognitive supports

contributed by assisting the adolescents to develop their knowledge, skills, ways of

thinking, and creative processes and outcomes. Positive affective support from

significant people in the adolescents’ lives also contributed to a supportive

environment for creativity. At school, participants’ creativity was encouraged by

teachers and peers accepting and acknowledging their creative practices and trusting

their capabilities to be successfully creative. At home, it was helpful for the

adolescents to feel that their parents valued and encouraged their creativity, and

supported them to find productive outlets for their creative interests. These social

environmental conditions were sometimes provided for the adolescents, but many


participants with high creative dispositions also actively sought their own social

supports for creativity.

6.3.3 High Creative Disposition–Supportive Environment Summary: The Optimal Context for Creativity

Interactions between high creative dispositions and supportive environments

provided a favourable context for creativity. A supportive environment did not

exclude the possibility of challenges (discussed in Section 4.4); on the contrary,

challenges could assist the development of a resilient creative disposition. However,

it was best when these challenges were presented in an otherwise supportive

environment to the adolescents with a high creative disposition capable of managing

those challenges. Supportive physical and social environmental conditions were both

important for developing an environment that encouraged and enhanced adolescent

creativity. Of the four contexts presented in this chapter, the high creative

disposition–supportive environment context provided the optimal context for

adolescent creativity.

6.4 High Creative Disposition–Inhibiting Environment

The impact of inhibiting environmental conditions on an adolescent with a high

creative disposition varied, depending on the situation and the individual. In some

situations, an inhibiting environment constrained creativity (Section 6.4.1). However,

in other cases the adolescent’s high creative disposition overcame the inhibiting

conditions of the environment, at least to some extent (Section 6.4.2). Therefore, a

high creative disposition–inhibiting environment context (Figure 6.6) was

categorised as providing a potential context for creativity (Section 6.4.3).


Figure 6.6. High creative disposition–inhibiting environment context.

6.4.1 Inhibiting Environments Constraining High Creative Dispositions

Participating adolescents with a high creative disposition were not immune

from negative effects of the environment. Inhibiting environmental conditions such

as curriculum constraints, negative social interactions, distractions, lack of time, and

pressure had the potential to constrain high creative dispositions and prevent optimal

creativity.

CandleJack, whose high creative disposition was introduced in Section 6.3.1,

tried to be different in everything he did. This included choosing to apply his

unconventional nature to his IB Extended Essay (an original research project

culminating in a 4000 word essay):

We had to submit proposals for what we do our mini thesis Extended Essay

on. … I was just like, well, I’m going to propose to do mine on the picture

book, “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”. And I seriously wrote out a 300

word proposal and submitted it. And it was partially because I wanted to

make fun of the whole bureaucracy that’s here at the school, um, and

partly because I could actually do it. I could write 4000 words on the

metaphor of the pursuit of world domination and modern hedonism in

“The Very Hungry Caterpillar”.



This participant genuinely wanted to pursue this idea, but his teacher said it was not

possible:

[The teacher] was like, “Mm, is that a picture book?” And I was like,

“Yes”. “Well, you can’t actually do that. Don’t be silly!” … they made

me do my second choice proposal which was, of course, um, analysing

the music of Radiohead as a music Extended Essay. And then they said,

“You don’t do Music [as a school subject] and you don’t do, you

obviously don’t know enough about theory and analysis, so you can’t do

that either”. (laughs) I was like, I so could! So, they just made me choose

another English topic, which is going alright. … I’m doing a, a book called,

On the Road by Jack Kerouac. He was like a Beat poet in the fifties. It

was recommended to me because it has such a, like, music influence, but

at the same time it’s English, so whatever.


The constraints of the IB curriculum prevented CandleJack from pursuing his first

two proposal choices for the Extended Essay. First, he wanted to use his creativity to

write a satirical essay about the children’s book, “The Hungry Caterpillar”, but was

told he could not use a picture book. As a talented musician, his second choice was

analysing music from a favourite band (Radiohead). However, he was unable to

follow this idea because he no longer studied Music as a subject at school and it was

assumed he did not have the requisite musical knowledge. The negative social

interactions during this time, including not being taken seriously about the picture

book idea and being perceived as incapable of doing a Music essay, also inhibited his

creativity. Finally, he was advised to do an English textual analysis of a book written

by an author and poet influenced by the Beat generation of jazz music. CandleJack

was disappointed about not being able to follow his creative ideas, and frustrated

with the IB curriculum constraints he saw as unnecessary. Although CandleJack said

that the WHS environment was very supportive of his creativity overall, specific

instances of these types of inhibitors hindered his creativity in some tasks.

CandleJack said he thought he would still be able to be successful in his final

Extended Essay, but that it would not allow him to apply or demonstrate his true

creative ability.

Another adolescent whose creativity was inhibited by the environment was

UltraShiny. He had a high creative disposition, most evident in music. He said his


creativity was due to his open-mindedness and the way he perceived how things he

learned could be connected to what he was doing:

It’s the attitude I take, the perspective I have on things. Like, I try to be

more, well, less judgmental of things and more accepting of different things.

And, like, trying to find somewhere, something in everything that I can

relate to or something. And then trying to bring that to my own, what I do.


When reflecting on the impact of the IB curriculum as a whole on their creativity,

UltraShiny and CandleJack said that the IB’s strict, rigorous curricula and

assessment did not prioritise creative learning:

I s’pose [sic] it’s really just a case of, um, prioritising the more academic

sides ‘cause [sic], it’s more pressing than the actual creativity. I mean

it’d be great to just be doing music and focusing on that solely, but, the

reality is I’ve gotta [sic] finish Year 12 and I’ve gotta [sic] do reasonably

well at IB.


Um, there’s not actually a lot of encouragement to be creative within the

curriculum. … There’s no reason to be creative. … we stress out all the

time and we’re basically teaching for the exams. … where is their

[students’] motivation to be creative when academics take precedence,

when it’s the only one that actually matters and anything you do that is

creative is just something you do in your spare time and a privilege? … But

I’m certainly not, I’m certainly not complaining about it [WHS]. It’s, it’s a

great place. … I think it’s [the IB is] just kinda [sic] strangling the

school. … it’s an obstacle. It’s what we’re fighting and what we have to

accommodate.


Participants with a high creative disposition were often highly motivated to apply

their creative interests to school work, but it was not always feasible. Creative and

academic interests were not always mutually exclusive, but often the adolescents

needed to prioritise one over the other. Although music was his passion, UltraShiny

also felt pressure to achieve good grades in other subjects at school. CandleJack

concluded that the curriculum provided obstacles that students were “fighting” to


overcome whilst trying to remain creative. Most students at WHS and NHS said that

creativity was not highly valued by the IB. Moreover, many WHS participants

concluded that the IB was not the best match for their selective arts school,

particularly when a core objective of the school was purportedly to develop creativity

and prepare them for careers in the creative industries. Even for the adolescents with

high creative dispositions, the pressure of the academic curriculum, and the

perception that the IB undervalued creativity, negatively influenced their creativity.

Curriculum constraints were more of a hindrance for some participants than

others. For DaVinci, a highly motivated and focused adolescent (see also Section

6.3.1), distractions and a lack of uninterrupted time for creativity were more

inhibiting than the curriculum:

I find that if I have a lot of distractions, it, it just, it makes me lose, I lose any

trail of thought that I’m having, ‘cause [sic] I need to have that solid train of

thought to actually develop a proper idea. … It’s definitely something I like

to focus on for a long time. … with the creative process, I’m really like that,

I like having one big block of time.

(DaVinci, WHS, II)

The presence of distractions and absence of sufficient time to develop ideas inhibited

the adolescents’ creativity by preventing them from focusing on their thoughts and

ideas. For many participants, trying to think creatively in short, disconnected periods

was not as effective as extended, uninterrupted periods allowing time for the creative

process. This type of environment had the potential to inhibit creativity, regardless of

the adolescents’ high creative dispositions.

Inhibiting environmental conditions potentially had a negative impact on the

creativity of any adolescent, including those with high creative dispositions. These

conditions substantially reduced the potential for the adolescents to utilise their

creativity when their high creative disposition was not enough to overcome

environmental barriers in that task. Externally imposed constraints were sometimes

unavoidable, particularly in the school context. Although the high creative

disposition–inhibiting environment context did not render creativity impossible, it

could substantially affect the level of creativity achievable by an adolescent.


6.4.2 High Creative Dispositions Overcoming Inhibiting Environments

For the adolescents with high creative dispositions, the negative effects of an

inhibiting environment were not insurmountable. Inhibiting environmental

conditions could be overcome, and sometimes, even ignored. Creative dispositional

characteristics, for example, high creative self-efficacy, passion, motivation, focus,

and personality traits such as unconventionality and persistence, were particularly

valuable for overcoming constraints.

DaVinci’s high creative disposition sometimes enabled her to find ways to

prevent curriculum constraints from inhibiting creative thinking. This involved both

changing her perception of the restrictions and shifting her focus from impossibilities

to possibilities:

The IB, ‘cause [sic] it has a lot of restraints, I feel that sometimes, um,

what I want to do doesn’t exactly fit the criteria, so it, it, the fact that I

have to compromise can sometimes be annoying. But, I don’t really

dwell on it that much. (laughs) … It’s also, um, things like rules and

criteria, it’s, it kind of, it can restrict your creativity if you let it, um, but

it’s only if you focus on those things. If you keep trying to push that

barrier, but you know that you can’t get it rid of it, it’s always gonna [sic]

be there, it’s better to go look at the other things that you are allowed to

do, and kind of explore those.


Like UltraShiny and CandleJack (Section 6.4.1), this adolescent recognised that the

IB curriculum could be restrictive and often inhibited creativity. However, when

adolescents such as DaVinci used their creative dispositional characteristics and

focused on what was possible, instead of what was not, they had the potential to be

creative within that inhibiting environment. When they accepted that they could not

change certain restrictions, those with high creative dispositions were sometimes still

able to be creative, even though their creativity might have been compromised to

some extent.

There was also a small group of adolescents in the study whose very high

creative dispositions in some tasks prevented them from being affected by conditions

that others perceived as inhibitors. GLaDOS and Kate were two examples of


adolescents who said they could often ignore the environment entirely when deeply

involved in a task:

I’ve relied more on not where I am but what I’m thinking about, what

my mindset is. ... it’s not really like an imaginary barrier separating me from

everyone else, but it’s like, I can feel like I can think, no matter where I

am, because I’ve got my, you know, ah, imagination constructs around

the areas that I think. So, I could be sitting in this room, I could be sitting

on the train or in the middle of a crowd or out in the middle of the desert,

and I’d still have that sense of, I can think here because my thoughts

belong where they are at the moment.


Oh, um, I’m pretty gifted with the ability to be able to daydream anywhere!

(laughs) So, ah, the location, I guess, isn’t that vital. … No, well, when I’ve

got an idea and it gripped me… if I’m thinking about it I wouldn’t notice

anything else.

(Kate, WHS, II)

GLaDOS’ high creative disposition or creative “mindset” enabled him to separate

himself from his environment in order to be creative anywhere for some tasks. Kate

concurred. Like GLaDOS, she said that when she was completely absorbed in her

thoughts, she could be creative in any location. Such passionate engagement in a

task, driven by intrinsic motivation and interest, meant that some participants were

unaware of environmental conditions that might otherwise be considered as

inhibiting.

In some situations, the adolescents with high creative dispositions had the

potential to be creative within an inhibiting environment. In particular, high levels of

passion, creative self-efficacy, ability, focus, motivation, and creative personality

traits had the potential to reduce or even prevent typically inhibiting environmental

conditions from having negative effects on the adolescents’ creative processes.


6.4.3 High Creative Disposition–Inhibiting Environment Summary: A Potential Context for Creativity

The adolescents with high creative dispositions were typically intrinsically

motivated to be creative in their domains of interest. Their ability to manifest their

creative outcomes, however, could be hindered by environmental conditions that did

not support creativity. Inhibiting conditions discussed in this section were curriculum

constraints, negative social interactions, distractions, lack of time, and pressure. In

some cases, the adolescents were unable to overcome the challenges posed by the

environment and had to relinquish their creative ideas. In other cases, their high

creative dispositions enabled them to comprise with an alternative that still

demonstrated creativity, to some extent. In spite of this, participants often perceived

that their substitute ideas were not as creative as their initial ones. In a few rare cases,

potential inhibitors appeared to have negligible or no negative effects when the

adolescents were able to separate their cognition and imagination from the

environment. Examples of the high creative disposition–inhibiting environment

context illustrate the considerable impeding influence that environmental conditions

could have on participants’ creativity, even when they had high creative dispositions.

However, it provided a potential context for creativity in tasks where enabling factors

in the adolescents’ high creative dispositions outweighed inhibitors in the

environment. Dispositional and environmental conditions formed a tenuous

equilibrium, influenced largely by the situation, task, and domain.

6.5 Low Creative Disposition–Supportive Environment

A supportive environment provided foundations for promoting adolescent

creativity. Often, supportive environmental conditions could encourage creativity

even in those adolescents with a low creative disposition (Section 6.5.1). However,

creativity might be inhibited when they had a very low creative disposition in a

particular domain, despite the supportive environment (Section 6.5.2). As with the

aforementioned high creative disposition–inhibiting environment context (Section

6.4), the reverse situation of a low creative disposition–supportive environment

(Figure 6.7) also provided a potential context for creativity (Section 6.5.3).


Figure 6.7. Low creative disposition–supportive environment context.

6.5.1 Supportive Environmental Conditions Enhancing Low Creative Dispositions

An adolescent with a low creative disposition could be encouraged to engage in

the creative process by supportive environment conditions. This section will provide

examples of how conditions such as opportunities, autonomy balanced with

structure, cognitive support, and sometimes extrinsic motivation, had the potential to

promote creativity by these adolescents.

First, consider Ma’at, who demonstrated a generally low creative disposition,

including low creative self-efficacy and low intrinsic motivation and interest in

creativity:

I have never been confident in my creative abilities, I have never seen

myself as creative and I have not really been seen as [sic] others as creative.

… As such, I’ve never felt the impulse to try and be creative. I have created

a mold [sic], an image for myself, that I rarely ever challenge. Also, I don’t

really have a particular passion or interest in creativity.

(Ma’at, NHS, DF)

The conditions highlighted here as contributing to a low creative disposition were the

interactions between her very low creative self-efficacy, and her lack of interest and


motivation for creativity. She had no reason or drive to challenge her self-image as

an uncreative person.

Ma’at said motivation and opportunity for creativity was provided when she

had autonomy in the learning environment:

Um, well, like this whole school … you’ve got a lot of independence in

how you work things, you know creativity in the way you study and the

way you work. … We’re given that independence, it’s like you’re given

that freedom to be creative as opposed to being told, “This is what you

do. This is how you do it.” So, because we have that bit more freedom, we

have room to you know, think of our own way to do things, and, um, and

I think that’s where the creativity comes out of people, when they’re given

the freedom to, you know, express their own sort of personality and stuff.

(Ma’at, NHS, II) (emphasis added)

Ma’at and other participants spoke about their potential to be creative in situations

when they were encouraged to work independently, develop their own ways of

working and studying, and express their personalities. Ma’at’s NHS peers also said

they were given structure and cognitive support for creative learning by being

explicitly taught different learning and studying strategies to suit their diverse

learning styles.

DayBeforeYouCame was one of only two students in his school year level who

studied Music at NHS and said that “nothing really else, just music” was where he

tried to demonstrate creativity. This adolescent said that within his opportunities for

creativity at school, he required some limitations within an autonomous environment:

Sometimes they [limitations] might help me to be more creative, because I

was thinking, sometimes, and this comes back to whole composition,

sometimes when I try to compose something just out of nothing, I can’t

really do it. But there’s like a task where the teacher said, you have to

have a clarinet in there. So, for some reason that made me compose it

much better, because of that limitation.

(DayBeforeYouCame, NHS, II) (emphasis added)

Important supportive environmental elements for the adolescents with low creative

dispositions were opportunities for creativity that provided a balance of structure and

autonomy. Some participants, such as DayBeforeYouCame, found it difficult to


create something “out of nothing”, with no starting point or limitations of scope.

Structure provided some of the adolescents with a basis and direction for their

creative thinking.

AnOptimisticVole presented as a confident adolescent who described herself as

intellectual and a high achiever in science and mathematics. She did not, however,

view herself as creative or prioritise creativity. Her low creative self-efficacy and

lack of creative interest, motivation, and focus usually outweighed her intellectual

ability, knowledge and understandings that might have enabled creativity. However,

AnOptimisticVole said that some practical components of her science subjects at

NHS had encouraged her creativity:

I don’t feel that NHS really stifles my creativity. … I think in, maths and

science, to an extent, you do have to be creative, because, for example, we’re

doing a prac today, just on physics. And you get what you, you know what

you need to find out. … but then you really have … nothing to go off.

You’ve got to think of a way to do that yourself…

(AnOptimisticVole, NHS, II)

In spite of the adolescent’s generally low creative disposition, a supportive school

environment had encouraged and extrinsically motivated her to be creative in some

Physics and Chemistry tasks. The curriculum encouraged participants to be creative

in such subjects by requiring them to design their own experiments to test certain

hypotheses, without specific guidelines about how to do so.

As high school students, much of their work was motivated by school

assessment. Adolescents in the study often described how they were creative in tasks

for the purpose of achieving highly at school, as represented by the following

examples of participants at NHS with low creative dispositions:

We have to submit three compositions to IB. And one of them is like, well

the one I’m doing is for piano, theme and variations.

(DayBeforeYouCame, NHS, II)

We had this IA [Internal Assessment] in Chem [Chemistry]. … So you just

have to design but you don’t have to carry out the experiment.

(PewPew, NHS, II)


Participants such as these, who were creative in order to do well in school

assignments, were being motivated extrinsically to some degree. It was possible for

the adolescents to be motivated extrinsically to receive a reward (e.g., good grades),

while also demonstrating a personal drive to achieve because the results were

important to their self-esteem, goals, or values. Intrinsic motivators, such as passion

and love of learning, were often the most effective driving forces for creative

engagement. However, this study revealed that extrinsic motivators potentially

encouraged adolescent creativity, particularly in those adolescents with low creative

dispositions who were not confident or interested enough to pursue creative thinking

independently. A discussion of motivation that goes beyond the intrinsic-extrinsic

motivation dichotomy will be presented in Section 8.2.7.

When environments, such as schools, provided the necessary supportive

conditions required for creativity, there was potential for the adolescents with low

creative dispositions to be creative. Although it differed among individuals, their

creativity was generally supported by opportunities for creativity, autonomy

balanced with structure, cognitive support, and some extrinsic motivation.

6.5.2 Low Creative Dispositions Inhibiting Creativity in Supportive Environments

A supportive environment was not always sufficient for creativity. When the

adolescents had a very low creative disposition in a particular task or domain,

encouraging creativity was sometimes unsuccessful, even if they had high creative

dispositions in other domains.

PeterPan was an example of a WHS adolescent who had thrived in the WHS

school environment and said it had improved his creativity:

I actually reckon I’ve become more creative because part of being creative

is, I used to have one mindset on what theatre was and what performing was

and what, even say, English was. Ever since coming to WHS, I can

remember back to Grade 10 having a massive shift in, in, like, how I saw

things. … I have gotten more creative because I can see things sort of

from the other side.

(PeterPan, NHS, II) (emphasis added)


Through providing numerous opportunities for creativity, stimuli from exposure to

new ideas, and cognitive support to think creatively, WHS had supported PeterPan’s

high creative disposition in the arts and humanities (see also Section 6.3.1).

Mathematics, however, was a subject PeterPan did not enjoy, and one in which

he had no motivation to be creative. He also said he did not have the knowledge and

skills to be creative in the domain:

Experience is, is, um, very important with your level of creativity. Like if

you know maths inside out, you can know how to use it. … But like, for

someone like me who doesn’t know maths, I can’t see how I can.

(PeterPan, WHS, FG1a)

PeterPan reported that Mathematics was his weakest subject and therefore he

perceived he could not use mathematical concepts creatively. Moreover, he had no

interest in demonstrating creativity in that domain, despite his passion for creativity

in other areas. PeterPan was typical of many WHS participants who had high

creative dispositions in the arts, but low creative dispositions in mathematics or

science domains. Although participants said they were encouraged and supported to

be creative in all areas of their learning, individuals like PeterPan could not recall

having ever been creative in domains where they had very low creative dispositions

(such as Mathematics).

Even in a supportive environment, most participants were not creative in all

domains and tasks. The adolescents with a very low creative disposition in a

particular domain might never be creative in that area, for example due to low levels

of domain knowledge and understanding, self-efficacy, interest, motivation, and

focus. Their high creative disposition in another domain was not necessarily relevant

because aspects of creativity were domain-specific (see also Section 8.4).

6.5.3 Supportive Environment–Low Creative Disposition Summary: A Potential Context for Creativity

A low creative disposition–supportive environment context had varying

influences on the adolescents’ creativity. A supportive environment that encouraged

or required creativity for success motivated some participants with the capability to

be creative but who otherwise had a low creative disposition. However, this was not

always the case. A creative environment was insufficient for promoting creativity


when participants had a very low creative disposition in the relevant domain. This

was possible even when that same environment nurtured participants’ creativity in

other domains. Despite these exceptions, the predominant finding was that a

supportive environment could, to some extent, potentially promote creative thinking

in adolescents with low creative dispositions. These creative experiences, if

successful, might have then contributed to improving their creative disposition.

6.6 Low Creative Disposition–Inhibiting Environment

It was very difficult and rare for an adolescent with a low creative disposition

to be creative in an inhibiting environment. Low creative dispositions were strongly

influenced by inhibiting conditions in the environment, including social

environmental conditions (Section 6.6.1) and physical environmental conditions

(Section 6.6.1). Although small changes potentially led to improvements in creative

disposition and the environment (Section 6.6.3), the low creative disposition–

inhibiting environment context (Figure 6.8) was the pessimal or most challenging

context for creativity (Section 6.6.4).

Figure 6.8. Low creative disposition–inhibiting environment context.


6.6.1 Physical Environmental Conditions Perpetuating Low Creative Dispositions

Participants’ low creative dispositions were often perpetuated by inhibiting

environmental conditions. Some of the more common inhibiting physical conditions

included the location or layout of the environment, lack of physical resources,

physical distractions, and lack of time. This section will describe an example of how

physical environmental conditions affected the creativity of one adolescent, Suzuki,

with a low creative disposition in a particular task. The negative influences

perpetuated her low creative self-efficacy and reinforced her belief of possessing

limited knowledge and skills, thereby reducing her motivation, interest and focus,

and influencing her mood.

One physical environmental condition that affected the adolescents’ ability to

be creative was access to resources. For instance, a lack of necessary resources

inhibited Suzuki from producing her creative film idea:

I had, storyboarded a film. … but it involved going to a park and having

some lights and a generator. Which didn’t work out.

(Suzuki, WHS, II)

This adolescent recognised that demonstrating creativity involved a practical

component of transforming ideas into products:

You can have the idea, but transforming it into something requires so

much more practicality. … Stuff, you’re using, you’re making, whatever,

what it is you’re making, really can limit your creativity. And it seems to be,

I know something that in a creative person you need to be able to keep the

enthusiasm for the idea you had. … that image you want to create to get

a specific look, you can’t if you don’t have the technology and then the

image goes out of your head.

(Suzuki, WHS, FG2a) (emphasis added)

In cases like these, a lack of resources prevented creativity. If the adolescents were

unable to recreate the images in their heads due to a lack of resources, it was often

difficult to maintain motivation, interest, and focus.


This inhibiting environment for creativity preventing Suzuki from manifesting

her idea lowered her creative disposition by negatively affecting her mood:

I got to the point where the footage I had taken in the park wasn’t that great,

at all, it was terrible … so that didn’t work either, so I was just a little bit

depressed.

(Suzuki, WHS, II)

The inability to produce an outcome due to lack of resources and a perceived lack of

skill in that task (“the footage I had taken … was terrible”) resulted in Suzuki feeling

“depressed”. When asked whether she thought she was creative, Suzuki said:

Probably not overly creative. … no, I haven’t really, ever labelled myself as

being creative. … You just, you are what you are. And you’re different to

other people.

(Suzuki, WHS, II)

Moreover, although she enjoyed making films, did not think she had high levels of

knowledge or skill in the domain because it was a new endeavour for her:

I just started film, last year so I like it. … I wouldn’t call myself … a film-

maker person.

(Suzuki, WHS, II)

Contributing to Suzuki’s negative feelings about the unsuccessful creative task where

she lacked the necessarily physical resources was her low self-efficacy in creativity

and film-making. Most creative adolescents in the study recognised that they were

different from typical peers, but not all of them recognised that their uniqueness was

a sign of their creativity.

Using the example of a lack of resources, Suzuki’s experience in film

illustrates how inhibiting physical environmental conditions potentially interacted

with an adolescent’s low creative disposition and hindered creativity in a particular

task. Moreover, this interaction and its negative effect on the creative process and

outcome reinforced a low creative disposition, demonstrating the cyclical nature of

the relationship in this context for creativity.


6.6.2 Social Environmental Conditions Perpetuating Low Creative Dispositions

Social environmental conditions could also produce an inhibiting environment

for creativity. In particular, this section draws attention to how the educational milieu

and negative social interactions negatively influenced some participating adolescents

with low creative dispositions.

Ma’at (see also Section 6.5.1) provided an example of a context illustrating

interactions between an inhibiting environment and low creative disposition. Her

family and school perpetuated her low creative self-efficacy and motivation:

Um, well, I never thought I was, like, creative. … I’ve always been, like,

more the smart sister. My sister at the moment goes to WHS. So it’s

always been like “[My sister] is the creative one, and she does all the arts

and drama and stuff. And, um, Ma’at’s more of the analytical, smarter

one”. … when they [WHS] label themselves, like, “We are creative”,

then you’re like, okay I’m not creative because I’m not in that group. …

they give us [NHS] the title of being smart and scientific. So, it’s drilled into

us that we are the scientific ones. It’s like them and us, you know. We are

the science ones and over at WHS they’re all the creative ones, you know?

We make jokes, I mean they’ve got the running joke that, we’re you

know, we’re just not a creative school. Um, so I think it’s like giving us

that title and then we just don’t even try, I think.

(Ma’at, NHS, II) (emphasis added)

Ma’at’s view of herself as an analytical, rather than a creative, thinker was instigated

by her family through comparisons with her artistic sister. She, and those around her,

associated creativity with the arts, which had impacted on Ma’at’s motivation and

confidence to be creative. Ma’at’s and others’ perceptions of her were reinforced

when she went to the science, mathematics and technology school (NHS), while her

younger sister went to the arts school (WHS). In their educational milieu, WHS

students were labelled as creative and NHS students as scientific or analytical, as

though these were mutually exclusive, and there was a sense of division and

competition between the two schools: “it’s like them and us”. The combination of

this environment along with Ma’at’s lack of artistic ability and low creative self-

efficacy reduced her, and some of her NHS peers’, interest and motivation for

creativity: “we just don’t even try”. The disposition Ma’at displayed in this excerpt,


within an educational milieu in which science and mathematics students were told

they were “scientific” not “creative”, implying that the two were incompatible, did

not provide supportive conditions for creativity. Although Ma’at said it was a “joke”,

her explanation of the situation and her emotional response indicated that to her it

was more serious than humorous. Her low creative disposition in an inhibiting

environment did not encourage creativity.

Peers of Ma’at said that although they might not focus on creativity as much at

NHS, there were opportunities for creativity, including collaborative creativity. In

many cases, group work was advantageous for developing different creative

outcomes, but the effectiveness depended on the atmosphere of the group:

GLuck: If you’re in a situation where you feel like you’re

being judged and under pressure, you might like

hold back in your ideas, and be more timid to

express your creativity. Whereas if you’re …

surrounded by people who … are also more creative

and reinforcing your ideas it could be a lot easier.

Hippopotamus: Some people’s ideas of creativity is [sic] different to

others, and they might be kind of maybe

embarrassed of that kind of view of creativity, so

they don’t want to express it in front of other

people in case they think other people would be

like, “Whoa, he’s weird!”

(NHS, FG1b) (emphasis added)

These adolescents were less comfortable sharing their creative ideas in collaborative

tasks if they felt judged, pressured, or embarrassed about their creativity, or

concerned about others’ reactions to their ideas. They did not want to be perceived

by others as “weird”. Participants at NHS did not report the same level of peer

acceptance about being creative, unconventional, or imaginative that was described

by WHS participants. Although they recognised the benefits of collaborative

creativity, the adolescents said it only worked when there was a supportive

atmosphere in which group members accepted and reinforced each others’ creative

ideas. It also depended on the adolescents’ dispositions. From their provided

examples, GLuck and Hippopotamus appeared to have a low creative disposition in

science and mathematics, largely due to their low self-efficacy and their decreasing


interest in those domains over their time at NHS. Negative social interactions, for

example in group environments, created an inhibiting environment for the

adolescents’ creativity. These interactions affected them more in tasks or domains in

which they had low creative dispositions, largely through reducing their self-

efficacy, motivation, and interest.

Low creative dispositional conditions, such as low levels of creative self-

efficacy, interest, intrinsic motivation, and various other characteristics, could be

further reinforced by inhibiting social environmental conditions. Two key examples

provided here were negative interactions with peers in group work and a larger

educational milieu that established a belief that creativity was only achievable by

particular individuals (i.e., arts-focused adolescents).

6.6.3 Changes to Low Creative Dispositions and Inhibiting Environments

The low creative disposition–inhibiting environment context was sometimes

only temporary. Small changes in the environment potentially affected the

equilibrium and improved an adolescent’s creative disposition. These changes could

be made by the creator or by others.

An example of the fluctuating nature of a context was given by Suzuki in

relation to her aforementioned film-making experience (Section 6.6.1). When asked

what she did when facing creative difficulties, such as not having access to a suitable

physical location with the necessary resources, Suzuki said there were two options:

I would say … taking a break. … you’re sorta [sic] faced with two options.

You can be, like, “I give up.” … Or you can say, “Okay, I’m just gonna [sic]

go and try and refind [sic], find somewhere else to do it.”

(Suzuki, WHS, FG2a)

If the adolescents did not “give up” on a task, they had the option of trying to

manage the challenges with strategies such as taking a break to allow incubation and

starting afresh (Section 4.4). In this instance, Suzuki decided on a new approach and

shot the film in a different location that offered congruous physical conditions for

creativity. Although Suzuki did not like her second idea as much as the first, she

produced a creative film that was awarded a prize (see Section 5.4). This is another

example of how a low creative disposition in an inhibiting physical environment

might be a difficult environment for creativity; however, this context was not always


permanent and did not necessarily make creativity impossible. Participants

sometimes found ways to make their environments less inhibiting and improve their

creative disposition, in order to produce a creative outcome.

A low creative disposition could also be somewhat enhanced through

externally imposed changes in social environmental conditions. For instance, by

participating in this study, the adolescents entered a research context where they

were involved in explicit discussions about creativity. As they began to understand

more about the various domains and ways in which creativity manifests, some

participants’ creative self-efficacy increased, particularly at NHS. Ma’at was a key

example:

I am still not fully convinced that I am an especially creative person. For

some reason, however, my peers recognised in me something they

considered to be creative. So perhaps I am wrong. … I suppose I have felt

slightly more creative since being in this study. … I can't say that I am

classically creative - I can’t paint, sing, compose. The only part of myself

that I would consider creative are my thoughts and opinions. The way I

view the world is unique, I have my own perspective.

(Ma’at, NHS, DF) (emphasis added)

A self-reported enhancement of the participants’ creative self-efficacy was an

unintended but positive outcome of this study. Ma’at still did not perceive herself as

highly creative, but began to recognise some ways in which she was creative, despite

not being artistic. Participation in the study provided two externally imposed

elements of an environment that were supportive of creativity: (a) cognitive support

was given by other participants and the researcher through open-ended exploration of

perceptions and personal experiences of creativity; and (b) affective support for the

adolescents’ creativity was provided by being identified by others as creative and

selected for the study, where their creativity was recognised and valued. These

conditions challenged the dominant inhibiting elements from the educational milieu

and created changes in the adolescents’ creative dispositions through their creative

self-efficacy.

The low creative disposition–inhibiting environment context was very

challenging for creativity, but it was not permanent and did not necessarily occur for

an adolescent in every task or domain. Providing different physical conditions or


providing some cognitive and affective support, for example, could promote changes

in participants with low creative dispositions. The introduction of such conditions

could be pursued by the adolescent or instigated by other people. These small

changes were not enough to categorise the environment as supportive but, on the

dimension from inhibiting to supportive, the environment improved to some extent.

Sometimes these changes resulted in small enhancements in creative disposition and

were sufficient to enable the manifestation of a creative outcome.

6.6.4 Inhibiting Environment–Low Creative Disposition Summary: The Pessimal Context for Creativity

An adolescent with a low creative disposition in an environment perceived as

unsupportive of their creativity provided the most difficult context for creativity.

Social and physical environmental conditions both played a major role in affecting

the adolescents’ creative dispositions and therefore their creativity. Fortunately,

physical or social changes in the environment, pursued by the creator or others,

potentially led to changes in creative disposition. With these new circumstances,

individuals with lower creative dispositions could sometimes be encouraged to

believe in, and apply, their creativity. It cannot be said that these changes will be

permanent (e.g., changes in creative self-efficacy due to participation in this study);

just as supportive conditions could enhance creative disposition, subsequent

inhibiting conditions might reinforce a low creative disposition. In comparison with

the other three contexts presented (Sections 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5), an inhibiting

environment-low creative disposition was the pessimal context for creativity: it was

least likely to support the adolescents’ creative development, engagement, and

performance.

6.7 Conclusion

This chapter outlined dispositional and environmental conditions that affected

participating adolescents’ creativity, and presented patterns and interactions among

them. Analysis of these interactions led to the development of four Contexts for

Creativity: high creative disposition–supportive environment; high creative

disposition–inhibiting environment; low creative disposition–supportive

environment; and low creative disposition–inhibiting environment. These four

contexts presented different levels of support for creativity. A low creative


disposition in an inhibiting environment was the pessimal context for participants’

creativity. Conversely, a high creative disposition in a supportive environment was

the optimal context. Having a high level of either creative disposition or

environmental support, and a low level of the other, provided a potential context for

creativity when supportive conditions outweighed inhibiting ones. These four

contexts were not discrete; they represented the dimensional ranges of environments

and dispositions that helped or hindered the adolescents’ creativity.

Although this chapter has suggested that adolescents of any disposition could

be creative, given the right situation, individuals with low creative dispositions

needed substantially higher levels of support from environmental conditions. For

example, simply having opportunities for creativity was enough for some participants

with high creative dispositions, but was insufficient for participants with low creative

dispositions. They usually required high levels of other supportive environmental

conditions in addition to opportunity. Moreover, the adolescents with high creative

dispositions appeared more resilient in overcoming potentially inhibiting

environmental conditions. Therefore, enhancing creative disposition was important

for effectively improving and sustaining adolescent creativity.

Participants’ experiences could be mapped onto the context matrix presented

earlier in this chapter (Figure 6.4). Through their engagement in different tasks,

domains, and situations, the adolescents could have experiences in any or all of the

four contexts. Consider GLaDOS. He had a high creative disposition in mathematics

evidenced, for example, by his high levels of ability, knowledge, skills, intrinsic

motivation, and creative self-efficacy in this domain. An optimal context for

creativity for him was the opportunity for autonomous mathematical learning on

unconstrained tasks (e.g., open-ended problem-solving). However, in an environment

that prioritised repetitive practice of computational tasks using standard formulas

(e.g., textbook homework tasks), the opportunity for him to use his creativity was

hindered. This same adolescent had a low creative disposition in English when he

started at NHS. He lacked confidence, skills, interest, and focus in the domain.

However, he demonstrated some potential and enhanced his disposition to be

creative in English (e.g., through short story writing) when he found a teacher who

provided cognitive and affective support for his writing. However, the motivation

and interest for GLaDOS to improve his creative disposition in that domain was


substantially inhibited in pressured situations constrained by the rigid curriculum and

assessment criteria (e.g., high-stakes essay exams). Creativity by GLaDOS in such

contexts was not unachievable, but less probable. These comparative examples from

GLaDOS are mapped on the matrix in Figure 6.9.

Figure 6.9. Adolescent creativity context matrix example: GLaDOS.

Although the dimensions within the four contexts for creativity varied

depending on the adolescent, domain, task, and environment, there were common

patterns. It is useful to view these four contexts as encompassing the range of

dispositional and environmental conditions, rather than viewing them as discrete

categories. An environment was not categorically supportive or unsupportive of

creativity; it could be supportive or inhibiting to varying extents. Similarly, a creative

disposition was not a characteristic that was either present or absent; the adolescents

had different levels of creative dispositions in different domains and tasks. The key

was to find a person-environment fit, a concept not unique to creativity or

educational research (see also Section 8.2.7). What was considered a supportive


environment for one adolescent could be an inhibiting environment for another, even

if they had similar creative dispositions. Moreover, although the adolescents were

classified in this chapter as having a low or high creative disposition in order to

illustrate the four contexts, their creative dispositions should also be viewed as a

range, and where individuals were placed in that range depended on the situation.

Dispositions fluctuated, and were largely domain-specific and task-specific. There

were no participants who demonstrated a high creative disposition in all domains and

tasks, even when provided with the optimal, supportive environment for creativity.

That said, overall, participants generally tended to demonstrate being more at one

end of the high-low dispositional range in most tasks they performed. The four

contexts provide a useful framework for considering how interactions between

dispositional and environment conditions affected adolescent creativity. The next

chapter will synthesise the three findings chapters presented thus far (Chapters 4 to

6) to describe different types of creativity manifested by the adolescents.


Chapter 7 Types of Adolescent Creativity: A Synthesis of Results

7.1 Introduction

Adolescent creativity is a complex, multifaceted phenomenon. Therefore,

findings presented thus far in this thesis do not exist in isolation. This chapter draws

together findings with three main aims: (a) to integrate findings reported in Chapters

4 to 6 in order to demonstrate patterns and variations of the adolescents’ experiences

of creativity; (b) to advance these findings by presenting three types of creativity to

explain these patterns and the manifestations of adolescent creativity; and (c) to

embed this synthesis in the literature to reflect on and explain the patterns and

variations in findings. The chapter is organised around three main types of creativity

that emerged from a synthesis of participating adolescents’ experiences of creativity:

creative personal expression, creative boundary pushing, and creative task

achievement. Adolescent case examples will illustrate the purpose of each of these

types of creativity and how it was manifested. In the context of this thesis, a case

example is defined as analysis of an individual participant’s experiences of creativity

and is a reporting genre. It does not refer to case study as a research method. Case

examples of six adolescents, each of whom had a high creative disposition in one or

more domains, will be presented to compare and contrast the three types of

creativity: creative personal expression (Section 7.2), creative boundary pushing

(Section 7.3), and creative task achievement (Section 7.4). After presenting two

adolescent examples for each type of creativity, there is a discussion of their

theoretical similarities and differences, with links to the literature. A diagram

connecting findings in Chapters 4 to 7 and a summary of these connections is also

presented (Section 7.5).

7.2 Creative Personal Expression

The type of creativity categorised in this study as creative personal expression

manifested as participants using creativity to express or externally represent their

personality, experiences, emotions, or thoughts through a medium they intrinsically

enjoyed. This section examines two adolescent case examples who exemplify how a


sense of personal expression could drive creativity. These case examples were

participants from WHS, the selective arts school. Both case examples relate to

creativity in the arts, but in different domains: UltraShiny’s music (Section 7.2.1) and

Kate’s visual art (Section 7.2.2). At the time they joined the study, UltraShiny was

15 years old and Kate was 16 years old. These two adolescents were selected as

examples because of the similarities and differences in their creative dispositions,

preferred environmental supports, and reasons for engaging in the creative process.

These will be discussed in relation to the literature (Section 7.2.3).

7.2.1 Creative Personal Expression in Music: UltraShiny.

UltraShiny from WHS presented as a shy, quiet, introverted adolescent. He

described himself as “withdrawn. … generally a bit of a downer. … I let things get to

me a bit” (WHS, II), and said that he could be hard on himself. He was curious about

the world, particularly the music world, and saw himself as being individualistic.

UltraShiny was nominated for this study by his teachers and peers for his

creativity in Music. He displayed a high creative disposition in this domain,

demonstrated by his musical knowledge, skill and ability, intrinsic motivation,

creative personality traits, and interest and focus on music. He was not only a

creative musician who demonstrated spontaneity and fluency in creating new music

through jazz improvisation, but also a highly proficient one who had been playing

the double bass for more than five years. His ability positively contributed to his

creativity in that it provided him with a strong musical knowledge and skill set on

which to base his creative musicianship.

On the Creative Self-Efficacy Scale given to students at the beginning of the

study, UltraShiny had a mean score of 5 on a scale from 1 to 7, indicating that overall

he agreed he had some ability to be creative, although not to a high extent (see

Section 3.5.3). Compared to other participants in this study, his score indicated he

had lower creative self-efficacy than most of the 20 participants selected for the

study (𝑋� = 5.7) and the 30 other online survey respondents in the participant

selection phase at WHS (𝑋� = 5.5).


UltraShiny also demonstrated low creative self-efficacy during the focus

groups, individual interviews, and discussion forum:

I don’t really think of myself as creative. … anyone could do the “creative

things” I do. … for whatever reason other people MAY see that as creative,

hence my involvement with this project. … I’ve never thought of myself as

creative, because I cannot judge what I do without bias.

(UltraShiny, WHS, DF)

UltraShiny’s confidence in his creativity was affected by his perception that anyone

could do what he did. He also admitted that he was very critical of himself and had

high expectations of himself in everything he did; however, he felt he rarely met

those expectations. Therefore, improvements in self-efficacy might have been

hindered by his perceptions of recurring failure as well as his view that he did not

possess a particularly high capacity for creativity.

This adolescent attributed his creativity to recognising and nurturing his

creative potential. He did not think he possessed a creative ability that others did not

have. He believed people could learn to be creative, and accordingly had begun

focusing on his “creative growth”. He said he did this by becoming more

autonomous in his music and not being restricted by following what others were

doing:

You can learn to be creative. It’s about not restricting yourself. … to use the

term “creative growth”, I guess it’s really happened in the last year or so,

where I’ve decided that I want to do things more for myself, like artistic

things more for myself, rather than just going along with whatever else is

happening, what everyone else is playing or whatever.


Having the autonomy to pursue one’s creative potential was identified as a

supportive environmental condition for adolescent creativity (see Section 6.2.2). For

UltraShiny, taking advantage of that autonomy, believing creativity was learnable,

and having a growth-oriented disposition also encouraged his efforts to improve.

Predominantly, UltraShiny expressed himself creatively in music. For example,

he demonstrated this creativity through music compositions for school tasks and for a

band with his friends (see CandleJack’s discussion about this band in Section 7.3.2).

His passion, however, was jazz improvisation. Most of his creative music was “not


really written or planned … it’s really just based on interaction” (WHS, II).

UltraShiny saw music, particularly jazz improvisation, as a way of expressing his

personality:

You develop a concept … it’s like you but a musical personality really.

It’s how you’re going to play, it’s how you think about things. It’s really

just, like you clone yourself and the clone solely plays music. And that’s

kind of the headspace you go into when you play. You, I s’pose [sic] you

just really, you do it so much that you are your instrument or your sound,

I guess.


UltraShiny used his music to express his sense of self, referring to his musical

“personality” or “clone”. Use of the term clone, defined as an imitation or something

that closely resembles another thing (OED), conveys UltraShiny’s view that his

creative music was an imitation of him, his experiences, his emotions, or his

thoughts. He felt a sense of connection with his music that enabled him to express

himself, stating “you are your instrument or your sound”. This type of creativity used

a genesis approach (see Section 5.5), because the ideas came from within and were

not based on particular existing music. Other participants in the study similarly found

domains through which they could express their personalities creatively, particularly

in the arts and creative writing.

On an evaluation of an original jazz improvisation performance work sample

UltraShiny submitted as part of the study (see Section 3.5.6), the judge said the

following of the player’s creativity:

The creativity falls within 2 areas. First in the genre holding form and

groove which he does very well and secondly being able to solo or improvise

over the changes. Bass players are responsible for the groove in Jazz and this

demonstrates a clear understanding of the groove and a sophisticated

harmonic knowledge in the solo.

For this improvisation, the judged rated UltraShiny as having “high” levels of

creativity, knowledge, and technical skill on the evaluation form (see Appendix G).


Participants’ creative processes typically began with an identified need or want

(see Section 4.3.1). In UltraShiny’s creative music, he had a personal desire to

express himself and do what he enjoyed, with a secondary social aim of wanting

other people to enjoy his music:

I’d like to think I do what I want, what I want to do. … Which is kind of,

I s’pose [sic] it’s quite an arrogant thing to say, but, yeah, but I don’t want to

have to, I guess I don’t want to have to do what other people want as

much. … I dunno [sic], it’s a hard one to call because this, you know, it’s

good to make people happy but they also have to want to be there and

enjoy what you do.

(UltraShiny, WHS, FG2b) (emphasis added)

Although he wanted other people to enjoy his music, UltraShiny’s desire for

autonomy through playing what gave him pleasure and following his own path of

musical creativity was the main motivator. The adolescent focused on engaging in a

process he enjoyed and developing an outcome for himself, not others. Intrinsic

motivation was a fundamental dispositional condition (see Section 6.2.1) of

participants’ creative personal expression.

Jazz improvisation used a different creative process in comparison with many

other adolescent creative tasks. In between identifying his desire to play at a

particular time and spontaneously creating an outcome, experimenting was the most

important sub-process of creativity (see Section 4.3.8). Subconsciously he was also

brainstorming, assessing constraints, achieving insight about what to play, and

evaluating, but only when asked to reflect on his process did he realise what he was

doing:

You don’t necessarily think of the exact thing you’re going to do to fit in

with what everyone else’s playing. … you get to that point where you’re so

connected that you can just do things without really having to think about.

… it’s a lot of removing yourself from yourself and just standing outside and

watching what you’re doing and thinking about how you could improve it.


In these situations, UltraShiny’s creative experiences did not involve conscious

planning and decision-making. This type of creative personal expression involved a

more intuitive application of various sub-processes of creativity (see Section 4.3).


UltraShiny’s creative personal expression was most encouraged by other

musicians outside school. By becoming part of a free improvisation scene with some

musicians who studied at a music conservatorium, UltraShiny was able to collaborate

with people who were like-minded in their creativity and offered to share their

expertise:

They’ve been trying to groom me to be sort of what they would like in the

scene. And, I guess it’s something I’d like to be as well, like it’s, they’ve

really been nurturing my musical development by showing me other

musicians I wouldn’t have heard of otherwise, or just playing, playing with

me. … passing on what they’ve learned in their experience, which is

greater than mine. … the ones who’ve had more of an effect and I’ve gone

out of my way to have influences from, like, ah, there’s a drummer at the

Con [Conservatorium of Music] … who’s really started to, I s’pose [sic],

mentor me.


These more experienced musicians provided supportive environmental conditions for

UltraShiny’s musical and creative development. As a less experienced player, he

actively sought their guidance, support and advice to advance his learning and

creative growth. In addition, these musicians were grooming him to be what they

wanted for the jazz improvisation scene, and therefore UltraShiny had to consider

whether it was also the direction he wanted to take. He particularly pursued the

opportunity to collaborate with, and learn from, a drummer he met at the

conservatorium who had become a mentor to UltraShiny. The adolescents who had

access to experts or mentors in their domain described the considerable benefits they

offered through their encouraging affective support, as well as cognitive support in

the form of sharing domain knowledge and experience (see Section 6.2.2). The group

improvisation contexts provided a safe, risk-free environment where UltraShiny felt

confident, competent, autonomous, and belonged to a group of like minds. His

experiences represent how creativity was encouraged in a high creative disposition–

supportive environment context (see Section 6.3).

UltraShiny’s creative musical outcomes had the potential to affect him and

others (see Section 4.5). A key reason that UltraShiny engaged in creative personal

expression was the positive emotional experience of playing that occurred when he

was focused solely on that task:


I suppose it’s calming … you’re focusing on that, you’re not really focusing

on anything else, or you’re just completely blank or whatever. It’s usually a

pretty surreal feeling, really kinda floaty and all serene stuff. … It just feels

really, usually it feels really good. Like, you know, gratifying almost, or I do

feel really happy when I’m getting what I want, so to speak. … You’re really

just there in that point in time, focused on that. And it’s a really, amazingly

uplifting feeling.


UltraShiny referred to feelings of being in a positive, calm and focused state that felt

“surreal”, “gratifying”, and “uplifting”. His intense engagement in the task was to the

exclusion of everything else. The powerful emotional effect of this experience was

an intrinsic motivator for adolescent creativity, and encouraged future creativity (see

Section 4.5.1).

In addition to having an impact on UltraShiny as the creator, his creative music

also had the potential to affect others. When asked if he used music to intentionally

affect an audience in some way, UltraShiny replied:

Not usually. That’s not, I’ve never really thought about this. I s’pose [sic]

I’d like to think they’re part of the process, being there, that they can take

whatever they want from it. So I don’t really have an intent for them,

because if I intend something for them, what’s the point? They have to have

their own, take something else, they have to make an effort as an audience

member to find something in it that they can relate to, and take from the

music.

(UltraShiny, WHS, FG2b) (emphasis added)

UltraShiny’s music was intended mainly for personal expression, not for others’

enjoyment. Therefore, when he did perform for other people, he usually did not have

an intention to provoke a particular audience response (see Section 4.5.2). In fact, he

was unique in his view that it was the audience’s role in the process to “make an

effort” to relate to his music and find something to enjoy or take away from the

performance. When the adolescents were creative mostly for themselves, not others,

the personal emotional response experienced appeared to have a greater effect on

them than reactions or recognition from an audience.

In summary, UltraShiny’s story illustrates intrinsically motivated, creative

personal expression through the domain of music. This passionate musician took


great pleasure in playing creative music as a means of expressing himself. When

considered in relation to existing literature, this case example highlights issues of

self-determination, the state of “flow” in creativity, and the importance of mentors

and models.

Creative personal expression was one way in which the adolescents could meet

their basic psychological needs. From a self-determination theory perspective (Ryan

& Deci, 2002), UltraShiny could meet his psychological needs by playing jazz with

musicians in his network when he experienced autonomy, felt a sense of belonging to

that music community, and felt competent in his ability to meet the challenges set by

the group. Although he did not demonstrate high creative self-efficacy in comparison

with other participants, this had not stopped him from pursuing creative activities. He

believed he could develop his ability by focusing on his creative growth. This

development was supported by playing with more experienced musicians, one of

whom was mentoring UltraShiny.

The desire to express his personality through music, as well as the positive

experience of “flow” during creative self-expression, were major intrinsic motivators

for UltraShiny. Flow is achievable when the level of challenge meets a person’s level

of skill, in a task that is intrinsically enjoyable (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, 1996, 2002).

Csikszentmihalyi (1990, 1996, 2000) coined the term “autotelic experience” to

describe this type of intrinsically motivated creative engagement that was an end in

itself. UltraShiny displayed characteristics of an “autotelic personality”

(Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, 2000) in that he appeared to be capable of regularly

reaching flow:

That’s your sole focus, that’s what you’re doing at that very point in time,

you’re not thinking about things, and you can just really, if you’ve practised

enough, you can really just go for it, not having to worry about things like

technique or timing or intonation as much, and really go for your ideas, and

hopefully nail them. … it’s a feeling that’s kind of indescribable, but I’ll try,

I’ll try and get it. … it’s like this kind of energy, I s’pose [sic], that flows

through you and … things seem to stop and nothing seems to matter.


This excerpt demonstrates the conditions of flow: UltraShiny had a specific goal and

focus; he internally evaluated his playing; he had the necessary levels of knowledge


and skill to successfully meet the challenge; and he forgot technical concerns,

allowing a deep involvement where action and awareness merged and the music

flowed (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996, 2002).

UltraShiny’s creativity benefited from supportive environments that

encouraged development of his high creative disposition. His access to a mentor with

more expertise than him, as well as other like minds (see also Section 8.2.7.3) had

been particularly significant environmental supports. Mentors not only model

creative processes and outcomes, they also offer a space safe for exploring creativity

and foster courage to deviate from the norm (Cropley, 2006). The most effective

mentors for creativity provide models for young people to emulate, but encourage

independence rather than imitation (Sternberg & Lubart, 1995). Most of UltraShiny’s

collaborative creativity with this network was conducted privately, but even when he

shared his music with an audience, his focus remained on playing for himself rather

than playing for the enjoyment of others. His experiences shared similarities with

other participants expressing their personalities more spontaneously through

creativity. Therefore, this case example provides a useful insight into creative

personal expression as an intuitive and expressive experience that was positively

supported by the environment.

7.2.2 Creative Personal Expression in Art: Kate.

Kate presented as a cheerful and confident WHS adolescent. She had held

leadership roles in primary and high school, and said that being a leader was “a big

part of my character” (WHS, II). She was a leader among peers as a school student

director, and tried to be a creative leader rather than a follower in her art work.

Kate was nominated for the study by teachers and peers for her creativity in

Visual Art, by her peers in Business and Management, for various activities she had

done in the IB’s CAS extracurricular program, and for her overall creative approach

to many domains and tasks. She received among the highest number of creativity

nominations from teachers and peers, evidence of her self-presentation as someone

with a high creative disposition in a range of areas. She viewed herself as most

creative in visual art, problem-solving, and her ability to find unique ways of

learning and make new connections between knowledge in most domains. Kate’s

story contrasts with UltraShiny’s experience in terms of her confidence, the impact


of her emotions, sources of support for creativity, her purpose for creative personal

expression, and her creative process.

Kate had high creative self-efficacy, and said she was particularly creative “if I

put my mind to it” (WHS, II). This had been reinforced by the fact she was often told

she was creative by people such as her mother, teachers, friends, and people who saw

her art. She scored a mean of 6.5 out of 7 on the Creative Self-Efficacy Scale (see

Section 3.5.3), the second highest score among both WHS and NHS participants.

Kate’s confidence in her creative capacity was reported by her and others to be

evident in her work in a variety of areas.

Kate felt very similar to her mother in terms of thinking style and general

approach to tasks. She repeatedly attributed her creativity to her mother:

If I’m not born being creative, it’s because of my Mum that I’m

creative, because she’s always possessed this uncanny ability to

approach things from every angle. ... it’s like this acute awareness that’s

slightly outside your actual thought process, but just, every now and then

taps you on the shoulder and says, “Hey, what about this?” … Maybe it’s

[her creativity is] just something that, by fortune, has been cared for by

my Mum’s, you know, perspective.


Participants, like Kate, who reported a similar creative thinking style to a parent were

unsure whether the similarity was due to a genetic predisposition to creativity, the

modelling and support for creativity from that family member, or a combination of

the two. These adolescents who closely identified with a family member’s creative

thinking style perceived that this condition was a critical environmental support for

their own creativity.

This curious adolescent said she was always analysing things and looking at

different perspectives. For Kate, creativity in visual art was her primary way of

expressing herself and these unique perspectives. An intrinsic enjoyment of creating

was what motivated her:

Love that feeling. … it’s almost like an adrenalin rush when you’re

creating something. … when you’re developing that, that’s when it feels

amazing. … I can’t describe it, but it’s a good feeling!



The “adrenalin rush” she felt during the creative process was a major motivator for

her always striving to be creative. Kate, UltraShiny, and many other participants

cited intrinsic motivation due to positive emotions, such as joy and passion, as a key

dispositional condition supporting engagement in creativity (see Section 6.2.1).

The main dispositional condition that inhibited Kate’s ability to be creative was

her emotional state. As a child, she said she expressed her sadness through art as a

way of coping with difficult situations. Creativity in art became an important part of

her sense of self and how she expressed her emotions. However, the opposite

occurred in adolescence. When she began at WHS and art became focused on

achieving good school grades, she said that she faced severe periods of unhappiness

in her life but could no longer create in that mood:

I think there was one stage when I just, I wasn’t happy. Um, and, it’s just,

you know that feeling you get when you don’t, when it feels like such an

effort just to move? I think, then, that’s when, like you know when I was

talking about it just being so motivating working on something,

communicating something? This was like the opposite of that.


During periods such as this, Kate lost her motivation to do anything and even

creative personal expression in art (her passion) seemed like too much effort. The

connection between her school surroundings, her mood and emotions, and her

creativity were emphasised:

I think there is a huge connection between moods and inclination to

creativity. … I’m incredibly affected by mood. You would be aware of

“school kills creativity”. In my opinion, completely true.

(Kate, WHS, II)

Kate was an adolescent who was usually enthusiastic about expressing herself and

her ideas. However, she described periods of depression that became the main

inhibitor for her creative thinking, and she blamed the school environment for

causing those feelings. Although she could provide many examples of creative things

she had done, she said the school “killed” her creativity, reflecting that she had not

met her creative potential. Being in the “right mood” was an important condition for

creativity (see Section 6.2.1).


This time in Kate’s life could be interpreted as an example of a high creative

disposition–inhibiting environment context (see Section 6.4). Alternatively, arguably

this situation might have temporarily reduced her creative disposition and created a

low creative disposition–inhibiting environment context (see Section 6.6) for that

period of time. It was not uncommon among participants for moods or feelings such

as sadness, stress, and anxiety to inhibit or even prevent successful creativity, and

school was, reportedly, often the source of these negative emotions. Conversely, for

other participants, creativity was sometimes described as a way of helping them to

process and manage those moods, as it had done for Kate when she was younger.

Kate said she did not have as many opportunities for creative self-expression at

WHS as she had when she was younger. This was attributed to the high workload

demands, pressure, and constraints of the IB curriculum in a selective school

environment (see Section 6.2.2), but might also have been due to Kate being in her

senior years of schooling, which can be stressful at any school. In some cases,

however, Kate’s desire for creative personal expression became compatible with

school-related tasks. An example of this was her desire to express how she perceived

art as a better method of communication than language:

I had a talk with … one of my Art teachers. … it got me thinking about

this concept that bugged me. Like, I had an exam and I had to go talk to

him about something that I’d thought about, because I couldn’t think about

anything else, which is a bad thing before going into an exam! (laughs). … I

was thinking, art I love it because it’s such a pure method of

communication. It’s not defined or hindered by the limits of words or

the definitions of words, ‘cause [sic] how do you communicate something

that there’s not a word for yet? ... so I was thinking about what humans

would be if there was [sic] no limitations on anything. And I said, “What

would nothing be?” And he [her Art teacher] said, “Nothing would be

something because you’re making it something by calling it nothing.”

(laughs) Oh, and I said, “Oh, that is so annoying!”


Discussions with a Visual Art teacher about her abstract ideas provided further social

stimuli for Kate’s ideas and enhanced her interest. Although self-expression was a

personal endeavour, teachers or other social supports could assist this creative

process. They could provide cognitive support by discussing, questioning, and posing


ideas, while allowing the adolescent to maintain their autonomy to develop ideas

independently. Social networks also offered affective support through

encouragement and showing interest. Cognitive and affective supports, and having

the opportunity and autonomy to explore ideas, were supportive environmental

conditions (see Section 6.2.2) for creative personal expression, especially when an

adolescent was expressing abstract ideas. These types of supportive conditions

contributed to a high creative disposition–supportive environment context (see

Section 6.3)

Kate recognised a personal need to find some way to make meaning of, and

express, her ideas because they were consuming her thoughts. Initially, she could not

find a way of adequately doing this using her existing visual art skills. This problem

was resolved when she was introduced to machinima, a type of contemporary

multimedia art (see also Section 4.3.4). Kate recognised an opportunity to express

her ideas through this medium:

And that [the idea about communication] churned in my head so long and

when I got this machinima thing, it was just finally an opportunity to

communicate that, just get it away! ... I just wanted to express something

sooo much.

(Kate, WHS, II)

Kate was intrinsically motivated to explore the idea of art being a better method of

communication than language. Machinima, a modern artistic medium, proved

effective for expressing her ideas. Intrinsic motivation was fuelled by a strong desire

to express a personal idea, a passion in the domain of visual art, and identifying an

effective means of expression.

Her creative process for the machinima task was a long and focused one. It

involved substantial brainstorming, planning, and evaluating of ideas to create an

outcome (see Section 4.3). She initially had difficulty finding a medium to express

her ideas, until she was introduced to machinima. To apply this art form, it required

her to learn new technical skills (see Section 4.3.5). She allowed a lot of time for

incubation of ideas (see Section 4.4.2), carrying a notebook in which she could

record ideas to gradually create a vision of her final product.

Originally, the purpose of the machinima task, initiated by Kate, was for her to

express her ideas. The process of self-expression was the focus, and the end product


was intended only for herself. However, she also decided to use it for a school

assignment, after which her teacher encouraged her to submit it in a machinima

competition for Australian high school students. Her personal goal of creative

personal expression therefore became compatible with creative task achievement

(see Section 7.4). Kate won the competition for her work’s quality and creativity,

providing evidence of the creativity of the product as well as the process.

Kate submitted this machinima task as one of her work samples for evaluation

(see Section 4.3.1). Her outcome was rated as having “high” levels of creativity,

knowledge, and technical skill (see Appendix G), and the judge made the following

comments about her creativity: “This video shows a high level of creativity. It

challenges convention very effectively – it explores a concept, and doesn’t rely on

linear narrative. It is imaginative and purposeful and provocative.”

The initial purpose of the task was creative personal expression, which was

achieved using a genesis approach to creativity (see Section 5.5). However, when

asked to share the work with others, Kate wanted the audience to understand the

intended insights, adding another aim of creative task achievement. To assist with the

communication process, she made some changes targeted at her peer audience in the

hope they would understand her work and she would receive a positive reaction from

them (see Section 4.5.2.1). She assessed that these changes would make her message

clear:

And so I included a soundtrack of literally me speaking through,

basically what it’s trying to say. Not literally, but pretty close to literally.

And I thought I was so happy with, I was like, yes, they’ll be able to get this.

Sweet! And then my teacher played it for the class and … I was like, “Come

on! Come on! You have to know what I’m trying to say here!” (laughs) And,

they’re like, “Ahhh, conformity?” (laughs). … when I tried to explain it to

other people just through words, I just, it was so hard. And I felt they

understood it, but they didn’t fully understand it. They didn’t fully

understand what I was trying to say. So that’s the idea of being able to

communicate this idea. So you can imagine it was quite disheartening

when it wasn’t really working that well! (laughs)


By adding a soundtrack narrating her ideas, Kate hoped to explain it more clearly to

others. However, her peers still found it too abstract and her intended message was


not received accurately. This had particularly disheartening emotional effects on

Kate given the message she was trying to express was one of communication. She

was disappointed that she needed to add language when trying to argue that art was a

more pure method of communication than language. It was even more upsetting

when neither art nor language communicated her message to her peers (see Section

4.5.1.1). However, she recognised her final product was very abstract, and was

consoled by the fact that her teachers and the competition judges understood her

message and praised her creativity. This example suggests that, in some cases, a

certain level of knowledge and understanding might be needed to appreciate a

product’s creativity, and that an expert in the field might be the best judge of

creativity.

On the whole, Kate was highly creative, highly confident, and highly affected

by her emotions. Being creative was part of Kate’s sense of self and was a way for

her to express her individuality, her emotions, and her unique perspectives on the

world around her. Her case demonstrates particularly strong relationships with self-

efficacy theory, the role of mood and emotions in creativity, and self-determination

theory literature.

Her high creative self-efficacy strongly contributed to her high creative

disposition. Her confidence in her creativity was reinforced by those around her who

provided support through verbal persuasion (Bandura, 1997). In addition to

supporting her self-efficacy, positive feedback strengthened her feelings of

competence and her intrinsic motivation (Deci, Ryan, & Williams, 1996). She

enjoyed the feeling of exhibiting her final products and receiving creative recognition

from others; however it was the enjoyment experienced during the process of

creative personal expression that was most motivating.

Kate perceived that her mood was the dispositional condition that had the

strongest influence on her creativity overall, both positively and negatively. One

explanation for its inhibiting influence is that feeling depressed is a negative,

deactivating mood that does not stimulate creative engagement (DeDreu, Bass, &

Nijstad, 2008). Her moods, and therefore her creativity, were negatively influenced

by the environmental conditions of pressure and constraints at school (see Section

6.2.2).


Kate’s intrinsically motivated process of creative personal expression was also

a process of meaning making, contributing to her need to feel competent in

interacting with challenging ideas and expressing that capacity (Deci & Ryan, 1985;

Ryan & Deci, 2002). For example, the ideation and creation process enabled her to

develop and make sense of her ideas about art as a form of communication. Although

there were negative emotional effects when she did not receive the intended reaction

from peers for this task, it did not appear to affect her creative self-efficacy or future

creativity (see Section 4.5). This response is an indication of her resilience in being

willing to stand out from the crowd and not becoming too discouraged when not

everyone appreciated her work. This type of social resilience, along with the

resilience to persevere with difficult creative tasks, is an important personality trait

for creativity (Claxton, Edwards, & Scale-Constantinou, 2006). Kate’s story was

representative of participants whose creative personal expression was closely related

to their emotions and sense of self as a creative person.

7.2.3 Discussion of Creative Personal Expression

Creative personal expression was demonstrated when the adolescents were

intrinsically motivated to use their creativity to express their personality,

experiences, emotions, and thoughts. This was usually done within a medium they

personally chose based on interest, ability, and/or experience. Often inherent in the

adolescents’ creative personal expression was a genesis approach to achieving

creativity, evident in both adolescent case examples presented here. However, the

participants also used other approaches for this type of creativity.

These case examples of creative personal expression highlight a focus on the

creative process over the final outcome. Although both UltraShiny and Kate did

develop outcomes (musical performances and art work, respectively), they

emphasised the creativity of their process. UltraShiny used the process as a way of

expressing his musical personality, and Kate had an overwhelming need to use the

creative process as a way of clarifying and expressing her thoughts. UltraShiny

focused on the emotional experience of creativity, while Kate emphasised the

cognitive and emotional experience of constructing meaning and expressing her

ideas. Moreover, although both participants’ purpose and manifestation of creativity

was creative personal expression, their processes were very different: UltraShiny’s


improvisation was, by definition, spontaneously created in the moment, whereas

Kate’s art work was carefully planned and created gradually over time.

These adolescents’ creative processes and outcomes affected the creator, and

potentially their audiences. UltraShiny and Kate’s case examples highlighted two key

similarities in relation to the effects of creative personal expression on themselves

versus their audiences: (a) the positive emotional experience of engaging in a

creative process for themselves; and (b) a primary focus on the creator’s needs or

wants, rather than those of the audience. Each of these will now be discussed.

Creative personal expression was closely related to positive emotional effects

during the experience of creating. The natural high associated with creativity was

described in both adolescent case examples and in other participants’ stories of

creative self-expression. UltraShiny referred to the all-encompassing, focused state

where time seems to stop, known as the state of flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, 1996).

Kate described the adrenalin rush she enjoyed, and other descriptions of her

experiences also indicated she had experienced flow. The creative experience

triggered positive emotions, and positive emotions can promote future creativity (see

Section 4.5.1). According to Fredrickson’s (1998, 2004) broaden-and-build theory,

there are momentary and enduring benefits of positive emotions. For example, joy

urges people to play and be creative, and interest incites exploration and openness to

new ideas (Fredrickson, 1998, 2004). These emotions also contribute to an

individual’s personal resources, which are durable and encourage personal

transformation, such as increases in creativity and resilience (Fredrickson, 2004).

The positive emotional effects of creativity on creators were a key factor in

participants’ motivation for, and love of, engaging in creative personal expression.

Moreover, these emotions had the potential to enhance the adolescents’ immediate

and future creative experiences (see Section 4.5.1).

In the majority of the research participants’ experiences, creative personal

expression was focused on the adolescents’ personal needs or wants. An exception

was when Kate modified her initial product to make it suitable for an audience of

peers. Even in this case, the adolescent’s focal point was a desire to self-express, as

implied by the category name, creative personal expression. Often the adolescents

did not intend to show their work to an audience (see Section 4.5.2). Therefore, when


the adolescents were creating, they were most focused on expressing themselves in a

way that met their needs, not on communicating to others.

Both adolescent case examples highlighted two critical and related

dispositional conditions: intrinsic motivation and interest (see Section 6.2.1). When

the adolescents used creativity as a way of expressing themselves, it was self-

initiated due to a passion in a particular domain or interest in a personal idea.

Common to all participants’ creative personal expression was that their drive and

commitment were founded on inherent enjoyment of the task. These adolescents

wanted to express themselves using their chosen medium and method of creating.

Their intrinsic motivation was supported by engaging with others who shared their

interest or purpose. These adolescents’ passions were intrinsically motivating, and

their interests were sustained by having opportunities to freely engage in intrinsically

motivated creative personal expression. The need for opportunities and autonomy to

apply these dispositional conditions to creative tasks is one illustration of the

important interactions in a high creative disposition–supportive environment context

(see Section 6.3).

The major difference between the two adolescent case examples’ dispositional

conditions was their creative self-efficacy. Kate had high creative self-efficacy, while

UltraShiny had lower creative self-efficacy in comparison with peers. Differences

between the adolescents with higher and lower creative self-efficacy could be

explained by Bandura’s theory. The adolescents with higher creative self-efficacy

(such as Kate) had usually received frequent social persuasion from family, friends

and/or teachers (Bandura, 1997), and positive feedback generated a sense of success.

Working with a mentor, as UltraShiny did, might have promoted some confidence to

pursue creativity; however, it cannot be assumed that all mentoring experiences

include verbal persuasion from the mentor. For example, from UltraShiny’s

descriptions, it appeared that the musicians met to play and talk about music

generally, not to critique or complement each other’s playing. Moreover, creative

self-efficacy is not likely to increase through vicarious experiences if there are

substantial ability differences between the adolescents and others with whom they

are working (Bandura, 1997). UltraShiny was playing with musicians who had more

expertise in jazz improvisation; therefore, their success might not equate to vicarious


experiences of creative success for him. These environmental conditions could

partially account for UltraShiny having lower creative self-efficacy than Kate.

In spite of their self-efficacy differences, both adolescents were capable of high

levels of creativity to personally express themselves and their ideas. One potential

explanation is that despite self-efficacy differences, if the adolescents with lower

creative self-efficacy had an incremental view of creativity (as UltraShiny did) it

motivated learning and exerting effort to improve creative ability (Dweck, 1999,

2002a; Dweck & Grant, 2008; Dweck & Molden, 2005; Good & Dweck, 2006).

Another possible explanation relates again to self-efficacy theory: creative

adolescents in the study had different levels of creative self-efficacy, but might have

engaged in enough mastery experiences to believe in their ability to be creative, to

some degree, in their chosen domain (Bandura, 1997). It should be acknowledged

that although UltraShiny’s creative self-efficacy appeared low, he did recognise his

creative potential and displayed many other conditions of a high creative disposition.

The potential for other conditions to overcome lack of confidence and develop a high

creative disposition might not apply to the adolescents with very low creative self-

efficacy who also lacked other creative dispositional conditions (see also Section

8.2.7.1).

These adolescents’ experiences were both examples of an intrinsically

motivated genesis approach to creative personal expression related to their personal

self-constructions. For some participants, including the two case example

adolescents, being able to express themselves, their personality, experiences,

emotions, and thoughts creatively was important to individuals’ self-definition or

self-concept (Brewer, 1991; Randel & Jaussi, 2003). Enduring individual interest in

an activity, such as art or music, and the positive feelings associated with engaging in

that activity, can be associated with self-regulating behaviours (intrinsic motivation),

self-efficacy, and identity (Hidi, Ressinger, & Krapp, 2004). Creative personal

expression had the potential to assist participants to achieve their basic psychological

needs through having: autonomy, with the adolescents’ behaviours originating from

within, rather than from external influences; relatedness, by feeling connected to

others (Kate related to her mother) or a sense of belonging to a group (UltraShiny

belonged to an informal jazz improvisation group); and/or competence, by

effectively expressing their capabilities (Ryan & Deci, 2002). Although there is a


broad and complex literature base related to constructs such as identity and self-

concept that could also be raised in relation to these case examples, an in-depth

discussion of these issues is beyond the scope of the thesis. However, this study

acknowledges there was a relationship between the adolescents’ creativity and their

sense of self.

This section used music and visual art case examples to demonstrate the type

of creativity categorised in this study as creative personal expression. The case

examples showed similarities in terms of their primary approach to creativity

(genesis, see Section 5.5) and some of the dispositional conditions related to their

creativity, such as intrinsic motivation, interest, emotional connection to the

experience, a focus on the creative process, and using creativity for their own needs

(see Section 6.2.1). Both adolescents also received environmental support from

finding opportunities for creativity, and receiving either cognitive or affective

support in their social networks (see Section 6.2.2). Their major points of difference

– their creative self-efficacy and creative process – illustrated different ways in

which creative personal expression was manifested.

Adolescents using creativity to express their personality or ideas was not

unique to musicians or visual artists. Other types of adolescent artists in the study

also commented on developing their artistic styles or personalities, which they

expressed creatively through their chosen domains, such as film-making and theatre.

Similarly, some participants used creative writing and poetry to express themselves.

Creativity as self-expression is an established construct, particularly in the arts and

literature (e.g., Gibson, 2005; Karakelle, 2009; McWilliam & Dawson, 2008).

However, this study categorises creative personal expression as more than simply

any kind of free expression; like all types of creativity, it required a novel and

appropriate outcome (see also Sections 2.2.1 and 8.2.6). Moreover, it was not

restricted to the arts or literature. It was possible for creative personal expression to

be manifested in all domains, including science, mathematics and technology;

however, in this study it was most commonly described in the arts and humanities.

An example of creative personal expression in science and mathematics overlapping

with creative boundary pushing will be presented in Section 7.3.1.


7.3 Creative Boundary Pushing

The type of creativity categorised in this study as creative boundary pushing

was demonstrated by the adolescents who extended the limits of typical knowledge

and behaviour within a domain, relevant to what was expected of them. Creative

boundary pushing was achieved by participants who were not content with what they

knew or could do, and therefore experimented, pursued new knowledge, tried new

things, and aimed to be unconventional. The two adolescent case examples presented

in this section were selected to illustrate creative boundary pushing in different

domains. GLaDOS was an NHS student demonstrating boundary pushing creativity

in science and mathematics (Section 7.3.1). CandleJack, a WHS student,

demonstrated boundary pushing in general life and the arts, but particularly in music

(Section 7.3.2). Both adolescents were 16 years old when they joined the study. This

section will conclude with a discussion of their creative boundary pushing

experiences in relation to the literature (Section 7.3.3).

7.3.1 Creative Boundary Pushing in Science and Mathematics: GLaDOS

When asked to describe himself, GLaDOS, an NHS participant, said he was

very confident (NHS, II). Identified as intellectually gifted at a young age, he had

been home-schooled (along with his two younger siblings) from halfway through

Year 3 until he enrolled at NHS at the beginning of Year 10. According to GLaDOS,

his mother (who had been a secondary and primary school teacher) made the

decision to home-school him based on his intellectual giftedness, her goal of

providing a more appropriate curriculum to meet his needs, and her belief that

children should have some choice and freedom to discover their abilities. GLaDOS

saw his giftedness as central to his creativity:

For me personally, “giftedness” (for want of a better, less egotistic term) has

played a fundamental role in my creativity. … I believe that my “giftedness”

was what inspired me to be creative, and that through the desire for a new

challenge or another way to test what I could do, I learned to express myself

a lot more creatively than many people my age.

(GLaDOS, NHS, DF)

GLaDOS was hesitant about labelling himself as gifted because he did not want to

sound “egotistic”, but he had described how he learned things more quickly and at a

higher level than his age peers. Intelligence and intellectual giftedness contributed to


his creativity because he drew on his advanced knowledge and understanding and

challenged himself to create new things.

GLaDOS was nominated for this study in three domains: his teacher and peers

nominated him for his creativity in Mathematics; his peers nominated him in

Physics; and GLaDOS self-nominated and was nominated by his peers in Chemistry.

He received among the highest number of nominations at NHS, indicating that his

high creative disposition was evident to others. On the Creative Self-Efficacy Scale

(see Section 3.5.3), he scored a mean of 5.75, similar to the NHS participants’ overall

mean score of 5.7. This score indicates a reasonable confidence in his ability to be

creative. By participating in the study, GLaDOS had developed an increased

awareness of his creativity:

I haven’t really examined the extent of my creativity in any depth

before…. but it has kind of gone without saying (or thinking) that I

found myself to be adept at applying creative ability to projects or

problems. It’s was a bit weird for me to think about myself as creative as

though it was something special or different, because it had always been

something that I had to call on (and being home-schooled for most of my

life, it was hard to compare with other people's creativity from my

sporadic contact with friends).

(GLaDOS, NHS, DF) (emphasis added)

Based on his creative self-efficacy score, GLaDOS appeared to have confidence in

his creativity before the study. However, he had not fully realised that his way of

approaching tasks was different from others’ work; it was just the way he thought

about things. By reflecting on what he had done, GLaDOS became more aware of his

creative capacity. Many participants, particularly at NHS, had not recognised or fully

appreciated their creativity until participating in the study.

GLaDOS thought others would describe him as being the type of person who

was “always coming up with a new idea or a new way of looking at stuff” (NHS, II).

Being, and appearing as, an “ideas person” seemed to be an important part of

GLaDOS’ sense of self, and he attributed his creativity to this self-construction:


My ability to produce ideas and then carry them through to the best of

my ability, um, I think that’s probably what makes me most creative. … I’m

lucky! (laughs) I’m blessed with a very erratic and highly irrelevant brain

that just throws things at me randomly and I manage to somehow catch

them. … And then I’ll try to make sense of something of it and try to

make something of it.


GLaDOS perceived that his fluency of ideas and ability to do something novel with

them was the reason for his creativity. Sometimes he did not have a specific purpose

in his thinking, but perceived the potential of “erratic” or “irrelevant” thoughts.

GLaDOS was one of a few adolescents in the study whose description of their

thinking suggests that sometimes they did not consciously try to generate ideas;

rather, their creativity resulted from making sense of the various thoughts they had,

thoughts that sometimes were viewed as emerging unexpectedly. The adolescent’s

role was to perceive the potential of those ideas in order to pursue a creative

outcome, which was important for achieving insight during the creative process (see

Section 4.3.9).

Analysis of GLaDOS’ creativity revealed his desire to experiment and his

curiosity to pursue new knowledge, to go beyond what he had learned and what was

expected of him, and his tendency to deviate from conventional ways of thinking.

One of the things he enjoyed most about being creative was continually improving

his ideas and taking them further. These were all dispositional characteristics (see

Section 6.2.1) that positively supported his engagement in creative boundary

pushing. Usually his boundary pushing was manifested through problem-solving: “I

like solving problems, be it physical, be it on a computer, or mind games.” (NHS, II).

Through problem-solving tasks, GLaDOS was able to experiment and expand his

current understandings beyond those of his peers. Problem-solving was one of the

most common demonstrations of creative thinking at NHS, but not all participants’

creative problem-solving resulted in creative boundary pushing. In many cases, the

adolescents’ problem-solving methods enabled creative task achievement (see

Section 7.4).


GLaDOS identified how the combination of his home-schooling and NHS

experiences had contributed to his creativity. Home-schooling provided freedom to

explore his interests and self-direct his learning, meeting his need for autonomy:

It [home-schooling] was definitely a lot more freedom, which allowed my

mind to just expand and I was able to discover what I was interested in and

what I wasn’t interested in. So, it was definitely good for discovering myself

as a person, and my strengths and weaknesses. … I would apply myself to

things to test how creative I could be.

(GLaDOS, NHS, II)

Although encouraging autonomy and intrinsic motivation for creativity, GLaDOS

felt that home-schooling had lacked some structure for developing his creativity.

This structure was something he found at NHS:

I think that, um, while giving me that scope for creativity, it [home-

schooling] didn’t give me a whole lot of depth for creativity. So, I had a

lot of potential, but I didn’t have, um, the direction to take it in. So, I

think that how school’s improved it on top of that [developing knowledge

depth and direction]. I think that’s worked out quite well for me. … I feel a

lot more motivated and a lot more confident with how I approach any

creative ideas I have, and how I go about expanding them and

troubleshooting [increase in creative self-efficacy; increase in motivation]

them and stuff like that. So, I think school’s given me a lot of, um, a lot of

experience [opportunities for creativity] and a lot of confidence to do that,

that ability [increase in creative self-efficacy].


At NHS, GLaDOS was challenged to develop a depth of knowledge through the

rigorous IB curriculum, which gave him more direction for his creativity, increased

his creative self-efficacy and motivation, and provided additional experiences and

materials for solving practical problems. In different ways, GLaDOS had

experienced high creative disposition–supportive environment contexts (see Section

6.3) in both his home-schooling and NHS educational experiences. He perceived that

his combination of schooling experiences had provided the most supportive

environmental conditions for his creativity. These excerpts capture that a sufficient

knowledge base, intrinsic motivation, opportunities to identify and develop interest

areas, and the autonomy to experiment with knowledge and push the boundaries in


domains of interest, were important conditions for the adolescents’ confidence and

capacity for creative boundary pushing.

Conducting scientific and mathematical investigations using experimentation

and problem-solving was the primary method by which GLaDOS pursued new

knowledge and understandings. One example in mathematics related to extending

what he learned about Pascal’s Triangle:

In Maths we were learning Pascal’s Triangle. … And I came up with the

idea, well, what if you had a tetrahedron shape, a three-dimensional Pascal’s

Triangle ... So I put the idea to my teacher and she said, “Oh, that’s

interesting. I never thought of it like that.” So, um, I searched the Internet a

bit, did a bit of browsing, and I couldn’t find anything on it.

(GLaDOS, NHS, II)

GLaDOS took an existing concept learned in class – a two-dimensional Pascal’s

Triangle – and was curious about its application to a three-dimensional format. This

demonstrated an adaptation approach to creativity (see Section 5.2). Learning the

necessary knowledge and skills (i.e., having a sufficient understanding of the two-

dimensional Pascal’s Triangle and three-dimensional shapes), brainstorming,

experimenting, and evaluating his progress were important sub-processes in this task

(see Section 4.3). He consulted his teacher and the Internet to see if anyone had tried

the idea. When he did not find any solutions, he tried drawing it and later built three-

dimensional models. He persevered, even when his attempts were not succeeding,

demonstrating a willingness to make mistakes and learn from them: “I haven’t made

too many more advances. … Waiting for a new idea to pop up into my head” (NHS,

II). Allowing incubation and revising his ideas were natural strategies for his

problem-solving process (see also Section 4.4). This creative process was typical of

many of his experiences of creative problem-solving in order to push the boundaries.

Unfortunately, he could not find the latest version of his work to submit as a

work sample (see Section 3.5.6), and submitted an early version of his initial

thoughts. The judge provided the following comments based on the work provided:

“The idea of a 3D Pascal’s triangle is creative. … it is difficult to define how creative

it [the work sample] was. It is a good idea but not really followed through.” Since

GLaDOS could not provide the work that showed how he had later “followed

through”, the judge evaluated it as demonstrating a “moderate” level of creativity,


and low levels of knowledge and technical skill based on the limited evidence he had

(see Appendix G). However, his NHS Mathematics teacher, who had seen GLaDOS’

progress on this task, nominated him for his creativity in Mathematics due to his

ability “to bring a different perspective/approach” to tasks such as the 3D Pascal’s

Triangle.

Another example of GLaDOS’ creative boundary pushing was sparked by a

Chemistry homework task. While travelling home from school on the train, he used

his problem-solving skills to develop a deeper understanding of the chemistry

concept of moles4:

I was looking at the mole idea and the maths behind that. And I thought

to myself, hmm, this is calculating the mass of a whole heap of atoms, but

how do you get the mass of just one, so that way you could work out in

grams how much each atom weighs. So I started playing around with the

equations and, um, I worked out how to calculate the mass of any one

atom, ... I actually made three equations. … I haven’t found anything

that’s directly related to that. ... it was … a problem-solving moment for

me because I didn’t know how to do that. It was spur of the moment, kind

of thing. … I checked it with my Chemistry teacher and my Physics teacher,

and they both agreed it worked out.


This creative problem-solving example provides a different illustration of his

boundary pushing creativity. GLaDOS wanted to solve a problem without knowing

the formula for doing so; hence, he created his own equations. This is another

example of an adaptation approach to creativity (see Section 5.2). The outcome was

produced quickly, conducted in the space of a train ride home from school. The

process differed from the sustained iterative task of developing a three-dimensional

Pascal’s Triangle in that it did not require learning new knowledge and he did not

face any difficulties; however, the sub-processes of experimenting and evaluating

(see Section 4.3) were still central to his process.

4 “The amount of any particular substance having a mass in grams numerically the same as its molecular or atomic weight.” (OED)


GLaDOS said he was creative because it was “fun” (NHS, EC) and he had a

love of learning and a thirst for new knowledge. The creative experience was

inherently rewarding for him:

Um, I s’pose [sic] that goes back to the intrinsically motivated, you know,

of the way that I learn things. When something sparks things, when

something, uh, yeah, when something sparks as interesting, I just want to

pursue it until I find out why it’s interesting, why, what’s behind it. …

Um, it’s quite exciting really. I really love doing it. Whenever I have a

great idea and I just write it down, I feel, “Yes! It’s something new to work

on. A new problem to solve.” Even if it’s a mundane one that has no

bearing on anything, I still, I solved it, I worked it out even though it

doesn’t mean anything.


In the majority of examples of creative boundary pushing described by participants,

creativity did not require extrinsic motivation, such as a practical application or

recognition from others. Dispositionally, GLaDOS was intrinsically motivated to

follow ideas that piqued his interest, to be creative for its own sake (see Section

6.2.1). Creative boundary pushing tasks were often done of the adolescents’ own

volition for the purpose of going beyond what they and others around them knew,

and what was expected of them at school, in order to try and learn new things.

Being intrinsically motivated did not prohibit the adolescents from being

affected by showing their work to others to receive a reaction or recognition (see

Section 4.5.2). GLaDOS found both the creative process and sharing the creative

product rewarding:

It’s rewarding to look upon your creation, and even more so to show it off to

others. I guess the process is fun, because you get to solve the problems as

they present themselves, and the final product is like a monument to your

achievement.

(GLaDOS, NHS, EC)

He viewed the final outcome as evidence of his creativity. GLaDOS also admitted

that receiving positive feedback for his creative work was appreciated:


If it’s to do with school and I’m interested in it, I get that added bonus of

getting a good mark, because almost invariably if I’m really interested

in it, I’ll get a really good mark. Um, so, with school, that’s an added

bonus. I feel, like, even better ‘cause [sic] I’ve achieved something and I

can show other people about it and say, “Look what I’ve done”. (laughs)

If I wasn’t that interested in it and I handed it in, I feel kind of worn out.

Like, uh, that was forced, forced creativity. I’m not sure it was the best if

could have been if I was interested in it. So I feel a little bit, um,

disappointed that it wasn’t everything it could have been if I had that

motivation.


Having a final product that he could share with others, and receiving a good mark for

creative work at school, reinforced GLaDOS’ sense of competency in that domain.

Some participants sought positive feedback and recognition of their creative

boundary pushing in order to feel more competent (see Section 4.5.2). The effects of

others’ reactions, however, also depended on how the adolescents personally felt

about the creative product (see Section 4.5.1.1). Being creative in an area they were

passionate about was the most rewarding experience for many participants, and

positive feedback such as a good grade was a “bonus”. The positive emotional

effects of recognition could be diminished if the adolescents perceived the task as

one of “forced creativity” or something in which they had no interest.

In summary, GLaDOS’ story provides an exemplar of adolescents who

engaged in creative boundary pushing in science and mathematics. GLaDOS was

intrinsically motivated to use his creativity to push boundaries by experimenting,

solving problems, pursuing new knowledge, and developing unique understandings

and connections. When creativity was used to solve problems, it often overlapped

with creative task achievement (Section 7.4); however, in this adolescent’s case the

main aim was usually boundary pushing. His examples of creativity in mathematics

and chemistry reveal his passion for going beyond prescribed learning and applying

his unconventional thinking to generate new ideas. He was not content with only

knowing what was expected of him or doing what was required.

A high level of knowledge was a supportive dispositional condition for

GLaDOS’ creative boundary pushing. He would not have been able to go beyond the

basic mathematical and scientific ideas without first having a full understanding of


them. Domain knowledge supported GLaDOS’ creativity by allowing him to

recognise novelty and the opportunity for creativity, and free up his mental resources

to focus on creating new ideas rather than the basics (Runco, 2007a; Sternberg &

Lubart, 1995). His modification of these learned concepts represented his tendency to

use an adaptation approach to creativity (see Section 5.2); however, he also

described instances of using transfer (Section 5.3) and synthesis (see Section 5.4) in

other creative tasks he discussed.

In addition to his cognitive abilities, GLaDOS demonstrated an important

attitudinal component that allowed him to push boundaries: curiosity for seeking and

exploring unexpected or unpopular paths (Sternberg, 2006; Sternberg & Lubart,

1995). GLaDOS’ knowledge development, creativity, and creative self-efficacy were

positively supported by the environmental conditions provided by the different, but

complementary, learning experiences he had through home-schooling and at NHS.

The high creative disposition–supportive environment contexts (see Section 6.3)

provided the optimal conditions for encouraging his creativity. His creative self-

efficacy, which was already reasonably high at the beginning of the study, was

further enhanced through his participation in the research after he developed a better

understanding and appreciation of his creative achievements.

Creativity was inherently enjoyable for GLaDOS, and he did not require his

creative ideas to be practically applied or appreciated by others to extrinsically

motivate him. This is a parallel between him and the case examples of creative

personal expression. Although he was intrinsically motivated, he did value positive

feedback from others confirming his competency or mastery of that task. Feedback

on effort or strategies for success, in particular, has been linked to a learning goal or

mastery orientation and persistence after difficulties or failure (Dweck, 1999, 2002a;

Dweck & Grant, 2008; Good & Dweck, 2006). Moreover, positive informational

feedback (as opposed to positive controlling feedback) supports intrinsic motivation

(Deci, Koestner, & Ryan, 2001). GLaDOS identified as someone who had new ideas

and perspectives, and this characteristic was important to his sense of self. Although

his creativity was not about personal expression in the way that it was for UltraShiny

and Kate, his demonstration of creativity projected his valued self-image as an “ideas

person”. Therefore, his creative boundary pushing had some overlap with creative

personal expression (Section 7.2). Boundary pushing creativity in mathematics and


science was manifested by the adolescents who were intellectually gifted with

exceptional knowledge and skills, and who were intrinsically motivated by learning

in those domains.

7.3.2 Creative Boundary Pushing in Music and in Life: CandleJack

CandleJack, a WHS adolescent, described himself as someone who had “a

tendency to be different to everybody else”, liked change, and said “I really resent

things like routines and, I don’t wanna [sic] sound all hippy, but bureaucracy and

authority and stuff like that” (WHS, II). CandleJack had been identified as

intellectually gifted at a young age and participated in various extension programs

during his schooling. He displayed multi-potentiality in the arts, as well as more

traditional academic subjects such as science and mathematics, and demonstrated a

high creative disposition in a range of domains, particularly music.

Although at the time of the study he was a WHS adolescent, CandleJack had

initially enrolled at NHS and transferred to WHS during the third term of Year 10.

He originally went to NHS on his mother’s suggestion and because he was not happy

with the “academic and social atmosphere” of his former high school (EC). He

transferred to WHS after he “realised that a life full of textbooks wasn’t for me” and

NHS “wasn’t working out” (EC). His mother supported his eventual transfer to WHS

because she had been artistic during high school and approved of the idea of an arts

school that still had a rigorous academic curriculum.

CandleJack was one of the most frequently nominated students for this study

due to his musical creativity. The Music teacher and numerous peers nominated him.

He was also nominated by peers in Film and Theory of Knowledge. Although music

was his passion, he discontinued studying Music as a school subject early on at WHS

because he did not like the IB music syllabus, its principal assessment focus on

“music score analysis and history essays”, and its limited assessment of composition

and performance (WHS, EC). He decided that studying the subject in that way would

“ruin my interest in music” (WHS, EC). However, he was involved in many other

school musical activities, such as musical ensembles and composing film scores for

his own and his peers’ films.

In contrast with others’ positive assessments of his creativity, CandleJack had a

mean score of 4 on the Creative Self-Efficacy Scale (see Section 3.5.3), the lowest of


all 20 research participants. On the scale, a score of 4 indicates neutrality in his

beliefs about his creativity. When asked in his individual interview whether he

thought he was creative, CandleJack hesitantly said yes, admitting that he was more

of a creative than a logical thinker. However, his presentation of modesty might have

been due to his negative perception of some gifted adolescents:

To be frank, my view on “gifted children” has always been a sour one.

Whilst it is true that kids who are looking for more of a challenge would

benefit from programs aimed at them, I think the whole concept has a

horrible effect down the track. Once a child is identified as “gifted” they

begin to identify themselves as gifted too- their ego inflating a bit more

every time they’re referred to as “special”.


This belief might have caused CandleJack to refrain from displaying his true feelings

during the study to prevent becoming, or being viewed as, someone with an over-

inflated ego who thought he was better than others. He also said:

I seldom take praise well. … Personally I try to live life not think about it,

because I try not [to] let it matter to me how good I think I am, to be neutral

and able to be realistic.


Either he did not have high levels of confidence, or did not want to project an image

of being too confident in his creativity or any personal quality.

Creative boundary pushing was evident in CandleJack’s unconventional

attitude and approach to most tasks:

I just like to think about everything and anything and, like, all possibilities

and, and stuff like that. And, I think if you’re interested in something and,

and you just think that, you know, something is really you or, or you’re

passionate about [it] then you should be able to chase that and not just sit

within the confines of your school or your life or your country or, you know,

all of those circles.


CandleJack enjoyed pursuing new possibilities in his interest areas. The adolescents

who liked to push the boundaries and wanted to explore and create beyond the usual,


comfortable confines of their lives epitomised a commonly used phrase related to

creativity: “thinking outside the box”.

This adolescent’s intrinsic motivation was captured in a description of his

creativity generally and at school, not just in his music:

I’ve always gone and tried to think that one step ahead, how can I make this

kinda cool, kinda [sic] interesting. Um, and sometimes it just ends up me

doing stuff for no reason or whatever.


CandleJack did not need a reason for designing or creating things. His intrinsic

motivation came from having “cool” or “quirky” ideas (WHS, II) that were different

from others’ ideas (see Section 6.2.1). This attitude applied to personal interest tasks,

as well as school assignments:

Throughout my schooling, creative aspects of any curriculum have been

the only things I’ve ever put effort into. Assignments in the form of

websites, films, models, etc would always be the ones I’d devote months to-

whereas getting an A in maths was something I simply didn’t see the

point of (and admittedly avoided to prevent further labels of

“giftedness”).


His motivation to be creative meant that he spent more time and effort focusing on

creative tasks than on studying to achieve good grades at school. Moreover, he said

he avoided consistently achieving top marks at school to escape the gifted label.

CandleJack was one of only a few adolescents in the study who were, at times,

willing to sacrifice their school grades (to some extent) in order to pursue their own

creative path for reasons other than achievement. This decision was consistent with

their focus on learning over achieving. They were content to be creative for the sake

of creating something different, and not to meet any task demand. The goal of doing

something unconventional made tasks (and life) more interesting for such

adolescents.

CandleJack’s main passion was piano, but he had played a range of

instruments, including euphonium, trumpet, drums, acoustic guitar, electric guitar,

bass guitar, ukulele, double bass, violin, and recorder. He was a self-taught musician

who did not read music, and had only received some formal instrumental lessons for


the euphonium. His musical emphasis was on experimenting (see Section 4.3.8) and

using his creativity to make music he enjoyed. He used his piano playing to explain:

Apart from a few chords that I was taught informally [on piano], after that I

think it was something about freedom, ‘cause [sic] … some kids they’re

taught from it since they were six and they’re made to do grades and they

resent it. But, you know, I just saw 88 keys and I could press any one that

I want until I found something that sounded nice. Repeat. And it was just,

eventually and even to this day, music is something that I do because I

want to and not because I have to. And I don’t have anyone to impress

or anyone who will mark it off and, you know, I don’t even have to

practise if I don’t want to. And there’s no one going, “You need to learn

this piece by such and such a time”.


CandleJack was intrinsically motivated to freely explore and play music that he

enjoyed, especially his own creative compositions. He did not participate in music

lessons, and therefore was not extrinsically motivated by music grades, practice

schedules, or a music teacher’s directions. He believed that to be a good musician, a

person had to be creative and able to improvise, not just technically competent, but

admitted: “I guess it’s just because of my bias and how I’ve approached it all my

life” (WHS, II).

The music work sample he submitted (see Section 3.5.6) was of an original

“videosong”, which he said was a music video where “the viewer sees every

instrument and sound that went in to the final mix” (WHS, EC). The judge made the

following evaluation of his work’s creativity:

This demonstrates clear understanding of narrative and production processes

of a rock piece. It has mature textural layering and good understanding of a

build up with clear distinction and differentiation of sections. Great

programming/ recording. Shows he has listened carefully an[d] analysed the

genre and reapplied these ideas to his own work.

His creativity, knowledge, and technical skill were all rated at a “high” level (see

Appendix G).

Musical creativity was demonstrated in CandleJack’s individual compositions

and the songs he wrote for the band he was in with friends. Using the band’s music


as an example, CandleJack said that their goal was to create something new and

different, and not be defined by a particular genre or by their personal interests:

We don’t consider ourselves a [sic] “insert genre here” band. You know,

we, if one of us has an idea we’ll pretty much try it out no matter how

far-fetched it seems. So, when I start writing a song or when any of us starts

writing a song, there’s [sic] no rules to say it has to go like this or it has to

sound like this. … every time we do it we rebuild our music, what we do,

from the ground up. So it’s really good. And because we have such

different backgrounds in the band … that all comes together and, I mean,

um, granted it doesn’t always work. Probably it fails more times than it

succeeds, but, you know, you gotta [sic] fail.


Each of the band members had very different musical experiences, training, and

tastes. However, they committed to trying out all of their diverse ideas, even ones

that seemed “far-fetched”. CandleJack was particularly focused on resisting rules and

transcending musical genres. In this way he was able to apply his creativity to push

the boundaries of their musical experience. He said his creativity was “limitless”

(WHS, II) when he composed alone or with UltraShiny (the participant described in

Section 7.2.1) because they did not self-impose any constraints or limitations.

However, when he composed with other band members, who he said had narrower

musical tastes, he thought their compositions always took a certain, more

conventional direction. CandleJack was best able to focus on pushing musical

boundaries when he was not limited by others. Participants who used creativity for

boundary pushing in this way also sometimes used it for creative personal

expression. However, the difference was that creative boundary pushing through

experimentation, trying new things, and pushing previous limits was the major aim;

expressing personality or emotion was secondary.

The sub-processes of creativity (see Section 4.3) important for his musical

compositions were outlined when describing the process of creating music for the

band:


If I were working on a piece of music, um, say if UltraShiny was there with

me … we have such a dynamic that, you know, ideas will go over the place

and we’ll be like, “Yeah, yeah, this is really cool”, “What about this?” …

And it’s, it’s weird because I don’t think we’ve actually, between the five of

us [in the band], written a song. I don’t think it would work. … because

when you brainstorm in an environment like that, you get an idea and then

criticism instantly from one person whose criteria doesn’t, doesn’t fit it.

(CandeJack, WHS, II)

Commonalities in the sub-processes of CandleJack and GLaDOS – particularly

brainstorming, experimenting and evaluating ideas (see Section 4.3) – demonstrates

that there are similarities in the process of creative boundary pushing, even in

different domains (music, mathematics, or chemistry). Moreover, in addition to

applying to individual tasks, it occurred in collaborative creativity. CandleJack

emphasised the importance of collaborating with like minds (see Section 6.2.2), such

as UltraShiny. He had experienced that composing with the whole band, who had

very different musical tastes, was not usually creatively successful because the

brainstorming phase was hampered by premature critical evaluation.

In discussing the band’s music and his independent compositions, CandleJack

also emphasised that to be creative, sometimes he had to fail and learn from his

mistakes. Allowing incubation, verbalising ideas, revising, and starting afresh were

all important strategies he used when composing was not unsuccessful (see Section

4.4). Usually, CandleJack’s creative boundary pushing was accomplished in an

environment where he had the freedom to experiment and make mistakes; however,

sometimes his boundary pushing was a response to a lack of this type of freedom:

I feel most inspired by the two extremes, I think. Ultimate freedom and the

rebellion to no freedom.


Creative boundary pushers demonstrated a willingness to ignore or even rebel against

conventional rules and methods in learning. When there were opportunities to do this

within institutions, such as schools, these adolescents embraced that chance. When

rebellion would lead to serious consequences at schools, the participants sought

external outlets to creatively push boundaries.


CandleJack’s musical creativity was one way in which he met his personal

needs; however, he also considered his intended audience’s needs when he wrote

music to share with others:

I guess if I were to think about whether I’m thinking about the audience or

not, um, yes I am, but I also, I try to stay in the middle of the scale. I don’t

try to make my music so obscure and artistic that it’s not accessible.

(CandleJack, NHS, FG2a) (emphasis added)

Much of CandleJack’s music was about experimentation, and was not always played

for others. However, when he did compose music to be performed live or shared

online, he tried to write creative but “accessible” music to balance creating

something that both he and others enjoyed. He did not appear to need recognition

from others, but did aim to produce a positive audience reaction (see Section 4.5.2).

Adolescents such as CandleJack, who had an unconventional approach to most

things they did, viewed questioning everything and exploring possibilities as

motivation in itself. The reactions of others were valued, but were of less importance

than meeting psychological needs such as feeling autonomous and competent.

A significant environmental condition affecting CandleJack’s musical

creativity was his family’s expectations. His family had implored him to have “a

solid degree (e.g., medicine)” (WHS, EC) because they were concerned that the arts

did not offer real career opportunities. CandleJack provided the following response

to his family’s expectations:

I think it’s important to “ignore” wisdom from your elders sometimes;

perhaps a few decades ago you were either a “star” or a “nobody” but this is

less and less the case nowadays. I think that so long as I can convince my

parents that my approach to an arts career is calculated and productive rather

than purely “ambitious”, then I should be fine.

(CandleJack, WHS, EC)

CandleJack was fixed in his decision about pursuing a career in the arts, rather than

using his intellectual ability in a scientific career path. He had made this decision

based on his evaluation of the changing nature of the creative industries, and his

attitude matched his boundary pushing approach to life. He had overcome the

potentially limiting context of high creative disposition–inhibiting environment


(Section 6.4) found at home and at his brief time at NHS, and used his high creative

disposition to pursue a supportive environment with opportunities for his creativity.

In trying to capture overall why he was creative and the purpose of most of his

creativity, CandleJack said it was because he questioned everything he did and

looked for alternatives, making him someone who was seen as doing things

differently from others:

Um, that, there pretty much isn’t a single aspect of what I do in my day or in

my life that I haven’t gone, do I have to do it this way? Um, and I guess

that’s what kinda made me notorious for being the, the one that does

everything a little bit differently. … creativity for me is just sort of the

way I think more than the way I approach things. Um, and even if it

wasn’t called creativity, I’d still be the same person, I think.


Like GLaDOS, this approach to life and learning was not always a conscious

decision; to CandleJack, thinking creatively was his normal way of thinking.

Participants who pushed the boundaries did not accept that there were only certain

ways of doing things. An underlying dispositional condition for the adolescents

being able to push the boundaries was a sufficient knowledge base of existing

boundaries, and curiosity and intrinsic motivation to go beyond that knowledge (see

Section 6.2.1).

CandleJack’s story demonstrates the manifestation of a boundary pushing type

of creativity in music, and in daily life, that developed from a passion for

experimenting and being unconventional. Music was the primary domain in which he

demonstrated his creative boundary pushing, which resulted from his

experimentation and unconventional way of thinking. In music, his creativity was

usually the result of a genesis approach to creativity where, to the best of his

knowledge, CandleJack’s ideas were substantially different from existing music to

which he had been exposed (see Section 5.5). A recurring theme in this case was his

disposition, with the following summary focusing on links to the literature in terms

of his apparent low creative self-efficacy and his attitude.

His self-reported low creative self-efficacy in the Creative Self-Efficacy Scale

and during his interview was in contrast with others’ assessments of his creativity.

Possible reasons for his low Creative Self-Efficacy Scale score include: (a) he had


mixed feelings and was unable to decide whether he truly agreed or disagreed that he

was creative; (b) he did not feel competent or informed enough to choose a position;

(c) he was unwilling to make a definitive response; or (d) he did not want to reveal

his true feelings (DuBois & Burns, 1975; Stone, 2004). The last reason seemed likely

given CandleJack’s reluctance to be labelled gifted or to appear egotistical.

As a self-taught musician who did not formally study music, his intrinsic

motivation to compose was based on his attitude of following new ideas, and going

outside the bounds of what others were doing. Therefore, when composing music, an

inhibiting environmental condition was social interactions with others who did not

share this drive (see Section 6.2.2). CandleJack displayed a sense of discontent and

restlessness with following conventional methods of doing things, and was

constantly seeking and pursuing other possibilities. His creativity was supported by

this dispositional condition, and by persisting even when he took unpopular routes or

others did not understand or approve of his decisions (Sternberg, 2006; Sternberg &

Lubart, 1995). In his music and other interests, this motive often took precedence

over self-expression. However, his unique creations were a representation of his

unconventional ideas and approach, and therefore sometimes also included a desire

for creative personal expression.

CandleJack’s final words from his individual interview capture the source of

his creative boundary pushing ideas: “I can sum up by saying, every creative idea

I’ve ever had has just been from the stem of, “Wouldn’t it be cool if…?” (WHS, II).

This is a simple but effective portrait of creative boundary pushers as the adolescents

who were intrinsically motivated to pursue interesting, unique ideas due to a

curiosity about possibilities and different ways of doing things.

7.3.3 Discussion of creative boundary pushing.

Creative boundary pushing occurred when the adolescents pushed or redefined

the expected boundaries of knowledge or behaviours in a domain. This was the

purpose of creativity for participants who were driven to go beyond conventional

ways of thinking or behaving by experimenting and pursuing new knowledge and

understandings. A literature review conducted after analysis revealed that the term

“boundary pushing” was also used by Eisner (1965) to describe creativity that

extends the limits of objects within their fields (see also Section 8.2.6). Eisner’s


original study was of children’s visual art, but the construct of boundary pushing was

seen as relevant to other domains and age groups. Both this study and Eisner’s

acknowledge that people pushing the boundaries of their experiences are being

creative in their environment, even when others might have also accomplished

something similar without that creator’s knowledge.

There were various fundamental similarities in the dispositions of the

adolescent case examples for creative boundary pushing. Both GLaDOS and

CandleJack, and other participants like them, were very curious and intrinsically

motivated to learn and experiment, wanting to look at unconventional possibilities

(see Section 6.2.1). They described a mastery orientation, valuing learning goals over

performance or achievement goals (Dweck, 1999; Dweck & Grant, 2008). Both

adolescents demonstrated an agentic orientation, viewing themselves as independent,

autonomous, and leaders rather than followers (as did Kate), which has shown to be a

predictor of a mastery orientation (Strage, 1997). During their sub-processes of

iterative brainstorming, experimenting, and evaluating (see Section 4.3), boundary

pushers showed a willingness to make mistakes because they recognised the need to

fail and learn from those failures in order to enhance their creativity. This type of

intellectual risk-taking is important for creativity, and can be supported by positive

and realistic self-efficacy beliefs when risks are framed as challenges (Bandura,

1997; Beghetto, 2010) or, in the adolescents’ words, experimentation. Mastery-

oriented individuals are not strongly influenced by failure experiences, provided that

they continue to improve (Covington, 1992; Covington & Omelich, 1982). Boundary

pushers also explained that thinking creatively and doing things differently was their

normal way of behaving; it was not something they had previously recognised as

being unique, nor was it something they necessarily pursued consciously. This

approach to thinking was natural to them and could be interpreted as contributing to

their basic psychological needs of autonomy to pursue their own goals and feeling

competent through seeking and engaging in creative challenges (Deci & Ryan, 1985,

2000). In some cases, positive feedback from other people also contributed to their

needs. However, the overriding intrinsic motivation in creative boundary pushing

was based on the adolescents’ dispositional characteristics.

Another emerging similarity among examples of creative boundary pushing

was that it was achieved by participants who had been identified as gifted. High


levels of ability, knowledge, and skill were positive dispositional conditions for

creativity, and appeared to be essential in creative boundary pushing. Requisite

knowledge was perceived by participants as a particularly important dispositional

condition for domains such as the sciences, mathematics, and technology, but was

also important in the arts domains (see Section 6.2.1). Without some foundational

knowledge and skill, the adolescents could not perceive the current, conventional

place from which boundaries might be pushed. Without knowing conventional ways

of doing things, the adolescents could not recognise unconventional methods.

Moreover, those who are intellectually gifted are highly capable of complex,

abstract, and flexible thinking with the ability to adapt to novel situations (Clark,

2008; Renzulli, 2002). Their intellectual giftedness enabled them to engage in a high

level of thinking required for creative boundary pushing.

Both adolescents presented in this section were identified as gifted at a young

age and had received programs designed to cater for their needs: home-schooling for

GLaDOS, school extension programs for CandleJack, and selective schools for both

adolescents. From a self-determination theory perspective (Deci & Ryan, 1985,

2000), home-schooling had fulfilled GLaDOS’ need for autonomy and, to a certain

extent, his competence. Attending NHS contributed to GLaDOS’ sense of

competence and relatedness of being with like minds, both of which supported his

interest and intrinsic motivation for creativity in science and mathematics. Although

CandleJack had not participated in extension programs for his musical giftedness, he

had many opportunities to pursue his music independently and with like-minded

peers, and chose to self-regulate his music development. These opportunities

arguably provided him with the autonomy, sense of competence, and relatedness to

intrinsically motivate his musical creativity (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 2000). Therefore,

both adolescents found ways to access like minds (see also Section 8.2.7.3) and

position themselves in high creative disposition–supportive environment contexts

(see Section 6.3).

There were three key differences in the adolescent case examples that reveal

different aspects of creative boundary pushing. First, the adolescents used different

approaches to creativity in order to push the boundaries in their domains. Second,

they demonstrated different levels of creative self-efficacy. Third, the adolescents


received different levels of environmental support for their creativity. Each of these

will now be addressed.

The ways in which GLaDOS and CandleJack approached creative boundary

pushing was one of the main differences between the two adolescent case examples.

GLaDOS, in science and mathematics, primarily used an adaptation approach to

creativity (see Section 5.2) to extend the boundaries of which he was aware,

sometimes also using a synthesis approach (see Section 5.4) by combining two or

more of his ideas and understandings. In contrast, CandleJack, in music, was more

likely to use a genesis approach to creativity (see Section 5.5). One interpretation is

that the difference in approaches was due to the domains of their creativity.

Potentially, all four creative approaches identified in this study (see Chapter 5) could

assist participants with achieving creativity that pushed the boundaries.

A difference in the dispositional condition of creative self-efficacy was

displayed by GLaDOS and CandleJack, as it was with Kate and UltraShiny (Section

7.2.3). GLaDOS had high creative self-efficacy, which further increased during his

participation in the study. Being a creative person with many new ideas was

important to his sense of self. CandleJack, however, displayed relatively low creative

self-efficacy and did not want to define himself by his creativity, intelligence, or any

other characteristic. Low creative self-efficacy was also shown in CandleJack’s

individual interview and the discussion forum. However, his concern about

becoming conceited and avoiding further pressures associated with being labelled

gifted suggests the possibility that he was being modest. CandleJack had received

positive support for his self-efficacy from the following two sources: mastery

experiences, when he had succeeded creatively on many occasions, persevering after

failures; and verbal persuasion, when he had been told by various people that he was

a gifted and creative musician (Bandura, 1997).

If CandleJack’s low creative self-efficacy is accepted at face value, three

potential explanations might be relevant in this case. The first is that although he had

been told he was creative, he might not have received verbal persuasion from sources

he considered to be credible judges of musical creativity (see also Section 4.5.2).

Self-efficacy is most influenced by verbal persuasion when it comes from those

considered knowledgeable and credible in the area (Bandura, 1997). Another

possibility is that CandleJack was feeling stressed and discouraged at the time of the


study, for example, due to pressures of senior schooling. Negative moods can

diminish a person’s perception of their ability (Bandura, 1997). This explanation

might also apply to UltraShiny’s low creative self-efficacy (see Section 7.2.1). A

third potential explanation is that CandleJack did not receive as much positive

support from his family for his creativity as GLaDOS. GLaDOS’ mother had

encouraged him to explore his creative interests through home-schooling, whereas

CandleJack’s family encouraged him to focus on his ability in more academic

pursuits such as science. A supportive social environment greatly assisted the

adolescents’ creativity. If this was not found within the family, the adolescents

sometimes found it in peer groups and other networks. The potential for participants

with low creative self-efficacy to engage in high levels of creative boundary pushing

creativity appeared to be achievable if the adolescents’ other dispositional conditions

(e.g., ability, personality) and/or supportive environmental conditions (e.g.,

opportunities for creativity, autonomy) overcame the potentially inhibiting influence

of the adolescents’ lack of confidence. The subsequent mastery experiences of

creativity, and possible verbal persuasion that resulted, might progressively

contribute to increased self-efficacy, affecting future creative potential (Bandura,

1997) (see also Section 8.2.7.1).

Levels of support participants received not only influenced creative self-

efficacy; it could also directly affect their creative engagement and development.

Through home-schooling, GLaDOS had the autonomy and intrinsic motivation to

develop his creative interests, particularly in science and mathematics, and these

interests were supported by his mother, who was also his teacher. He then chose to

attend NHS for his senior years of school to deepen his knowledge base, and found

his creativity was supported by access to different opportunities and structures for

creative learning. GLaDOS’ creativity had been nurtured by various supportive

environmental conditions.

CandleJack, however, had not received the same level of support for his

musical creativity. His ambition was to become a professional musician, which was

in contrast to his family’s dream for him to choose a more conventional, safe career,

such as a doctor, scientist, or lawyer. Therefore, CandleJack struggled with deciding

how to meet his own needs and others’ wishes. His creativity appeared to have

developed in spite of environmental conditions, particularly family pressures.


CandleJack’s determination to persist with his musical creativity might be partly

explained by his rebellious nature. He also actively pursued other opportunities to

develop his musical creativity, and received affective support from like-minded

musical peers. At WHS he was able to find greater support for his creative music

than was given at NHS or at home. This example explains how the adolescents’

creative boundary pushing can thrive in the face of an inhibiting condition when

surmounted by other supportive dispositional or environmental conditions.

Creative boundary pushing was presented in this section using GLaDOS and

CandleJack as two adolescent case examples representing this type of creativity in

diverse domains. The creative adolescents who pushed boundaries were intrinsically

motivated to engage deeply in their interest areas to be unconventional and pursue

new understandings and outcomes. They applied their high levels of knowledge and

skill to extend or redefine the domain boundaries in which they were expected to

work or behave. They engaged in creativity for its own sake because they were

inherently interested in pursuing new knowledge or outcomes. Sometimes this goal

overlapped with creative personal expression (Section 7.2) when the adolescents

pushed the boundaries as a way of expressing their unconventionality. Creative

boundary pushing at the adolescent level did not require them to extend knowledge

of the domain as a whole; this type of creativity was evident when the adolescents

went beyond the domain boundaries expected of them in their context.

7.4 Creative Task Achievement

This section presents evidence for the most common type of adolescent

creativity that emerged from the study: creative task achievement. It categorises a

pattern of creativity that involved the adolescents engaging in creativity in order to

accomplish a task or demand. Participants’ creative task achievement was

extrinsically motivated and often related to school tasks. TuathaDuOrothrim and

DaVinci were selected as adolescent case examples to characterise different types of

creative task achievement in diverse domains, from the arts to the sciences.

TuathaDuOrothrim was a student at NHS and DaVinci at WHS. Both adolescents

were 16 years old when they joined the study.


7.4.1 Creative Task Achievement at School: TuathaDuOrothrim

TuathaDuOrothrim presented as a confident adolescent who was committed to

doing well at school. He appeared shy, but said since being at NHS he had made an

effort to become more outgoing and talkative. He viewed himself as a logical and

scientific thinker who particularly enjoyed science, technology, and mathematics.

TuathaDuOrothrim self-nominated and was nominated by peers for his

creativity in Psychology. His teacher and peers also nominated him in Design

Technology. Additionally, in his interview, this participant discussed his creativity in

Mathematics, Physics, and robotics. He indicated a high creative disposition in these

areas; however, he scored a mean of 5 on the Creative Self-Efficacy Scale (see

Section 3.5.3), which was the equal second lowest score at NHS among the

participants. TuathaDuOrothrim was confident in his academic ability, but less

confident in his creative ability:

I know people who are a lot more creative than I am. I think creativity is

kind of a requirement to do well in things, but … my Mum’s an artist so

she’s very creative and I’m not that creative. … I think creativity is when

you can think of something differently to other people, and I, I sometimes do

that, and I sometimes don’t.

(TuathaDuOrothrim, NHS, II)

Although they recognised that they demonstrated a certain level of creativity, for

example through problem-solving and thinking of novel ideas, non-arts participants

such as TuathaDuOrothrim often perceived they were not as creative as artists.

TuathaDuOrothrim’s low creative self-efficacy was retained, even at the conclusion

of the study:

I still don’t think I am all that creative, I know a few people say that I am,

but when I consider the creativity of people like my mother (an artist) I just

can’t agree with those people that I am creative.

(TuathaDuOrothrim NHS, DF)

A large proportion of participants at both schools displayed an underlying conception

that the most creative adolescents are those who are artistic. This was despite

ongoing discussion throughout the study about creativity in domains outside the arts.


However, TuathaDuOrothrim reported having an increased sense of creative

achievement since being at NHS. He attributed this to a perceived lack of constraints

and a less restrictive school environment:

I think I’m much more creative from being here, simply because I feel much

less constrained here, much less restricted by the teachers, by peer pressure,

or by anything. … I think mostly it’s the atmosphere created by the people.


Constraints, pressure, and negative social interactions inhibited creativity (see

Section 6.2.2). Therefore, minimising inhibiting environmental conditions provided a

more supportive environmental for creativity used to achieve in school tasks. A

supportive environment was provided by the “atmosphere created by the people” at

NHS, who gave him cognitive and affective support for creativity. In many science,

mathematics, and technology tasks, his creativity was therefore promoted by the high

creative disposition–supportive environment context (see Section 6.3).

TuathaDuOrothrim’s view that NHS did not constrain his creativity was in contrast

to the views of the IB’s inhibiting nature expressed by many other participants at

both schools, particularly those at WHS.

For TuathaDuOrothrim, the main constraint for his creativity in his passion

area of robotics area was a lack of social resources (see Section 6.2.2). He had not

been able to connect with any like minds or experts:

TuathaDuOrothrim: I’m in a relatively unique situation because no one

I know … knows almost anything about robotics,

and so if I were able to contact other people who

knew about robotics as much and actually face-to-

face talk with them, I think that would really help

me creatively think about it…

Researcher: Do they have any opportunities with [university with

an established partnership with NHS] for you to link

up with any robotics people there …?

TuathaDuOrothrim: There’s electronic stuff and computer stuff, but

there’s not really robotics stuff. And there is a CAS

robotics activity, but I’m a bit, um, interested in

more in-depth robotics than that.



TuathaDuOrothrim felt that his ability to improve the technique and creativity of his

robot designs was limited because he did not have access to experts in the domain to

teach or mentor him. At school, he did not know of any teachers or peers who had

advanced knowledge about robotics, and school robotics activities were at a basic

level he had already surpassed. NHS had a partnership with a local university, but

TuathaDuOrothrim said there had been no opportunities for him to connect with

university students or academics interested in robotics. Although this lack of social

resources did not prevent creativity, he assessed that it was an inhibiting

environmental condition that prevented him achieving higher levels of ability and

creativity.

This adolescent’s creativity was driven by his intrinsic interests in many

instances, but task achievement in academic pursuits was his priority. Doing well

academically not only appeared to contribute to his self-esteem, he also ascertained

that his high achievement would play an important role in helping him reach his

career goal of becoming a robotics engineer. However, in some cases, creativity

assisted his academic achievement:

I think whilst it [the IB curriculum] wants … you to be analytical and

logical, it also demands some level of creativity to do well in the school.

‘Cause [sic] like I said, with Maths questions, even though they’re logical

thought processes, you need to be able to have a creative spur to get through

some of them. Um, DT [Design Technology], another of my subjects, is also

like that. And I think Physics can be very creative, to a degree, as well.


His perception of the IB curriculum requiring some level of creative thinking

encouraged him to use creativity in ways that would assist him to perform well in

school subjects, such as Mathematics, Design Technology, and Physics. In such

cases, extrinsic factors could motivate creativity (see Section 6.2.2). The creative

participants in this study used creativity to assist achievement, when possible. For

many NHS participants, this was the only time they applied creativity to school

work.

An example of TuathaDuOrothrim using creativity in a way that contributed to

task achievement was seen in his IB Extended Essay task, requiring students to

conduct original research and write a 4000 word essay. After identifying that he


wanted to work in his passion area of robotics, TuathaDuOrothrim discussed the

other sub-processes he utilised in the task (see Section 4.3) and how he used a

synthesis approach (Section 5.4) for his creative design. In particular, he emphasised

the sub-process of learning new knowledge and skills from his extensive research on

the Internet:

I’ve researched all the different, um, sort of navigational systems that have

been developed.


However, he assessed that his extensive research, brainstorming and planning

became a hindrance because he was trying to apply too many ideas to one task:

At first I was taking on too much. I was trying to develop several different

navigational systems and compare them, and that was probably too much for

me to do. So I had to narrow it down to an individual, and then evaluate it.


From his research on navigational systems he assessed the task, practical, and

personal constraints (see also Section 4.3.6), and evaluated one option that would be

best for him in this task. From this he was able to develop a plan for his robot design

and essay.

He had wanted to build the robot before writing the essay, both for intrinsic

reasons (enjoyment) and extrinsic reasons (he thought that the creative building

process would benefit his essay quality). He also said the robot would demonstrate

his creativity through the originality of his design. However, due to of a lack of time,

TuathaDuOrothrim was unable to complete both building the robot and writing the

essay. Given that only the essay would be graded and affect his overall IB score, he

focused on the latter. As a critical assessment task in the IB Diploma Program,

TuathaDuOrothrim’s final product was intended for the audience of examiners. His

goal was to receive positive recognition and a good grade for his essay (see Section

4.5.2). When their main goal was task achievement, creativity was used by the

adolescents only in ways that it could assist high achievement.

Submission of his robot design and essay as a work sample (see Section 3.5.6)

was evaluated by the judge and, in relation to its creativity, UltraShiny’s work

received the following comments:


The test robot and how the components were assembled were the students

[sic] own work. The student designs the robot himself – it does not seem to

have been a modification or improvement of an existing design. This [is]

where creativity seems to reside.

His work was assessed as demonstrating “high” levels of creativity, knowledge, and

technical skill (see Appendix G).

In TuathaDuOrothrim’s experience, including the Extended Essay, using his

high levels of knowledge and skill with an adaptation or synthesis approach to

creativity worked best for him:

I like to research on the Internet about robotics and physics and whatever’s

caught my interest lately. And I find because there’s such an expanse of

information on the Internet, however true some of it is, I think that can

help someone be creative ‘cause [sic] they can have access to the other

information which will combine with their knowledge to work together.

… I generally don’t use exactly what they’ve done, but I’ll use my own

twist on it. … combining things, because I find when you do that you can

get the best of both worlds.


This adolescent’s creativity was supported by his existing knowledge, as well as his

curiosity, which he satisfied through Internet research. He modified a particular idea

by putting his “own twist on it”, an adaptation approach to creativity (see Section

5.2). Moreover, he found that “combining things” allowed him to create something

new, which indicates a synthesis approach (see Section 5.4). School task

achievement required the adolescents to apply what they learned. When participants

adapted or combined what they learned at school with other ideas, creativity had the

potential to help them to achieve in their school work.

Overall, TuathaDuOrothrim did not perceive himself as a very creative person,

but he said his creativity had been fostered by the challenging but supportive NHS

environmental conditions. Greater autonomy, and being in an environment with

teachers and peers who offered cognitive and affective support, had contributed to

his creativity. The main environmental condition perceived as inhibiting his

creativity in his passion area, robotics, was lack of access to valuable social

resources, such as like minds or experts. Aside from this, TuathaDuOrothrim


reported that NHS was a supportive environment (see Section 6.2.2) for his creative

task achievement.

Being a high academic achiever was important to TuathaDuOrothrim. This can

be considered from a self-determination and self-theory perspective. Academic

achievement was important for meeting his need for competence (Deci & Ryan,

1985, 2000), and he used creativity when it assisted him with this goal. He enjoyed

developing creative ideas in his interest areas, but prioritised academic achievement

over everything else during the senior years of high school. The adolescent’s

academic focus was based on the value he associated with meeting both his learning

and performance goals. However, it appeared that performance goals (Dweck, 1999,

2002a; Good & Dweck, 2006) were most important to him. TuathaDuOrothrim

mostly described experiences that might be classed as identified regulation, a type of

extrinsic motivation that requires a moderately high degree of self-regulation where

the individual adopted studying and school achievement as personally important

behaviours (Deci et al., 1996; Vansteenkiste, Lens, & Deci, 2006) (see also Section

8.2.7.2). TuathaDuOrothrim’s case exemplifies the adolescents whose creativity was

demonstrated through creative task achievement, but for whom creativity was not a

priority and not important to their sense of self.

7.4.2 Creative Task Achievement Balancing Academic and Creative Success: DaVinci

DaVinci enjoyed school and learning, and was driven to achieve highly in

everything she did. Her self-description included being an organised person, who

knew how to successfully meet task demands while also applying her “artistic view

to fit between the lines” (WHS, II).

DaVinci was nominated for the study by her peers in the Theatre Arts and by

her teacher in a Business and Management subject. DaVinci also nominated herself

in both subjects, and displayed a high creative disposition in these domains.

Additionally, she was nominated by peers for her work in Theory of Knowledge. In

spite of nominating herself in two subjects, DaVinci’s Creative Self-Efficacy Scale

mean score was 5.25, indicating a low level of agreement with the belief that she was

creative (see Section 3.5.3). This was one of the lower scores in comparison with her

WHS creative peers participating in the study whose mean score was 5.7.


In her individual interview, DaVinci appeared more confident in her creativity

and gave the following reasons why she considered herself creative:

I think I’m creative in various areas. Um, in terms of how I go about

mixing artistic with … the more stricter [sic] things. I can, I’m able to

really, um, mix them. Things like science, I get quite well. But I also get

theatre quite well as well, so, um, I think that my ability, like how I’m

able to see that, I think that’s what makes me a bit different.


Her focus on mixing the arts and other domains was consistent with her identification

as someone who was continually balancing her desire to achieve academically with

her enjoyment in the arts, as well as with her passion to be creative and different

from others. Her self-perception as intellectual and high achieving was very

important to her, and was sometimes hard to reconcile with her creative and artistic

interests.

The following excerpt provides an example of this discord:

At the moment, I am at the stage of developing a theatre show for my final

Independent Project for theatre and this has been a time where I've had to let

creativity flow … However, sometimes my analytical brain is hindering

that flow and that has caused much frustration. After being in this study

I've thought a lot about creativity and the institute of education because

sometimes it seems that, like my current dilemma, they seem to clash.


DaVinci was not the only adolescent who experienced a conflict when trying to

balance their analytical and creative thinking. Many participants discussed how this

conflict was an obstacle to creativity at school, and it was perceived as being largely

impacted by the design of the IB curriculum. This was a commonly found example

of a high creative disposition–inhibiting environment context (see Section 6.4),

particularly at WHS.

The tension between DaVinci’s traditional academic and creative achievement

aspirations were also affected by significant people her in life. The like minds she

met at WHS had encouraged her to become more creative and intuitive in her art,

instead of always trying to get something “right”. This had increased her passion for

the arts and creativity. However, her parents had a somewhat different influence:


I think my parents [influenced my creativity], definitely, in terms of always

having a reason for why, not always having a reason, but always have a the

motivation to do something, always doing something you want to do, um,

because you love it, rather than you do because you want to get an A, or

you want to do it just because you’ll get recognition, not be motivated by

success [encouraging intrinsic motivation]. … I think it’s because they

haven’t really been able to follow everything that they wanted when

they were young. … they tell me a lot, my Mum tells me a lot about, um,

striving harder because she feels that, um, people have wasted potential

[utilising potential].


While DaVinci’s parents wanted her to do something she enjoyed and utilise her

potential, they also wanted her to earn a stable income. DaVinci continued

recounting a conversation with her mother about motivation and values:

Um, and also because if she feels that a lot of it’s about money [money as

extrinsic motivation]. … she keeps telling me that you have to focus on

your education because what you learn can never be taken away from

you [parents valuing education]… and that if you want to do all these

things, like travel the world or, um, go to these places, you’ve, you need

money and that’s the real world [money as extrinsic motivation].


DaVinci was aware that her parents valued education highly, due to their inability to

follow their own dreams when living in South-East Asia. They wanted DaVinci to do

what she loved, meet her potential, and be motivated by more than success. They

also wanted her to choose a career that would enable her to earn a stable living

financially. DaVinci’s parents were concerned when she told them her dream was to

be an actress. After her mother outlined the challenges of achieving success in the

acting industry, the adolescent had decided to look for “other ways of incorporating

my artistic kind of needs with the more traditional things” (WHS, II). Adolescents

whose parents, such as DaVinci’s and CandleJack’s, did not place a high value on

the same things as them (e.g., the arts) were often conflicted in their choice of

priorities and career goals. This contributed to an inhibiting environment for some

participants, but DaVinci was determined to find ways to balance her interests and

diminish the potentially negative influence of this conflict.


Parental influence played a substantial role in DaVinci’s focus on achievement

in school. It reinforced her beliefs about the importance of academic achievement

and learning:

I think it’s the core curriculum that really influences me, just because right

now I’m in this IB bubble that everything I do always seems, I always think

about it in how, if, academically how will it benefit, I always try to find a

way how it can benefit me later. So if I do like an outside project or a

project for one subject, I can think about, hey, it can also kind of help me in

this subject. … I try to look at it in that way because I feel that like I’m

doing, I’m getting more down, learning more.


She valued both her sense of self as an academic achiever and as a creative

performer, but as a senior high school adolescent DaVinci placed more importance

on her academic achievement. Her behaviour appeared to be motivated by extrinsic

factors such as success, but she personally valued the role achievement played in her

future and engaged willingly in her learning.

DaVinci’s creative task achievement was evident in a range of school subjects

and personal tasks. One domain was theatre. For example, in Theatre Arts at school

she was given the task of creating a traditional play set in a contemporary setting.

Her focus was on achieving a good show and a good grade. Her creative outcomes –

the script, performance, and costumes – were intended for an audience of peers and

her Theatre Arts teacher, from whom she hoped to receive a good reaction and

positive recognition (see Section 4.5.2). When asked how she developed her creative

ideas for tasks such as this, DaVinci said:

First I look at why am I doing it. If it’s a school assignment, I look at the

criteria, and then I look at things like what have we done in the term, what

has made me interested. I always, I always choose things I’m interested, I

know I’ll be interested in because otherwise I don’t think there’s any point to

it. … I try to find the best way to do what’s required of me, and a lot of the

time, that requires creative thinking.

(DaVinci, WHS, II)

This response is an illustration of DaVinci’s drive for self-regulation and using her

interests within an extrinsically motivated task. Doing well in her school work was


personally important to her, particularly in subjects she enjoyed. Many participants

recognised that success in a task would help them achieve their personal goals, and

that creative thinking could assist them to meet their objectives.

DaVinci was not able submit a script or video recording of the aforementioned

performance or any other recent theatre pieces as an example work sample (see

Section 3.5.6), but found a script from her first year in Theatre Arts (Year 10). In

regards to the script’s creativity, the judge said it demonstrated “a fairly good

example of a year 10 student who has given more than a basic level of thought to the

task” and it rated as having “moderate” levels of creativity, knowledge, and skill (see

Appendix G). Comments from DaVinci’s Theatre Arts teacher provided

confirmation of her creativity, but her tendency to focus on an adaptation approach

to creativity:

[DaVinci and two other WHS students] have a lot of ability and I’m sure

will be very successful in the arts industry. They work hard, they strive to

understand, but for the most part, they are attempting to “get it right”

more so than they are exploring, experimenting, happily making

mistakes as much as they make connections and as the phrase goes “play

lightly in the deep”. They follow the path made by others hoping at the

end of it, they will be able to extend it further rather than criss-crossing

over the path and making their own way.

(Theatre teacher, WHS, EC) (emphasis added)

This teacher reported that DaVinci demonstrated creativity in Theatre Arts through

adapting or extending others’ work (see Section 5.2), rather than attempting a genesis

approach to create her own path (see Section 5.5). The teacher’s comments also

confirmed DaVinci’s focus on meeting task demands, achievement, and her efforts to

“get it right”. Participating adolescents who had this approach to creativity were less

comfortable with free experimentation (see Section 4.3.8) and avoided making

mistakes, thus reducing their chances of perceived failure by not meeting task

demands.

Not all creative task achievement was school-related. DaVinci also found ways

of using her creativity to help her with daily tasks. The following description

provides one example of task achievement outside school, although the participant


emphasised that it demonstrated relatively low levels of creativity compared to other

tasks:

It’s really small, but … we’d just moved into our new house and I had to, I

was staying home alone and my parents asked me to clean the house. So,

um, there’s this, there was one of the rooms where there’s, um, a shelf

really high up and I couldn’t get to it with the vacuum cleaner. So, I

remember, I, um, I was so compelled to try and clean that shelf because

I’d felt it and it was so gross, so I had to, I kind of get my vacuum cleaner

and I found like, one of those PVC, PVA, what are they called, pipes to

extend the hose of the vacuum cleaner! (laughs) And it ended up that I

could reach it. So, we still use it now to clean that shelf! … all I can

remember is saying that first, I thought maybe I could find a way to get up

there and the vacuum cleaner with me, but I couldn’t because we didn’t have

a ladder up there. So, I, first I started looking around the house and looking

for things that were like the hose. Then I found the pipe outside and, um, it

kinda, I was looking for things that would substitute and then I found it

outside and I thought, well maybe that would work and it did.


By extending the length of the vacuum hose with a long piece of pipe, she achieved

her task of cleaning the high shelf using an adaptation approach (see Section 5.2).

She was constrained by the materials she had available to her, but developed a

successful method that her family still used. Although very different from meeting

the demands of a school assignment, examples such as these in which the adolescents

developed novel ways of solving a problem unrelated to school and meeting a

personal need can also be categorised as creative task achievement. Stories of

everyday creativity often related to the adolescents’ ability to creatively solve a

personal problem or achieve an everyday task.

DaVinci’s case example is an illustration of creativity by the adolescents who

were both highly creative and highly focused on academic achievement. Her high

level of knowledge contributed to her high creative disposition and to her ability to

use learned concepts in a creative manner. During the study, she had described a

range of approaches to creative task achievement, including adaptation (see Section

5.2), transfer (see Section 5.3), and synthesis (see Section 5.4), with adaptation the

most common.


DaVinci’s drive for both creative and academic achievement priorities is a

useful example for considering how she met her different psychological needs and

demonstrated different types of motivation, which will be further addressed in the

Chapter 8 (see Section 8.2.7.2). It appeared that she needed to feel both creative and

high achieving to meet her need for competency, if considered from a self-

determination perspective (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 2000). In some instances, DaVinci

balanced application of her creativity along with her academic skills to achieve a

task, but prioritised academics over creativity. In other situations, being creative was

perceived as being the best way to accomplish a task. Her need for competency was

attained through high achievement, which meant that sometimes her creativity was

compromised by a need to focus on more conventional academic or convergent

thinking.

In some situations, DaVinci’s use of creativity for task achievement appeared

to be solely regulated by the rewards received on task completion. However, in most

of her examples of creativity, this adolescent described having internalised the

external demands because she recognised how task achievement was important for

her own goals (Deci et al., 1996; Vansteenkiste et al., 2006). Based on the data

collected, it was difficult to assess whether DaVinci’s behaviour in such cases was

fully integrated with her sense of self (integrated regulation) or whether it was

identified as a personally important task for meeting her goals (identified regulation)

(Deci et al., 1996; Vansteenkiste et al., 2006). Her realisation of the tension between

her academic and creative selves, and attempts to find ways to integrate these,

suggest that she was progressing towards a stage of integrated regulation where her

two identities were harmonious with each other and with her overall sense of self

(Deci, Vallerand, Pelletier, & Ryan, 1991) (see also Section 8.2.7.2). When the goal

of task achievement was paramount, participants were driven largely by extrinsic

factors, but could also demonstrate some degree of self-regulated learning. This case

example is representative of the adolescents who balanced a passion for creativity

with a strong drive to achieve in order to demonstrate creative task achievement.

7.4.3 Discussion of Creative Task Achievement

TuathaDuOrothrim and DaVinci’s adolescent case examples are representative

of participants who used creativity to accomplish a task or meet a particular demand.

Creativity was not used for the sake of it; it was used for the specific purpose of task


achievement. As high school students, most of the participants’ examples of creative

task achievement related to school tasks. However, there were also examples from

participants who identified a personal or environmental need that required creative

thinking to develop a solution. Creative task achievement was the most common type

of creativity described in the study, which might be reflective of the fact that NHS

and WHS population largely consisted of high achieving students.

Creative task achievement was evident in two forms: (a) being creative when it

enabled the adolescent to complete a task well or achieve highly; and (b) being

creative up to a certain point, past which it would inhibit task achievement. This

latter form of creativity for task achievement was displayed by participants who tried

to balance their academic and creative pursuits, which were sometimes conflicting

and did not align. TuathaDuOrothrim displayed only the first form of creative task

achievement; DaVinci demonstrated both. Finding opportunities to be creative was

more important to DaVinci than to TuathaDuOrothrim. Both forms of creative task

achievement assisted the adolescents to feel competent (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 2000),

which appeared to be a dominant psychological need for them.

Creative task achievement, designed to meet an external demand, inherently

implies a degree of external regulation (Deci et al., 1996). The degree to which that

motivation was internalised depended on the individual, task, and environment.

There were numerous examples of the adolescents being motivated by a learning

goal, such as wanting to master new knowledge or skills, in addition to performance

goals, for example, getting a good grade on an assignment (Dweck, 1999). Although

there is debate about the influence of extrinsic rewards on creativity, there is

evidence to suggest that some types of rewards can motivate creativity, particularly if

considered from a self-determination theory (e.g., Hennessey, 2000), or task-

motivation versus goal-motivation perspective (Sternberg & Lubart, 1991) (see also

Section 8.2.7.2). Recognition of the adolescents’ creativity through their grades or

verbal feedback have been labelled informational feedback or synergistic extrinsic

motivators, which can positively support creativity if they work in synergy with their

intrinsic motivation or add to their sense of competence (Amabile, 1996; Deci et al.,

2001, Deci & Ryan, 2000). Therefore, some extrinsic rewards for meeting external

demands can support creativity, particularly if there is no expectance of negative

consequences (Amabile, 1996).


Task achievement creativity had a specific focus on an outcome. At school,

students’ creative outcomes were intended for an audience, such as teachers, peers,

or IB examiners. Therefore, the task was undertaken with the intent to affect an

audience in order to receive a positive reaction or recognition (see Section 4.5.2).

Sometimes participants also spoke of enjoying the effects of the creative process on

themselves; however, the outcomes of task achievement, for example in school

assignments or exams, were usually the most important goal. An exception was

creativity used to complete a task designed to meet the adolescents’ personal needs,

such as DaVinci’s cleaning example. Participants used creative task achievement in

many aspects of their lives but, as adolescents, the most frequent examples were

related to school activities. In order to meet the external demands of school

assessment, knowledge was important (see Section 6.2.1). Being knowledgeable

allowed the adolescents to move from repeating basic facts to developing outcomes

that demonstrated creative use of knowledge (Runco, 2007a; Sternberg & Lubart,

1995). It also enabled them to carefully plan and evaluate their creative outcomes, in

order to meet the external constraints (see Section 4.3).

Analysis of the dispositions of participants who predominately used creative

task achievement, rather than creative personal expression or creative boundary

pushing, revealed that they were more likely to have lower self-efficacy and/or less

intrinsic motivation for creativity. This could explain why they did not use creativity

beyond what was required of them to achieve. Adolescents such as

TuathaDuOrothrim did not consider creativity very important to their lives, and were

not driven to be creative whenever possible. If creativity is not perceived as resulting

in outcomes that are valued by adolescents, they might not have a strong motivation

to engage in creative tasks (Bandura, 1997). If the adolescents are not engaging in

creativity, they might have fewer mastery experiences, which are important for

developing their creative self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997). This finding was more

prevalent at NHS than WHS. A possible explanation is that creativity was more

strongly emphasised at WHS than NHS, where it was seen as naturally

complementing the arts. At NHS there were higher proportions of creative task

achievement in comparison with the other two types of creativity, and qualitatively

(although not quantitatively) lower levels of creative self-efficacy (see also Section


8.2.7.1). Despite comparatively lower creative self-efficacy, these adolescents could

still have high creative dispositions.

The purpose of this section was to present adolescent case examples illustrating

a type of adolescent creativity categorised as creative task achievement. Creative

outcomes were usually achieved through an adaptation, transfer, or synthesis

approach to creativity. At school, creative task achievement was related to the

adolescents demonstrating sufficient understanding of the curriculum or successful

performance in an extracurricular activity. WHS participants, such as DaVinci, were

more likely to be conflicted about balancing their creative and academic achievement

priorities; NHS participants, such as TuathaDuOrothrim, were less likely to

emphasise the importance of or interest in creativity. Students at both schools, and in

a range of school and personal domains, recognised the potential for creativity to

contribute to some areas of task achievement.

7.5 Chapter Conclusion

This chapter synthesised findings presented in this thesis to identify patterns of

creativity demonstrated by the adolescents. These patterns can be explained and

categorised as three types of adolescent creativity: creative personal expression,

creative boundary pushing, and creative task achievement. Creative personal

expression is a type of creativity in which the adolescents expressed their personality,

emotions, and ideas in a novel way (Section 7.2). Creative boundary pushing

involved extending the limits of the adolescents’ typical and expected knowledge in

order to be unconventional and pursue knew understandings and outcomes (Section

7.3). Creative task achievement entailed using creativity to accomplish a particular

task or external demand (Section 7.4). Any approach to the creative process could be

utilised for the three types of creativity, but the following associations were most

common: genesis for creative personal expression; adaptation, synthesis, and genesis

for creative boundary pushing; and adaptation and synthesis for creative task

achievement. Absence of the transfer approach in this list is indicative of the fact it

was the adolescents’ least used approach to creativity.


Figure 7.1 presents the visual relationships between the sub-processes of

creativity (Section 4.3), managing constraints and challenges (Section 4.4), and

approaches to creativity (Chapter 5). It is the alignment of these elements of the

process results in one of these types of creativity. Therefore, no connection should be

inferred from the visual proximity of the types of creativity to the approaches or sub-

processes of creativity.

Figure 7.1. Types of adolescent creativity.

Participants’ inclination towards certain types of creativity more than others

was closely related to their personal dispositional conditions; in particular, how they

were motivated and whether creativity was an important aspect of their sense of self.

Environmental conditions also played a role in why and how the adolescents used

their creative thinking skills and the priority level assigned to creativity in their lives.

In other words, the type of creativity used was influenced by the context for


creativity (Chapter 6). Although the three types of creativity were presented as

discrete constructs, there were also examples of how it was possible for the

adolescents to demonstrate more than one type of creativity in a task. There was,

however, one dominant type evident, which could be any of the three and was

dependent on the individual, task, and context. Participants were selected to represent

a single type of creativity in the case examples based on the purpose and

manifestation of creative engagement that appeared most prevalent from their self-

reports. However, this does not imply that these adolescents only engaged in that

type of creativity. Some participants only reported examples of one type of

creativity, but many participants used a variety of types, depending on their purpose,

and the task, domain, and context. The next chapter will integrate findings from this

chapter and Chapters 4 to 6 to present and discuss the Grounded Theory of

Adolescent Creativity that emerged from this research.


Chapter 8 A Grounded Theory and Model of Adolescent

Creativity

To arrive at abstraction, it is always necessary

to begin with a concrete reality.

~ Pablo Picasso

(as cited in Root-Bernstein & Root-Bernstein, 2003, p. 380)

8.1 Introduction

The purpose of this research was to construct a theory of adolescent creativity.

To achieve this goal, the study adopted a grounded theory methodology (see Section

3.3), drawing on the work of Corbin and Strauss (Corbin & Strauss, 2008; Strauss &

Corbin, 1990, 1998) and Charmaz (2006). The aim of this methodology was to

develop theory through high level abstraction, beginning with and always grounded

in the adolescents’ perspectives of their own reality of creativity. Recall, from a

constructivist-interpretivist perspective (see Section 3.2), theory is viewed as an

interpretation of a studied phenomenon (Charmaz, 2006). Interpretive theory

assumes that there are multiple realities, and acknowledges the subjectivity involved

in theorising (Charmaz, 2006). From a constructivist view, the purpose of a grounded

theory is to construct an abstract understanding of a phenomenon grounded in

empirical data (Charmaz, 2006). According to Corbin and Strauss (2008), theory also

provides an explanation of a phenomenon by explaining “the what, how, when,

where, and why of something” (p. 55). Although the Grounded Theory of Adolescent

Creativity presented in this thesis can form the basis of predictions to be tested in

other contexts, the theory does not claim to be applicable to all adolescents’

experiences of creativity, and therefore is focused on providing understanding and

explanation within relevant contexts.

The substantive Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity that emerged from

this research accounts for the unique ways in which participating adolescents were

creative, and the various conditions that impacted on their creativity. In the context

http://creatingminds.org/quotes/necessity.htm

http://creatingminds.org/quotes/beginning.htm


of grounded theory, a substantive theory is one that is developed from research in a

particular area, and therefore can only be used to potentially understand or explain

comparable groups or contexts (Corbin & Strauss, 2008; Strauss & Corbin, 1990,

1998). Substantive theories differ from formal theories, which are derived from

research of a phenomenon (e.g., creativity) in a range of contexts, to develop a theory

with a much broader application (Corbin & Strauss, 2008; Strauss & Corbin, 1990,

1998) (see also Sections 3.3 and 3.7).

To address the overarching research question – What are adolescents’

experiences of creativity? – there were four guiding research sub-questions:





This chapter will synthesise findings from these research questions at a theoretical

level to present the Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity, linking the major

categories of findings presented in Chapters 4 to 7 (Section 8.2). It will also discuss

how the theory is situated in, and extends on, existing literature. An introduction of a

new form of creativity that emerged from studying adolescents’ experiences follows

this synthesis and discussion about current forms of creativity (Section 8.3). Next,

the study’s findings will be positioned within creativity’s domain-generality and

domain-specificity debate, with empirical evidence for a hybrid view that accounts

for adolescent creativity across diverse domains (Section 8.4).

8.2 A Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity

The culmination of this study was a Grounded Theory of Adolescent

Creativity. This research revealed that creativity is a complex, dynamic, multifaceted

phenomenon, both in terms of the creative process and products, as well as how

creativity is influenced by the creators and their environments. The Theory’s strength

lies in its integrated, confluence approach for understanding and explaining

adolescent experiences of creativity. Discussion of this theory begins with an

explanation of the core category central to adolescent creativity (Section 8.2.1),


followed by discussion and presentation of the Model of Adolescent Creativity, the

graphic model representing the theory (Section 8.2.2 and Figure 8.1).

8.2.1 The Core of Adolescent Creativity

A grounded theory should explain the interrelationships among concepts and

categories that emerged from the data, and should highlight a core category that links

all categories (Corbin & Strauss, 2008; Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1998). A core

category represents the main theme that has the greatest explanatory and analytic

power, and is the best link between all other categories (Corbin & Strauss, 2008).

Adolescent creativity is a process of perceiving novelty and then pursuing it, in order

to be different from others or create something different from the norm. Therefore,

the core category that emerged in this study was Perceiving and Pursuing Novelty:

Not the Norm. This section will discuss how the two facets of the core category –

Perceiving and Pursuing Novelty and Not the Norm – unite the Grounded Theory of

Adolescent Creativity, and will justify how it meets the criteria for a core category in

grounded theory research.

8.2.1.1 Perceiving and pursuing novelty.

The first facet of the core category is Perceiving and Pursuing Novelty. This

facet captures the underlying notion that, when being creative, adolescents have

unique perceptions and insights of the world around them, and actively pursue novel

outcomes based on what they experience. Perceiving and Pursuing Novelty was

selected as a facet for the core category due to its ability to connect the theory’s

contributing categories, as follows:

perceiving the necessary sub-processes that enable pursuit of creativity (see

Table 8.1 and Section 4.3);

perceiving potential challenges and constraints, and pursuing strategies for

managing obstacles (see Section 4.4);

perceiving how creativity can affect the creator and audiences, and

pursuing creativity to achieve the creator’s aims for self and others (see

Section 4.5);

perceiving and pursuing an approach to creativity that best suits the

individual/task (see Chapter 5);


perceiving how to utilise and enhance dispositional conditions to support

creativity (see Chapter 6);

perceiving environmental conditions that support or inhibit creativity, and

pursuing an optimal environment for creativity, where possible (see

Chapter 6); and

perceiving the purpose of one’s creativity and pursuing the most

appropriate type of creativity to meet that purpose (see Chapter 7).

The level of novelty achieved by adolescent creativity during this process of

perception and pursuit varied. Some adolescent creativity was novel only for the

individual creator; other times it was novel for a specific group or context (see also

Sections 4.3.10 and 8.3). To be considered creative and not simply new, the novel

outcome must be appropriate, meaningful, relevant, useful, or valuable in some way

(to the creators and/or audience) (see Section 2.2.1).

Perceiving and Pursuing Novelty can also be applied at the micro level for the

sub-processes of creativity. Table 8.1 categorises sub-processes in terms of how they

focus on perception or pursuit. Together these cyclical steps of perceiving and

pursuing novelty characterise engagement in the creative process to produce creative

outcomes. It was not necessary for each step to be novel to pursue novelty as a final

outcome. All participating adolescents applied these perception and pursuit sub-

processes, but the specific sub-processes and the order in which they were applied

differed depending on the individual, task, and context (see also Section 4.3.12).

Perceiving and Pursuing Novelty as a facet of this grounded theory’s core

category emphasises that adolescent creativity involved having insight into effective

ways of doing something novel and a process for achieving this. Perception and

pursuit of novelty could involve metacognitive and intuitive processes. The theme

emerged naturally from the data as a way of expressing how the major findings were

connected. In itself, Perceiving and Pursuing Novelty was not complete as a core

category, and is therefore combined with the second facet, Not the Norm.


Table 8.1

Perceiving and Pursuing Novelty: Integration with the Sub-Processes of Creativity

Core category element Sub-process of creativity Relationship of sub-process to core category

Perceiving Identifying a need/want Perceiving a reason for creativity

Imagining Brainstorming Assessing constraints

Perceiving creative possibilities and limitations

Achieving insight Perceiving a creative solution or choice of outcome

Evaluating

Perceiving the quality, feasibility, or creativity of processes and outcomes

Pursuing Planning creative tasks Experimenting

Pursuing creative possibilities

Learning knowledge and skills Gathering materials

Pursuing necessary resources to achieve creativity

Creating outcomes Pursuing a creative outcome

8.2.1.2 Not the norm.

The second facet of the core category – Not the Norm – represents the key

construct of “difference” in adolescent creativity. Norm can be a problematic term,

but it captures the sense of unconventionality, atypicality, and unexpectedness of the

adolescents’ creativity. The norm would be the typical pattern of thought or

behaviour expected by a particular social group (OED); in this case, the norm was

what most adolescents did and or were expected to do. Adolescent creativity can be

described as Not the Norm, in that the adolescents, their processes, and/or their

outcomes were considered atypical or unconventional for a particular group in a task,

domain, and context.


The construct of difference indicated in the Not the Norm facet of the core

category also recognises the confluence approach of this study by relating to each of

Rhodes’ (1961) Four P’s of creativity (process, product, person, process) (see

Section 2.3.6):

the creative process involved adolescents thinking differently about what

they experienced to form unconventional connections and ideas outside the

norm (process);

adolescent creativity resulted in outcomes that were different from the

norm (product);

adolescents with high creative dispositions displayed qualities that differed

from peers with low creative dispositions, contributing to them approaching

tasks or life in ways that were different from the norm (person); and

interactions between adolescents and their environments resulted in

contexts offering varying levels of support for creating outcomes outside

the norm (press).

The relationship between Not the Norm and each of the Four P’s is important for

understanding adolescent creativity.

Two further P’s were identified in the literature on creativity: persuasion and

potential (see Section 2.3.6). Simonton’s (1990, 1995) fifth P of persuasion is also

relevant in recognising that adolescents’ unconventional, Not the Norm outcomes

could affect the creators and other people, and that beyond the level of intrapersonal

creativity, others must have been persuaded of its novelty and appropriateness.

Furthermore, consideration of the importance of Runco’s (2003) sixth P of potential

recognises that not all of the adolescents’ Not the Norm processes or outcomes had

been observed by people other than the creator. Home, educational, and other

significant environments played a role in providing opportunities for encouragement

and development of unobserved creative potential. These two additional P’s, when

combined with Rhodes’ (1961) Four P’s, highlight how the core category uses a

confluence approach for understanding creativity.

When being creative, adolescents in the study thought and acted differently

from the norm. Their high creative dispositions enhanced their openness to

perceiving the world around them in unconventional ways, often without realising

that their perceptions were different from others’ views. The adolescents’ ability to


successfully produce outcomes that differed from what was typical of their peers was

influenced by the context in which they were creating. To appreciate what is not the

norm requires the judges of creativity to know what is the norm. Therefore, this facet

of the core category recognises that creativity cannot be separated from the context

or system of which it is a part (Csikszentmihalyi, 1988, 1996; Gruber, 1988; Gruber

& Wallace, 1999).

8.2.1.3 Perceiving and pursuing novelty: Not the norm.

The core category connecting this grounded theory study of adolescent

creativity is Perceiving and Pursuing Novelty: Not the Norm. This theme meets the

criteria for a grounded theory core category because: (a) it appeared frequently in

data from all participants; (b) it relates and links to all other major categories in the

research; (c) it emerged naturally rather than being forced to fit data; (d) it accounts

for patterns and variations in the data; (e) its explanatory power increases by

discussing its relationship to other categories, moving the substantive theory forward;

and (f) its level of abstractness enables it to be applied and tested in other areas of

research, which could contribute to developing a more general theory of creativity

(Corbin & Strauss, 2008; Strauss, 1987).

8.2.2 A Model of Adolescent Creativity

The Model of Adolescent Creativity (Figure 8.1) provides a graphic

representation of the Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity. The categories of

Sub-Processes of Creativity, Approaches to Creativity, and Types of Creativity

represent the major findings in relation to the creative process and how it manifested,

if successful. These categories are shown in the Model by the three, inner

overlapping ellipses. This study identified that the adolescents produced a particular

type of creativity using one or more approaches to the creative process, which

involved drawing on different combinations, sequences, and iterations of sub-

processes. While applying these sub-processes, adolescents were Managing

Constraints and Challenges that arose. Constraints and challenges potentially

blocked the progression from one sub-process to another, but obstacles could also be

circumvented. This action of possible circumvention is captured in the Model of

Adolescent Creativity by the circle located within the sub-process pathways (the

lines linking all sub-processes). Successful adolescent creativity required an effective

alignment of the three categories in the inner ellipses and being able to work around


potential obstacles represented by the innermost circle in the Model. That is,

alignment was created and creativity was successful when the adolescents adopted

the right combination of Sub-Processes of Creativity and Approaches to Creativity,

while Managing Constraints and Challenges, to manifest a particular Types of

Creativity.

Whether the alignment of the Sub-Processes of Creativity, Approaches to

Creativity, and Types of Creativity, and Managing Constraints and Challenges, was

successful was contingent on the Contexts for Creativity. The context was created by

interactions between the adolescents’ dispositional and environmental conditions,

represented by the background matrix in the Model of Adolescent Creativity. The

context in which the process occurred, shown by the quadrants of the matrix in the

Model, determined the potential for successful creativity. The optimal context for

successful creativity resulted from interactions between an adolescent with a high

creative disposition in a supportive environment (the upper, right quadrant). The

different interactions and alignments of the Model’s components account for the

variation among adolescents’ creative processes, creative outcomes, and contexts for

their creativity.

The Model of Adolescent Creativity also incorporates the core category.

Throughout the creative process, adolescents move between Perceiving and

Pursuing Novelty, with this facet of the core category represented in the Model by

the outer cyclical arrows around the four overlapping ellipses. The phrase,

Adolescent Creativity: Not the Norm in the Model, represents the goal of the creative

process. The Not the Norm facet of the core category is positioned as the outermost

ellipse to highlight its connection to the process and outcomes of creativity, as well

as to the adolescents and their environments whose interactions created contexts that

supported or inhibited creativity.


Figu

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The following sections will discuss the Grounded Theory of Adolescent

Creativity’s main categories of findings: Sub-Processes of Creativity (Section 8.2.3);

Managing Constraints and Challenges (Section 8.2.4); Approaches to Creativity

(Section 8.2.5); Types of Creativity (Section 8.2.6); and Contexts for Creativity

(Section 8.2.7). Key findings will be situated in the literature, with emphasis on their

original contributions to understandings of creativity.

8.2.3 Sub-Processes of Creativity

The literature comprises various models that have been proposed to explain the

steps or sub-processes involved in the creative process. This study drew on self-

reports of adolescents’ experiences in a range of tasks, domains, and contexts to

explicate the specific sub-processes they used to be creative. The 11 identified Sub-

Processes of Creativity were: identifying a need/want; imagining; brainstorming;

planning; learning knowledge and skills; assessing constraints; gathering materials;

experimenting; achieving insight; creating outcomes; and evaluating (Section 4.3).

Adolescents used these sub-processes in a dynamic, iterative way that differed

depending on the task; they did not form a linear sequence.

In contrast to the level of specificity presented in this grounded theory model,

most existing models describe creativity as broad, linear stages that lead to a creative

outcome. Some of the most widely cited, theoretical stage models include:

Wallas’ (1926) four-stage model of preparation, incubation, illumination,

and verification (sometimes referred to as a five-stage model with

intimation before illumination);

Csikszentmihalyi’s (1996) modification of Wallas’ model in which he

renamed illumination as insight, and divided verification into evaluation

and elaboration;

Amabile’s (1996) componential framework of creativity stage model with

problem or task presentation, preparation, response generation, response

validation and communication, and outcome; and

Osborn and Parnes’ Creative Problem Solving (CPS) model, which

involves objective finding, fact finding, problem finding, idea finding,

solution finding, and acceptance finding (Parnes, 1999).


The literature also contains a range of other creative process and creative problem

solving models, many of which build on the models of Wallas (1926) or Osborn and

Parnes (for further reviews of models of the creative process see, e.g., Greene, 2006;

Mumford, Mobley, Reiter-Palmon, Uhlman, & Doares, 1991; Parnes, 1999).

Additionally, introspective theories of the creative process can be found in the

reflections of eminent creators, such as Poincaré (1913), Hadamard (1945), and

Helmholtz (1995/1853-1892), and have influenced the development of subsequent

models. Cropley and Cropley (2010) synthesised many of these models of creativity

to form a seven-phase version consisting of preparation, activation, generation,

illumination, verification, communication, and validation.

A criticism of these types of models of the creative process is that they use

linear, broad, and underspecified stages, which are difficult to test (Lubart, 2001).

Although stage theories have been criticised for their linearity, more recent research

has acknowledged that these stages might be cyclical (Kozbelt, Beghetto, & Runco,

2010). The Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity proposed in this study is

explicit about the numerous, iterative sub-processes of creativity and hence, deviates

from traditional stage models that delineate creativity into a few discrete steps, with a

defined beginning and end. However, this theory does not necessarily conflict with

stage models; the sub-processes can be seen as complementing or elaborating on

what adolescents actually do to think creatively and produce creative outcomes.

Therefore, connections can be made between this theory’s sub-processes of

creativity and existing stage models of creativity. In some cases there are direct

overlaps, such as this grounded theory model’s sub-process of achieving insight,

which is present in stage models of creativity as insight (e.g., Csikszentmihalyi,

1996) or illumination (e.g., Cropley & Cropley, 2010; Wallas, 1926). Another

example is the sub-process of evaluating, a term similarly used by Csikszentmihalyi

(1996), and also known as verification (e.g., Cropley & Cropley, 2010; Wallas,

1926) or response validation (Amabile, 1996). In other cases, the sub-processes from

this study specify the various concrete steps that can be associated with a stage in

existing models. For example, imagining, brainstorming, and experimenting might

contribute to the step of idea finding in the Osborn-Parnes CPS model (Parnes,

1999). Thus, overlaps can be found between my theory and existing stage theories,

with this study’s sub-processes of creativity providing additional detail.


Although stage models can be useful for a broad understanding of creativity,

the distinct stages are unrealistic for describing the interactive process of real world

creativity (Runco, 2003). The level of specificity in the Grounded Theory of

Adolescent Creativity, and the emphasis on the integrated, recursive nature of the

sub-processes, addresses this issue and provides a model to test in future empirical

studies.

Within the adolescent creative process, many of the individual sub-processes of

creativity could be viewed as ordinary processes and not necessarily creative in

themselves. Using the ordinary (the norm) to make the extraordinary (not the norm)

has similarly been found at higher levels of creative achievement (Weisberg, 1993).

Hypotheses and explanations in the literature suggest that creative and uncreative

processes might differ in the combination, sequence, or quality of the sub-processes,

or the frequency or time spent on each sub-process (Getzels & Csikszentmihalyi,

1976; Goor & Sommerfeld, 1975; Lubart, 1994, 2001). An alternative explanation is

that the level of creativity achieved by a process depends on differences in creators’

characteristics (Amabile, 1996). Each of these explanations could apply to the

adolescent process of creativity, but were beyond the scope of this research. This

study did not compare creative and uncreative processes or products; therefore, it

would be imprudent to draw any conclusions about what differentiates the creative

process. However, it does offer the following contribution: four approaches –

adaptation, transfer, synthesis, and genesis (Section 8.2.5) – explain how the

adolescents applied these sub-processes to achieve creative processes and outcomes.

8.2.4 Managing Constraints and Challenges.

The creative process is challenging, and at times unsuccessful. The pursuit of

something outside the norm is often hampered by a range of personal and

environmental constraints and challenges. Learning and habit (e.g., mental set,

functional fixedness), rules and traditions, perceptual barriers, cultural barriers,

emotional barriers, resource barriers, and environmental blocks are the sources of

many difficulties in the creative process (e.g., see Adams, 1974; Davis, 1999; Finke

et al., 1992). It can take creativity to overcome these challenges and persistence to

continue being unconventional when it would be easier to conform or discontinue the

process.


To overcome difficulties, the adolescents applied various strategies for

Managing Constraints and Challenges including allowing incubation time,

verbalising their ideas with other people, revising their ideas, enhancing the context

for creativity, and starting afresh (see Section 4.4). Incubation, in particular, has

received much attention in the literature, where people subconsciously think about a

task while doing other things (e.g., Csikszentmihalyi, 1996; Finke et al., 1992;

Guilford, 1967; Wallas, 1926). It has been categorised here as a strategy for

Managing Constraints and Challenges, rather than as a sub-process, since incubation

was not needed in all creative processes, and was only referred to in this study when

adolescents had difficulty thinking of or producing ideas. Managing emotions such

as frustration, disappointment, or a sense of failure was also necessary in some cases

before the adolescents could continue the creative process. If these strategies were

ineffective or the adolescents chose not to persist, discontinuing the creative process

was a final option. “Far from being the antithesis of creativity, constraints on

thinking are what make it possible” (Boden, 2004, p. 95). Personal and

environmental constraints are unavoidable, and sometimes even necessary.

Constraints provide boundaries for judging the novelty and appropriateness of a

creative outcome (Beghetto, 2010). Hence, it was the adolescents’ ability to manage

these challenges and constraints that determined whether they had the motivation and

capacity to create something outside the norm.

8.2.5 Approaches to Creativity

Adaptation, transfer, synthesis, and genesis were the four approaches

participating adolescents used in the creative process. These approaches contribute to

creativity literature in two main ways: previous descriptions in the literature of how

to achieve creative outcomes insufficiently explain the four approaches identified in

this study, particularly transfer and genesis; and the unique combination of

adaptation, transfer, synthesis, and genesis comprehensively describe the range of

ways in which adolescents in this study approached the creativity process.

These Approaches to Creativity entailed the adolescents modifying or creating

unique connections among existing ideas, and can be linked with existing research,

particularly literature relating to associative thinking and creative cognition. There

are connections to all approaches; however, while some are quite direct, especially

for adaptation and synthesis, other links are less explicit, particularly for genesis but


also for transfer. The main connections between key theorists and the Approaches to

Creativity identified in this study are presented in Figure 8.2. There are undoubtedly

links in other literature about creativity; for example, references to the underlying

concepts of these approaches are found in Koestler’s (1964) influential book, The Act

of Creation. However, the links presented here are from theories focused specifically

on aspects of the creative process, are predominately more recent (with the exception

of Mednick, 1962), and demonstrate particularly close connections to the constructs

described in this thesis. The details of these theories were not discussed in the initial

literature review; the connections were established upon returning to the literature

after analysis.

Figure 8.2. Approaches to adolescent creativity: Connections to the literature.

The approach of adaptation is widely discussed in theories of creativity. It can

be most closely linked to: Kirton’s (2003) adaption (as opposed to an innovation)

style of creativity, which involves using existing structures for creativity; Finke,

Ward, and Smith’s (1992) generative process of transformation; and Welling’s

(2007) use of the term application to describe adaptation with the habitual context.

These theories match closely with the adaptation approach identified in this study.

Synthesis, like adaptation, has many references in the literature. The term,

synthesis, is also used by Finke et al. (1992) and Savransky (2000), while other

related descriptions of synthesis include combinational creativity (Boden, 2004) and

combination generation (Welling, 2007), which could also apply to adolescent

synthesis demonstrated in this study. Mednick’s (1962) associative processes of


serendipity, similarity, and mediation that describe ways of achieving contiguity of

ideas also link to a synthesis approach. The propulsion model of creativity includes

integration, which is a synthesis of paradigms that change a domain (Sternberg,

1999; Sternberg, Kaufman, & Pretz, 2002); however, this and other contributions of

the propulsion model are beyond the level of creativity achieved by participants.

The approach of transfer is evidenced in the literature in terms of analogies

(e.g., Boden, 2004; Savransky, 2000), analogical transfer (Finke et al., 1992), and

analogy detection (Welling, 2007); however, the construct in this study does not

assume that analogies are the basis of all transfer approaches to adolescent creativity.

At the high level of contribution described by the propulsion model, conceptual

replication refers to transfer of existing concepts to a new context (Sternberg, 1999;

Sternberg et al., 2002). Mednick’s (1962) associative processes (serendipity,

similarity, and mediation) link most closely with a synthesis approach, but could also

form the basis of transfer. No literature was found that adequately captured the

various forms of transfer demonstrated by adolescents in this study.

Genesis has limited connections in literature describing creative processes. The

closest connection is found in the TRIZ theory of inventive problem solving

(originally developed by Altshuller), which uses the term genesis to describe

“creation of fundamentally new technique to fit a new need” (Savransky, 2000,

Preface). Savranksy’s use of the term genesis relates to problem solving rather than

other types of creativity, and does not specify that this approach entails creators

drawing on their range of knowledge and experiences to create something that is

substantially different from anything of which they are aware. Moreover, use of the

term, genesis, in this research encompasses a range of adolescents’ original products,

performances, ideas, and methods, not just new techniques, and can be for any

identified need/want of the adolescent, not only for new needs. A tenuous link can

also be made between genesis and the propulsion model’s creative contribution of

reinitiation, which involves a major paradigm shift of starting the field at a new point

than where it is currently and taking a radically new direction (Sternberg, 1999;

Sternberg et al., 2002); however, this does not capture an adolescent level of

approach to the creative process. Genesis, as displayed by participating adolescents,

is an approach that has not been well described in previous literature.


Of existing theories that have described styles or approaches to creativity, none

have focused on adolescents who are in the transition from childhood to adulthood,

and who use creativity in a range of personal, social, and educational activities in

diverse domains. Moreover, although elements of these approaches have been

previously addressed, the literature lacks a comprehensive theory that encompasses

all of the ways that adolescents approached the creative process in this research. The

four Approaches to Creativity identified in this study applied to the diverse creative

experiences of the adolescents, and could be used independently or in conjunction

with other approaches. The combination of adaptation, transfer, synthesis, and

genesis provide a new lens for understanding how young people engage in the

creative process to produce different types of creativity.

8.2.6 Types of Creativity

Adolescent creativity manifested in three main ways: creative personal

expression, creative boundary pushing, and creative task achievement. These Types

of Creativity describe the purposes of the adolescents’ creativity and their resulting

outcomes. Typically one type of creativity was dominant in the pursuit of doing

something outside the norm (the dominant type depended on the individual, task, and

environment), but they could overlap. Therefore, the Types of Creativity should be

viewed as part of a multidimensional space, rather than as discrete categories.

Conceptualisations of types of creativity are not new to creativity research, but have

typically focused on the creativity of talented professionals and eminent creators.

Such theories focus on how a creative outcome contributes to, or changes, a whole

domain, whereas adolescent creativity seldom makes this level of contribution.

Therefore, this research has led to a new empirical typology, which classifies the

varying types of creativity manifested at the level of adolescents.

On the surface, creative personal expression as a type of creativity (see Section

7.2) appears to have been comprehensively addressed in the literature. This

perception is due to the plethora of research about using the “creative” arts for self-

expression in school arts education (e.g., Eisner, 2002; Gardner, 1990; Lindström,

2011), and individual or group arts therapy for young people with disabilities, people

with physical or psychological illnesses, or those who have experienced trauma (e.g.,

Lynch & Chosa, 1996; Malley, Dattilo, & Gast, 2002; Taylor, 2005). While not

devaluing these activities, in some cases, they might be more accurately described as


artistic, rather than creative, personal expression (e.g., visual art, music, dance, or

theatre without the production of a novel and appropriate outcome). There is also

increasing reference to how “creative” new media (e.g., blogs, multimedia software

and websites, photo-sharing websites, social networking websites) allow ordinary

individuals to express their feelings and ideas to large and varied audiences (e.g.,

Duffy & Bruns, 2006; Kellner, 2002; Oravec, 2002). Creative personal expression is

a potential outcome in these contexts; however, in situations where there is no novel

and appropriate outcome, the personal expression would not be classified in this

theory as “creative”. The act of creation or use of an arts medium or new media does

not necessarily equate to creativity.

Within the broad spectrum of personal expression activities, creative personal

expression is just one potential type of outcome. Although creative personal

expression most commonly occurred in this study in the arts and humanities, it was

possible in any domain. Participating adolescents utilised various domains and

mediums for expressing their personalities, emotions, ideas, and values, but these

were only considered creative personal expressions when the process or outcome

demonstrated a level of novelty and appropriateness. For example, adolescents who

emulate the fashions of famous role models are expressing their personal sense of

style, but these expressions have been copied and are therefore not creative.

However, adolescents can be creative when they adapt or synthesise the ideas of

fashion role models to design their own clothing (e.g., as Esmé did for her school

semi-formal dress, see Section 4.3.1). Many of the adolescents’ creative self-

representations and expressions might be novel and meaningful to them, a form of

intrapersonal creative personal expression; higher levels of creativity are expressed

when the outcomes are also creative to an audience (see Sections 2.2.3 and 8.3).

Creative boundary pushing (see Section 7.3) describes adolescent creativity

that involved extending the boundaries of knowledge or behaviour expected by that

individual/group (e.g., GLaDOS’ creation of his own chemistry equations in his free

time, see Section 7.3.1). There are a number of parallels between creative boundary

pushing and existing theories of creativity. For example, Eisner’s (1965) typology of

children’s art also includes boundary pushing (see Section 7.3.3). Creative boundary

pushing also has connections with the propulsion model of creativity (Sternberg,

1999; Sternberg et al., 2002). The types of creative contributions in this model that


could be described as high level boundary pushing, by changing the direction of the

domain, include forward and advance forward incrementation, redirection,

reconstruction/redirection, reinitiation, and integration (Sternberg, 1999; Sternberg et

al., 2002). Two examples of these very high levels of boundary pushing described in

the propulsion model include: ‘advance forward incrementation’ shown by a

Hungarian doctor, Ignaz Semmelweis, who was scoffed at by his peers for his belief

that micro-organisms contaminated the hands of doctors, an idea ahead of its time

given that now strict hand-washing protocols are fundamental in medical practice;

and George Gershwin’s ‘Concerto in F’, which was the first successful ‘integration’

of classical music and popular (jazz) music in the Jazz Age (Sternberg, et al., 2002).

This level of boundary pushing is beyond the capacity of the majority of adolescents.

However, some participants in the study were capable of reaching high levels of

boundary pushing within the contexts of their schooling, extracurricular, and

everyday lives. Creators pushing boundaries at any level are likely to resist

conformity; nonconformity has commonly been found in creative personality

research (e.g., Eysenck, 1993; Feist, 1999; MacKinnon, 1965). Sternberg and Lubart

(1995) described creative individuals’ resistance to conformity as “defying the

crowd”, and creative boundary pushers intentionally decide to deviate from or move

ahead of the crowd.

Creative task achievement (see Section 7.4) refers to using creativity to

accomplish a task or fulfil a particular demand (e.g., TuathaDuOrothrim’s robotics

design and essay, see Section 7.4.1). The closest connection to existing theory is

found in problem solving literature, when problem solving is interpreted as any

challenge where an individual does not have a routine solution, and must generate

and select actions to achieve a goal (Kozbelt et al., 2010). Although commonly

related to mathematical and scientific problems, problem solving can also include

composing a piece of music or writing a story, where the solution for the final

product is not achieved using routine processes. When a problem or task has not been

presented to an adolescent, creative problem solving first requires “problem finding”

(e.g., Getzels & Csikszentmihalyi, 1976; Runco & Chand, 1995) or “problem

construction” (e.g., Mumford, Reiter-Palmon, & Redmond, 1994). In creative task

achievement, this could be referred to as “task finding” or “task construction”. The

term creative task achievement has been chosen to try to resolve discourse issues of


problem solving being associated with the sciences, mathematics, and technology,

but not with the arts or humanities.

Creative task achievement includes, but is not limited to, conceptions of

achievement in education. This type of creativity also includes tasks achieved for an

intrinsically motivated need. Therefore, use of the term, achievement, does not imply

that this type of creativity is always based on performance goal motivation, because

it is not necessarily about receiving validation of ability or competence (Dweck,

1999, 2002b). While some creative task achievement is motivated by competence

validation, many students were also driven by competence acquisition and learning

(Dweck & Molden, 2005). When the adolescents were faced with ill-defined or ill-

structured problems and tasks that did not have a readily obvious solution path or

could have multiple solutions (Kozbelt et al., 2010; Sternberg, 1996), they could be

considered as engaging in creative task achievement to produce a novel, appropriate

outcome.

The typology presented in this study offers an original way of framing

adolescent creativity. No existing typologies were found that could collectively

explain the specific purposes and manifestations of adolescents in this study.

Specifically, creative personal expression, creative boundary pushing, and creative

task achievement contribute an understanding of the main Types of Creativity that

adolescents can use in their range of personal, social, and educational contexts.

8.2.7 Contexts for Creativity

The potential for adolescents to create not the norm outcomes is influenced by

the context created by interactions between their dispositions and environments. As

adolescents, they have less choice about the contexts to which they are exposed (e.g.,

they are required to attend school). Furthermore, they can also be susceptible to

pressure to conform from the media, parents, and peers if they have often not yet

developed a strong sense of self (Cropley, 2006). Therefore, providing a supportive

environment or climate for creativity is particularly important for young people.

The findings of this study contribute to a currently limited body of empirical

studies about how creativity is supported or inhibited in the school environment

(Hennessey & Amabile, 2010). The research confirmed many existing findings about

individual characteristics displayed by creative individuals (e.g., Barron &


Harrington, 1981; Feist, 1998; Feist & Barron, 2003; Sternberg & Lubart, 1991,

1995), and physical and social conditions in the school environmental that can have a

positive or negative influence on adolescents’ creativity (e.g., Craft, 2005; Feldhusen

& Treffinger, 1980; Nickerson, 1999; Richards, 2010; Sternberg, 2010; Sternberg &

Williams, 1996). It also made a number of new contributions. The five main

contributions of the study to be discussed here, in relation to the interacting

contextual conditions of disposition and the environment, address adolescents’

creative self-efficacy (Section 8.2.7.1), the role of different sources of motivation

(Section 8.2.7.2), the importance of creative like minds (Section 8.2.7.3), and the

influence of the educational milieu (Section 8.2.7.4). Acknowledging that not all

adolescents require the same conditions for creativity, this study has focused on the

need for a person-environment fit (Section 8.2.7.5), with the goal of creating the

optimal context for each adolescent’s creativity. Many of these findings contribute

not only to school environments, but also to other home and social situations.

8.2.7.1 Creative self-efficacy.

Creative self-efficacy contributes positively to creative engagement and

performance, and how adolescents are affected by perceived creative successes and

failures. Still a relatively recent construct, there are limited studies of creative self-

efficacy with school-aged adolescent populations, and existing studies were all

quantitative (see Beghetto, 2006; Karwowski, 2011; Tan, Ho, Ho, & Ow, 2008; Tan

et al., 2007). The value of qualitative methods in yielding deep understandings about

self-efficacy, not captured by quantitative self-efficacy scales, was reported in two

studies of university students’ creative self-efficacy (Abbott, 2010; Lemons, 2005).

The qualitative findings in this study about the role of creative self-efficacy in high-

school-aged adolescents’ creativity offer two unique contributions: (a) creative self-

efficacy differs between adolescents creative in the arts and those in science or

mathematical domains; and (b) creative self-efficacy beliefs can be enhanced by

environmental influences.

Although the Creative Self-Efficacy Scale (see Section 3.5.3) school mean

scores were the same for the two groups of participants (𝑁 = 20; 𝑋� = 5.7), the focus

groups, individual interviews, and discussion forum revealed higher creative

confidence at WHS than at NHS. Therefore, it is possible that the Likert scale

instrument did not accurately measure their creative self-efficacy, and that qualitative


methods of data collection provided richer information about this complex construct.

Another observation offering a potential explanation for this disparity is that, for

most adolescents in the study, confidence in their creativity was largely domain-

specific, whereas the Creative Self-Efficacy Scale measured domain-general beliefs

(see Section 8.4 for discussion about domain-generality and domain-specificity in

creativity). This study’s observation of predominately domain-specific creative self-

efficacy suggests the potential for further research to develop domain-specific scales,

but scale development was beyond the scope of this study.

Observable differences in the adolescents’ self-reports of creative self-efficacy

were related to the level and generality of their beliefs (Bandura, 1997). Arts school

participants had higher levels of creative self-efficacy overall, and were confident

about their creativity across a greater range of domains. Mathematics, science, and

technology school participants, with a few exceptions such as GLaDOS (see Section

7.3.1), felt less creative overall and creative in fewer domains. One potential

explanation relates to the implicit beliefs of participants and other people that the arts

comprise the most creative domains, implying that WHS students are more creative

than NHS students because they attend an arts school. Explicit labelling of WHS as

the “creative” school reinforced those beliefs. Moreover, WHS participants reported

that a culture of creativity was promoted at their school, while NHS participants said

their school’s dominant culture was one of more traditional factual and analytical

learning. Thus, there is evidence to suggest that adolescent creative self-efficacy was

influenced by their own and other people’s beliefs about creativity.

An encouraging finding of the study was the adolescents’ self-reports of

improvements in creative self-efficacy due to environmental influences. Self-efficacy

beliefs were enhanced by being in the selective school environment, having creative

role models and mentors, and participating in this research. Thus, this study confirms

that self-efficacy can be increased through the following sources: verbal persuasion,

enactive mastery experiences, and vicarious experiences (Bandura, 1997).

One source of efficacy-enhancing information was the adolescents being

persuaded to believe in their creativity. This is referred to as verbal persuasion

(Bandura, 1997). WHS participants received this information by being selected for

an arts school, with implicit and explicit messages of the arts being the “creative

arts”, and from mentors or other supportive people in their social networks who


encouraged creativity. Being nominated as creative and selected for this study was a

source of efficacy-enhancing information for participants at both schools. For NHS

participants, their nomination and selection challenged aforementioned assumptions

of being less creative than WHS students. Discussions about conceptions of

creativity in the focus groups also enabled participants to develop a more

comprehensive understanding of creativity in a range of areas, and to question their

previous conceptions of the arts having the most creative domains. Furthermore, by

exploring their individual creativity in interviews and the discussion forum, these

adolescents were given the opportunity to identify examples of their creative

potential, processes, and outcomes. Most participants at both schools admitted that

they had never consciously reflected on their creativity prior to the study.

Although it is not known whether the increase in the adolescents’ self-reports

of creative self-efficacy due to this study will endure, this unintended outcome

highlights that adolescent creative self-efficacy can be improved by explicitly

discussing what creativity is, who can be creative, where creativity is found, and

individual experiences of creativity. A formal intervention exploring the nature of

creativity and its development, as well as training in creative problem solving and

opportunities to experience creative success, was conducted with adults by Mathisen

and Bronnick (2009). They found that this type of intervention resulted in increases

in creative self-efficacy (Mathisen & Bronnick, 2009), although they did not

distinguish which components of the intervention contributed to the increase.

Nonetheless, with this type of verbal persuasion, along with explicit exploration of

their conceptions and experiences of creativity, adolescents might be more capable of

recognising, and believing in, their creative potential and ability.

The adolescents’ creative self-efficacy might also have been influenced by

having successful creative experiences and seeing their peers being creative. These

influences are referred to in social cognitive theory as enactive mastery experiences

and vicarious experiences, respectively (Bandura, 1997). At the selective schools,

with a rigorous curriculum and high expectations, the adolescents were challenged to

master high levels of knowledge and skills, enabling them to potentially achieve

higher levels of creativity. The strength of the influence of mastery experiences

depends on how individuals interpret their successes or failures, which performances

they selectively recall, the effort expended in the task, and whether they perceive


their creativity is improving over time, even with periodic failures (Bandura, 1997).

In addition to personally experiencing creative success in difficult tasks, they might

observe their peers’ successful creativity. These types of vicarious experiences can

raise creative self-efficacy beliefs if individuals perceive their peers as having

comparative attributes and performance abilities (Bandura, 1997). Mastery and

vicarious experiences are useful sources of information about current and potential

creative capacity.

The effects of verbal persuasion, enacted mastery experiences, and vicarious

experiences will depend on how well the information is integrated and the weight

given to these indicators of ability (Bandura, 1997). Enhancing creative self-efficacy

can improve creative ability by creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Boosts in creative

self-efficacy from this efficacy information can lead to increased efforts to be

creative, potentially providing more opportunities for creating something outside the

norm. Creative successes can lead to self-affirming beliefs, and potentially to further

developments in both self-efficacy and ability (Bandura, 1995). In the case of

self-reported increases in creative self-efficacy in this study, verbal persuasion

appeared to be the main source of influence.

8.2.7.2 Motivation for creativity.

This study found that both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation could positively

influence adolescent creativity. In relation to intrinsic motivation, this finding

supports the majority of research that attests to its positive effect on creativity (e.g.,

Amabile, 1983, 1996; Csikszentmihalyi, 1996, 2000; Dewett, 2007; Gottfried,

Fleming, & Gottfried, 2001; Hennessey & Amabile, 2010; Ochse, 1990; Rogers,

1954; Torrance, 1962). The finding that extrinsic motivation did, in some cases, play

a positive role in creativity is more controversial. In this study, its influence

depended on the type of motivator and how it was framed (e.g., see Table 6.4).

Drawing on the literature, this section will explain how extrinsic motivation might

have had a positive influence on creativity when it was internalised or self-regulated,

or positively contributed to the creator’s sense of competence and autonomy.

The intrinsic-extrinsic motivation dichotomy discounts that there are various

types of extrinsic motivation, and that these affect creativity differently. For

example, some participants found ways to internalise the importance of a task that

was initially motivated externally, others found that their personal interests and


imposed tasks could be complementary, and some saw extrinsic rewards or feedback

as a bonus to their existing intrinsic interest in the task. Extrinsic motivators in

isolation might inhibit creativity, but combined with some level of autonomy or

internalisation of the task, they could have a supportive influence. Recognising there

are various types of extrinsic motivation is consistent with self-determination theory,

which differentiates between extrinsic motivation with high levels of self-regulation

(identified and integrated regulation), from those with low levels of self-regulation

(introjected and external regulation) (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Deci et al., 1991; Deci et

al., 1996; Ryan & Deci, 2000a, 2000b; Vansteenkiste et al., 2006). Figure 8.3 shows

this continuum of motivation that challenges the intrinsic-extrinsic motivation

dichotomy.

Behaviour Non-self determined Self-determined

Type of motivation Amotivation Extrinsic Motivation Intrinsic

Motivation

Type of regulation

Non-regulation

External Regulation

Introjected Regulation

Identified Regulation

Integrated Regulation

Intrinsic Regulation

Locus of causality Impersonal External Somewhat

External Somewhat

Internal Internal Internal

Figure 8.3. The self-determination continuum (Deci & Ryan, 2000, p. 237).

There is limited research considering motivation for creativity from the self-

determination perspective; however, existing studies revealed a significant positive

correlation between higher levels of self-determined motivation and creativity,

including extrinsic motivation involving higher degrees of self-regulation (e.g.,

Alborzi, Jowkar, & Khayyer, 2011; Sheldon, 1995). Hennessey (2000) agreed that

reframing the creativity motivation debate using self-determination theory would

provide new insights. Sternberg and Lubart (1991) explained motivation from the

perspective of task-focused versus goal-focused motivation: people are more creative

when they are focused on the creative task than on the achieving goals. Intrinsic

motivation plays a significant role in motivation that is task-focused, but some

extrinsic motivation can also contribute (Sternberg & Lubart, 1991). Thus, although


intrinsic motivation was typically the ideal condition for the adolescents’ creativity,

external goals and rewards were not always detrimental to creativity.

Other revisions of motivation theories of creativity have acknowledged that

“synergistic extrinsic motivators”, such as verbal rewards and recognition of creative

work, and feedback on progress, could act as an additive effect when there are

existing high levels of intrinsic motivation (Amabile, 1996). However, “non-

synergistic motivators”, such as expectance of negative evaluation or win-lose

competitions that are viewed as controlling, can undermine intrinsic motivation and

inhibit creativity (Amabile, 1996). This is linked with self-determination theory, in

that extrinsic motivators can enhance intrinsic motivation and assist performance

when they provide positive informational feedback that contributes to a person’s

intrinsic motivation, or to a sense of autonomy and competence (e.g., see Amabile,

1996; Deci et al., 2001, Deci & Ryan, 2000; Hennessey & Amabile, 2010).

Amabile’s (1996) revised Intrinsic Motivation Principle of Creativity proposed that,

“Intrinsic motivation is conducive to creativity; controlling extrinsic motivation is

detrimental to creativity, but informational and enabling extrinsic motivation can be

conducive, particularly if initial levels of intrinsic motivation are high” (p. 119).

Adolescents in high school spend much of their time completing school work

and assignments, and therefore many of the tasks they engage in are extrinsically

motivated. Intrinsic motivation provided the optimal condition for creativity, but

highly self-regulated, autonomous extrinsic motivation was also a supportive

dispositional condition for some adolescent creativity in this study. Moreover,

extrinsic motivation from informational feedback on creative progress and

achievement might work synergistically with intrinsic motivation. This study

supports a shift from previous research debating intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation

in creativity, to reframe motivation as a continuum in which extrinsic motivation

differs in levels of self-regulation or internalisation, and therefore in its influence on

creativity.

8.2.7.3 Like minds.

The experience of being with like minds was reported by all research

participants as one of the most beneficial features of the selective schools for their

creative, intellectual, and social development. Like minds offered support in various

ways, including: motivating each other through their shared passions and interests;


inspiring and stimulating each other’s creative ideas; accepting each other’s

unconventionality; providing cognitive and affective support for creativity;

generating opportunities for creative collaboration; and extending each other’s

creative networks. The value of like minds for creative adolescents has not been

emphasised in previous research.

Although Florida’s (2002, 2007) propositions about the “creative class” and

“creative cities” remain controversial, there is evidence of uneven clusters of creative

talents in specific regions (e.g., Boschma & Firtsch, 2007; Hospers & Pen, 2008;

Tay, 2005; Wojan, Lambert, & McGranahan, 2007), such as the technology

corporation cluster in Silicon Valley. Creative people are hypothesised to be attracted

to places with the physical resources and sociocultural climate that is conducive to

creativity and inclusive of diverse, creative thinkers, as well as to places providing

better opportunities to interact and collaborate with other creators (Boschma &

Firtsch, 2007; Florida, 2002, 2007; Wojan et al., 2007). At the school level, the

importance of intellectual like minds has been long established in the field of gifted

education (e.g., Gross, 1998; Rogers, 2007), but has not been researched specifically

in relation to those who are highly creative. This study demonstrated how access to

creative like minds was an important social condition for supporting and inspiring

the creativity of adolescents, and hence contributes to the literature on how to foster

young people’s creativity.

8.2.7.4 Educational milieu.

The participants in this study were completing the International Baccalaureate

Diploma Program in selective schools in Australia. The educational milieu, including

aspects such as the selective schools, the IB curriculum, and government initiatives

and priorities, had varying influences on creativity. This section will draw attention

to two issues that have not been researched specifically in relation to creativity – the

IB curriculum and selective schooling – and will add to the discussion on the place of

creativity in a culture of performativity.

The adolescents identified various supports for creativity in their educational

environment. They felt their creativity was supported at the selective schools by

being with like minds (Section 8.2.7.3), the high levels of cognitive and affective

support they received from teachers and peers, and the resources available for them

to use to be creative (e.g., laptops for all students, a green room for Film students at


WHS). Students praised teachers who tried to work around the IB to promote

creativity.

While recognising the positives of their selective schools, the IB curriculum

was frequently raised by participants as a substantially inhibiting aspect of their

educational milieu. The IB is a highly structured, rigorous curriculum with high-

stakes, standardised assessment. Initially, all participants in this study said they had

perceived that the demanding workload of high level content was quashing their

creativity, providing little time or space for creative thinking at school or creative

interests outside of school. Most participants said they had achieved very highly at

their previous schools, often without a great deal of effort. On entering their selective

schools and starting the IB curriculum, many did not earn high grades with the same

ease, and had to invest considerably more time in study to maintain prior

achievement levels. However, after a period of adjustment, they indicated

recognition that by “lifting the bar”, so to speak, the IB curriculum’s rigour, depth,

and breadth provided them with additional intellectual resources, challenge, and

stimuli for creativity. Students who discovered how to creatively use what they

learned within the constraints of the curriculum were able to reduce or compensate

for the inhibiting effects of the IB.

Most participants at WHS agreed that the IB did not appear to be the best

curriculum for encouraging their creativity. They provided the following key

reasons: (a) despite being at an “arts school”, they could only specialise in two arts

subjects, fewer than if they had attended a school with the regular state curriculum,

reducing their opportunities to develop creativity within and across a range of arts

domains; (b) completing the heavy academic workload, which required spending

time learning large amounts of content knowledge, was often at the expense of time

and learning that allowed creative thinking; and (c) standardised assessments often

did not value practical application of students’ creativity, for example, Theatre Arts

students’ IB scores were based on their written work, and not on their performances.

NHS students perceived that the IB was a good fit for their science, mathematics, and

technology school’s focus and demographic, but agreed it was not necessarily the

best curriculum for promoting creativity. Therefore, even though some participating

adolescents recognised how the IB could contribute to their creative thinking, overall


this aspect of the educational milieu was perceived as an inhibiting environmental

condition for creativity.

The adolescents’ experiences of difficulties finding space for creativity in their

IB selective school environments are an indication of the tensions between the

educational agendas of creativity and performativity. At the selective school research

sites, students and staff spoke of the feeling of being scrutinised as new schools that

had to prove their worth, as well as the pressure on students to perform highly on IB

exams to serve as a measure of this value. Therefore, creativity was viewed as

something to fit in around the IB assessment, rather than being a priority within the

curriculum, especially at the science, mathematics and technology school. The view

of creativity as an attachment, rather than integral, to the curriculum has been

similarly noted in other analyses of creativity in Australian and British education

systems (e.g., Burnard & White, 2008; D. Hartley, 2006), as have the tensions

between creativity and performativity (Craft & Jeffrey, 2008). Under a misleading

banner of objectivity, performativity emphasises learning that can be easily

measured, which does not always adequately capture complex learning processes

(Ball, 2003). Creativity is complex and is still viewed as elusive and difficult to

measure, and therefore might be denied a place in a culture of performativity

(Burnard & White, 2008), unless valued highly at the classroom level.

In Australia, the economic value of creativity is recognised, but there is still a

need to move beyond policy rhetoric to consistent implementation of educational

practices for creativity (Burnard & White, 2008; Lassig, 2009b). Although education

for creativity and the current educational milieu appear to be at odds, and often are,

the participants in this study confirmed that it is still possible to promote adolescent

creativity in a performative climate. If a focus on performativity and raising

standards includes having high expectations of adolescents, providing challenge, and

learning high levels of content knowledge, creativity can be promoted by challenging

adolescents to use the content in creative ways. Creativity and knowledge are not

opposing (Boden, 2001). Creativity is grounded in knowledge, but an overemphasis

on knowledge can stifle creativity (Boden, 2001). Active, creative use of knowledge

in a domain can also assist acquisition of knowledge (Baer & Garrett, 2010).

Therefore, although it can be difficult, education for creativity can co-exist in an

educational milieu that values performativity.


Some adolescents in this study were particularly insightful about the larger

educational milieu and the economic agenda underpinning their selective schools and

other government creativity initiatives. They perceived that a focus on creativity in

education was designed to prepare them to be “assets” in the creative workforce who

“will boost Australia” and its economy (Kate, WHS, FG1b). Therefore, it was

unsurprising that findings about the effects of creativity were primarily egocentric,

focused on how it helped adolescents and their future careers, and whether they

received recognition or, at minimum, a reaction to their creativity (see Section 4.5).

Few participants spoke of creativity as a vehicle for making a contribution to other

people and their environments, apart from providing an enjoyable experience for an

audience. An egocentric focus for creativity might be partly attributed to Western

culture that values the individual and the capitalist economic market. The value of

creativity to contribute to others and society aligns more closely with an Eastern,

collectivist philosophy (Kim, 2010). Adolescents are influenced by the culture of

which they are a part, and so is their creativity. The marketisation of creativity

phenomenon in Western societies, emphasising the economic imperative of creative

and innovative thinking, potentially devalues creativity for the common good. Wise

creativity or creative trusteeship considers the ethical, cultural, and environmental

effects of the actions and outcomes of creativity (Craft, 2003, 2006, 2008a, 2008b,

2010; Craft et al., 2008). Should this not also be a goal of enhancing young people’s

creativity in schools?

This preceding discussion highlighted that high school adolescents’ creativity

is influenced not only by the individual creator and their immediate environments,

but also the wider educational milieu in which they learn. There were tensions

between promoting creativity and working within the constraints of the IB, the

emphasis on standardised testing and performativity, and policy that values creativity

for its economic value. However, this research has shown that it is possible to resolve

these tensions, to some degree. I acknowledge that these reflections on how

adolescents can be creative within the IB curriculum and current educational milieu

are based on a special population of high ability students. They were predominately

from middle-class, educated families, who had likely been exposed to various other

external influences that affected their creativity. However, the tensions between

creativity and performativity are universal, and this research contributes to


understandings of how creativity is situated in one section of the Australian

educational milieu.

8.2.7.5 Person-environment fit.

The four Contexts for Creativity identified in this study – high creative

disposition–supportive environment, high creative disposition–inhibiting

environment, low creative disposition–supportive environment, and low creative

disposition–inhibiting environment – emphasise that creativity results from

interactions between creators and their environments. Dispositional and

environmental conditions do not act independently. The importance of the

relationship or fit between the two is the premise for understanding creativity from

the perspective of person-environment fit, which has been conceptualised as “the

congruence, match, similarity, or correspondence between the person and the

environment” (Edwards & Shipp, 2007, p. 211). Although this research has

ascertained various dispositional and environmental conditions that could support or

inhibit creativity, they will not have a uniform effect on all adolescents. Hence the

importance of the person-environment fit, which recognises that the combination of

conditions that create the optimal fit for creativity can differ among individuals,

tasks, domains, and environments.

The origins of person-environment fit theory are in psychological research

emphasising that a person’s behaviour is determined largely by their environment

(e.g., Lewin, 1951; Murray, 1938). Most research of person-environment fit can be

found in the field of organisational psychology. Only three studies were found that

specifically related to creativity, two of which were conducted in workplaces

(Livingstone, Nelson, & Barr, 1997; Puccio, Talbot, & Joniak, 2000) and one in a

business management undergraduate university course (Choi, 2004). All three studies

were quantitative; no qualitative studies were found. This research appears to be the

first study that frames interactions between the individual creator and the

environment using qualitative data about person-environment fit for creativity, and

within a study of creativity with school-aged participants.

Confluence models of creativity have made significant contributions

addressing the interactions between the individual and the environment (e.g.,

Amabile, 1996; Csikszentmihalyi, 1996; Sternberg & Lubart, 1995). The two aspects

of person-environment fit theory provide a different perspective for considering these


interactions: (a) the Supplies-Values (also referred to as Needs-Supplies) fit refers to

whether an individual’s desired climate for creativity (values/needs) fits with the

provided climate for creativity (supplies); and (b) the Demand-Abilities fit relates to

whether an individual has the creativity and related knowledge and skills (abilities)

required by the environment (demand) (Choi, 2004). Consider these examples in

relation to creativity, from the perspective of the adolescent. A Supplies-Value fit,

for instance, might be perceived by adolescents who prefer highly structured creative

tasks when they are provided within the structure of the IB program. Whereas, an

adolescent who needs high levels of autonomy to be creative might not perceive a

Supplies-Value Fit if they view the IB as providing a constraining environment. In a

school environment that requires adolescents’ creative outcomes to demonstrate high

levels of intellectual ability, knowledge, and skills, an optimal Demand-Abilities fit

is established if adolescents perceive they possess the commensurate levels of these

dispositional conditions rather than underachieving or exceeding the demands.

Studies of the person-environment fit in relation to adolescent motivation,

achievement, and social development provide further evidence of the positive

influence of person-environment fit between adolescents and their schools (e.g.,

Eccles, Lord, & Roeser, 1996; Fraser & Fisher, 1983; Fraser & Rentoul, 1980;

Kuperminc, Leadbeater, & Blatt, 2001).

For adolescents, it is also important to consider the person-environment fit

theory within a developmental framework (Eccles et al., 1996; Eccles & Midgley,

1989; Eccles et al., 1993; Eccles & Roeser, 2009; Hunt, 1975). Environmental

conditions provided should be appropriate for the abilities and needs of adolescents.

For example, metacognitive abilities and a stronger executive typically develop

during adolescence (Kuhn, 2009), suggesting cognitive support for creativity can

include encouraging adolescents to reflect on their creative thinking and how to

direct their creative processes. In terms of social conditions to support creativity,

relationships with peers become more salient in adolescence and adolescents can be

strongly influenced by what is acceptable to their peers (Brown & Larson, 2009).

Therefore, being in a school environment with like-minded peers who accept and

celebrate each other’s creativity, diversity, and unconventionality can play a key role

in adolescents’ motivation to engage in creative activities (e.g., as was particularly

evident at the arts school in this study).


Given the substantial cognitive and social-emotional changes that occur in

adolescence, applying a developmental perspective to the person-environment fit,

referred to by Eccles and colleagues as stage-environment fit (e.g., Eccles et al.,

1996; Eccles & Midgley, 1989; Eccles et al., 1993; Eccles & Roeser, 2009), might

assist the creation of a better match between adolescents and the conditions and

opportunities afforded by their environments (Eccles et al., 1993; Eccles & Roeser,

2009). Using this framework to consider an adolescent as someone in the transition

from childhood to adulthood, but also as an individual who has a unique experience

of that transition, centres the focus on creating optimal contexts for creativity based

on individual preferences and needs, rather than assuming environmental conditions

will influence everyone at a particular age in the same ways.

8.3 Forms of Creativity

The traditional dichotomy of eminent and everyday creativity has been

expanded to differentiate among other forms of creativity, and this section advances

existing understandings by proposing a new form of creativity. First, I will present

the current Four C’s model of creativity (Section 8.3.1), and then describe how two

of these forms of creativity relate to adolescents (Section 8.3.2). Next, I will

introduce a new form of creativity that emerged from this research (Section 8.3.3),

ending with the proposition of a revised Five C’s model of creativity (Section 8.3.4).

8.3.1 The Four C’s Model of Creativity

One recent and particularly relevant model classifying creativity includes mini-

c, little-c, Pro-c, and Big-C creativity (Kaufman & Beghetto, 2009). Recall from the

literature review (Section 2.2.3) that most research has focused on the eminent or

historical creativity (Big-C) of geniuses and other highly accomplished individuals,

or on the everyday creativity (little-c) of ordinary people in their daily lives. This

dichotomy was advanced by the introduction of intrapersonal creativity (mini-c),

which recognises the personally creative insights and interpretations involved in

learning (Beghetto & Kaufman, 2007b). Since the initial literature review conducted

prior to data collection, these researchers have further extended the model with the

construct of professional creativity (Pro-c). Pro-c recognises the creativity of people

with high levels of expertise who have made a significant creative achievement in

their particular domain (Kaufman & Beghetto, 2009). For example, J. K. Rowling,


author of the Harry Potter series, has achieved a high level of Pro-c success well

beyond the little-c creativity of those who write as a hobby to share with family and

friends, but who never publish their work. Rowling’s books have received acclaim

all over the world; however, it might be premature to categorise her work as having

the same enduring impact on literature as authors such as Dickens, Shakespeare, or

Tolstoy. The passing of time will reveal whether or not Rowling is added to this list

of Big-C authors; the full impact of Big-C contributions is sometimes not appreciated

during the life of its creator (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996). The work of most Pro-c

creators might be virtually forgotten over time; however some contributions remain

significant and a select few might be later recognised for their genius (Kaufman &

Beghetto, 2009). Together, these four forms of creativity – mini-c, little-c, Pro-c, and

Big-C – have been labelled the Four C’s of creativity (Kaufman & Beghetto, 2009).

This study indicates that two of these forms of creativity are relevant to adolescents.

8.3.2 The Two C’s of Adolescent Creativity

Within the Four C’s model of creativity, the creativity of adolescents would

typically be classified as mini-c or little-c creativity. Mini-c describes intrapersonal

creativity, where the process or outcome is novel and valuable only to the individual

creator (Beghetto & Kaufman, 2007b). Little-c refers to everyday creativity, with a

novel outcome that is appropriate (e.g., useful, valuable, meaningful) to other people

in a particular social context, making it a form of interpersonal creativity (Beghetto

& Kaufman, 2007b; Craft, 2001).

Mini-c highlights the association between learning and creativity, and “the

creative, transformative process involved in developing personal knowledge and

insights” (Beghetto & Kaufman, 2007b, p. 74). The relationships between learning

and creativity are also discussed in the work of Craft (2005, 2008) and Jeffrey

(2006). Mini-c is distinguished from all other forms of creativity because the

judgment of creativity is made solely by the creator; mini-c outcomes are not novel

or meaningful to other people (Beghetto & Kaufman, 2007b). This form of creativity

will affect the creator, but is unlikely to have an effect on others. Mini-c tasks can

occur at any developmental level, and therefore do not necessarily require high levels

of knowledge or skill. Depending on whether the learning is related to school or

personal interest tasks, this form of creativity can be either intrinsically or

extrinsically motivated. In relation to this study, experimenting and imagining were


often key sub-processes when adolescents were trying out new ideas, and adaptation,

transfer, or synthesis were approaches to building on what they already knew.

Opportunities for creative personal development and some autonomy for exploration

were essential, whether provided to, or actively sought by, adolescents.

Little-c refers to creativity used to engage in and manage everyday life

activities or interests, and adapt to change (Beghetto & Kaufman, 2007b; Craft,

2001, 2005; Hennessey & Amabile, 2010). It is a form of interpersonal creativity

where other people, in addition to the creator, judge the creativity of the outcome.

Moreover, little-c outcomes can affect the creator and the audience for the task. In

terms of this study, little-c was in some ways similar to mini-c in terms of the role of

experimenting and imagining, and the potential to be either intrinsically or

extrinsically motivated. Higher levels of ability, knowledge, or skill were necessary

for progressing beyond mini-c to little-c. Little-c tasks were sometimes worked on by

the adolescents over an extended period, when they had the time, opportunity, and

autonomy. Ongoing, recursive brainstorming and evaluating of ideas was often

evident before they achieved insight; however, other times the tasks were more

intuitive and spontaneous. In the absence of time constraints, incubation was a

commonly utilised strategy for dealing with challenges during the little-c process.

Adolescents also had the freedom to discontinue the creative process if they

perceived it was not leading to a satisfactory outcome. Little-c creativity could

involve any of the four approaches to creativity, and was more likely than mini-c to

utilise a genesis approach and manifest as creative boundary pushing. In addition to

mini-c and little-c, this study identified a third C of adolescent creativity.

8.3.3 Introducing A Third C of Adolescent Creativity: ed-c.

In reflecting on its application to the proposed Grounded Theory of Adolescent

Creativity, the Four C’s model appears insufficient for capturing the scope of

participating adolescents’ creative experiences because it does not explain creativity

for educational purposes, including learning and achievement. Just as Big-C and

little-c does not sufficiently encapsulate creativity by professionals (Pro-c), little-c

and mini-c are inadequate to account for all forms of creativity by adolescents,

particularly in their roles as students. Thus, I propose a new, third form of adolescent

creativity: ed-c or educational creativity.


Ed-c refers to perceiving and pursuing novelty for learning or achievement in

formal educational environments (e.g., schools, universities). In this form of

creativity, individuals’ creative processes and products are developed within the

external constraints of a particular educational body, including limitations posed by

task demands, assessment criteria, or teachers’ instructions. The resulting outcomes

of ed-c differ from work typically presented by peers. Ed-c, like little-c, is a form of

interpersonal creativity, meaning the outcome must be creative to someone other

than just the creator. For adolescents in formal educational environments, the judges

of creativity are usually teachers, external examiners of formal assessments (e.g., IB

examiners), or fellow adolescents in peer-assessed tasks. It therefore can affect both

the creator and others who constitute the audience for that task.

To explain ed-c in more detail, I will now discuss it in relation to the Grounded

Theory of Adolescent Creativity presented in Section 8.2. First consider the

importance of the Sub-Processes of Creativity, Managing Challenges and

Constraints, Approaches to Creativity, Types of Creativity, and Effects of Creativity

on Creators and Audiences for ed-c. Learning new knowledge and skills, assessing

constraints, planning, experimenting, and evaluating work, in order to meet

externally-defined criteria, were sub-processes often emphasised in ed-c tasks. The

strategies of revising and verbalising ideas were most common to manage challenges

during an ed-c process when externally-imposed deadlines provided limited time for

incubation or starting afresh. An adaptation or synthesis approach often proved

effective in allowing adolescents to be creative while also demonstrating their

learning in a particular domain, but transfer and genesis were also used in more

open-ended tasks. Although the adolescents could be intrinsically motivated in

educational tasks, ed-c usually involved extrinsic motivation and was often focused

on creative task achievement (e.g., achieving a good grade for assignments). Creative

boundary pushing and creative personal expression were also types of creativity

applicable to ed-c, particularly when the adolescent had a strong focus on learning,

not just achievement. Completion of the creative process and production of a creative

outcome was paramount for most ed-c tasks, particularly educational assessment

tasks. Ed-c outcomes often affected future creativity in similar educational tasks, and

sometimes creators’ emotions. There was an intention to affect the audience


assessing the work, as students were usually aiming to receive positive reactions or

recognition.

Ed-c can also be distinguished in terms of the optimal context for this category

of creativity. Sufficient levels of intellectual ability, knowledge, and skills related to

the specific task were required dispositional conditions for ed-c. Supportive

environmental conditions included stimuli and structure to guide the adolescents

towards meeting task demands, as well as cognitive and affective support from

teachers, parents, other experts or mentors, or like-minded peers. Given that ed-c was

often related to school work, curriculum constraints, time constraints, and pressure

were most likely to be inhibiting factors; however, these did not necessarily prevent

creativity.

The inclusion of ed-c, in addition to mini-c and little-c, suggests a Three C’s

model of adolescent creativity. There are some overlaps among mini-c, little-c, and

ed-c, but there are also clear differences. A comparison of the Three C’s of

adolescent creativity is presented in Table 8.2, using visual art as an example

domain. Ed-c acknowledges the connection between creativity and formal learning or

educational achievement. Some examples of ed-c from participants in this study

included Esmé’s digital art series for her Year 12 IB assessment (see Table 8.2) and

the robotics essay by TuathaDuOrothrim (see Section 7.4.1). In contrast, mini-c can

be for the purpose of personal development in either formal or informal learning

experiences, such as PewPew’s manga drawings (see Table 8.2) and the acronyms

DaVinci created to help her learn Biology (see Section 4.3.10). Ed-c and mini-c

differ from the little-c examples of creativity in everyday tasks not related to formal

education, such as Suzuki’s paintings for her family and friends (see Table 8.2) and

the photography portfolio website PatrickBateman designed (see Section 4.4.6).

Each of the Three C’s of adolescent creativity must meet the criteria of being

novel as well as appropriate to the relevant judge of creativity. These criteria

distinguish outcomes that are not the norm from typical work by adolescents. Recall,

outcomes are not creative if they are copied from other people’s work or repetitions

of an individual’s previous work. Mini-c processes or outcomes need only be novel

to the individual adolescent; ed-c and little-c must be creative to the intended

audience in a particular context.


Table 8.2

Comparison of the Three C’s of Adolescent Creativity

mini-c little-c ed-c

Form of creativity

Intrapersonal creativity that is part of formal or informal learning and other life experiences

Interpersonal, everyday creativity that is novel and valuable to someone other than the creator

Interpersonal creativity for learning and achievement in formal education

Who it affects

Creator Creator + audience in everyday context

Creator + audience in the educational context

Example creative outcome

PewPew’s experimentation with drawing manga (Japanese comics)

Suzuki’s self-initiated paintings for her home or friends

Esmé’s digital art series for her Year 12 Visual Art IB assessment

Example judge of creativity

Creator (PewPew) Family, friends Teacher, IB external examiner

The Three C’s of adolescent creativity are displayed in various situations and

environments (Table 8.3). Mini-c can be demonstrated in a range of activities and

tasks inside and outside school. Little-c is evident in school extracurricular activities

that do not entail formal learning or assessment, and in everyday life and personal

interests external to school. Ed-c is exhibited in educational tasks in school,

extracurricular activities with a formal structure of evaluating progress, ability, or

achievement (e.g., debating), or other formal extracurricular activities outside school

(e.g., private music lessons). Ed-c is always created within the external constraints of

an educational environment; this is not necessarily the case with mini-c and little-c.

Table 8.3

Environments of the Three C’s of Adolescent Creativity

School environment Non-school environments

Curriculum Extracurricular activities

Formal extracurricular

activities

Hobbies or personal interests

Everyday life

mini-c

little-c

ed-c


The differences in adolescents’ creativity need to take into account not only the

form of creativity (mini-c, little-c, and ed-c), but also other factors such as the

individual, task, domain, and environment. Therefore these three forms of adolescent

creativity can manifest very differently. However, the Three C’s framework offers a

means of differentiating among diverse forms of processes and outcomes by

adolescents that are not the norm.

8.3.4 The New Five C’s Model of Creativity

The new form of creativity, ed-c, emerged from empirical research with

adolescents. However, its defining features are relevant to learning beyond school,

and could similarly be applied to adult creativity, for example in university, technical

training, apprenticeships, and other formal adult learning contexts. Therefore, ed-c

can be added to the current Four C’s to generate an extended Five C’s model of

creativity (Figure 8.4).

Figure 8.4. The Five C’s model of creativity.


Figure 8.4 broadly illustrates the comparative levels and incidence of the Five

C’s of creativity. Mini-c can be achieved by everyone (Beghetto & Kaufman,

2007b), and many people also demonstrate little-c or ed-c. Qualitatively, ed-c and

little-c represent a level of creativity beyond mini-c or personal learning; however,

mini-c might progress to ed-c or little-c creativity. Ed-c and little-c potentially have

the same scope, with the level of creativity dependent on the task and context (i.e.,

disposition and the environment). All lowercase letters are used for ed-c’s

abbreviation because its level of creativity is most similar to little-c (also lowercase).

The other two forms of creativity in the Five C’s model are Pro-c and Big-C. Pro-c

represents a higher level of creativity, and is less common, than the aforementioned

Three C’s of adolescent creativity. It is not achieved by all professionals in their

work (Kaufman & Beghetto, 2009). Big-C is the rarest form of creativity, and refers

to outcomes of exceptional creators who achieve the highest levels of unquestionable

creativity in their domain (see also Section 2.2.3).

Figure 8.4 is not intended to preclude the possibility of adolescents achieving

Pro-c or Big-C; however, such cases would be the exception to the rule and were not

observed in this study. The Five C’s model is intended to advance previous

understandings provided by the Four C’s model, and provides a new lens for

researching and explaining creativity in education at school or post-school

educational levels.

8.4 Inclusive and Exclusive: Domain-Generality and Domain-Specificity

The proposed Ground Theory of Adolescent Creativity emerged from research

of adolescents’ mini-c, little-c, and ed-c creative experiences across a range of

domains. The Model of Adolescent Creativity (Figure 8.1) is a general representation

of adolescent creativity. However, underpinning the Model of Adolescent Creativity

are domain-specific variations in how creativity is actualised. The outcomes of this

study do not support the domain-generality versus domain-specificity dichotomy (see

Section 2.2.4), but support a hybrid view that integrates domain-general aspects

inclusive of all creativity, as well as more specific aspects that differ among tasks.


Integration of domain-general and domain-specific components of creativity

can be organised as a four-level nested hierarchical model:

Level 1 – Fundamentals: There are overarching general fundamentals that

can influence adolescent creativity in all domains. These form the top level

of the hierarchy. Some key examples in this study included creative

personality traits, intellectual ability, and a supportive environment.

Level 2 – Areas: At the next level, the theory recognises that domains in

similar areas showed commonalities. For instance, creative personal

expression occurred frequently in adolescents’ creativity in the performing

arts and humanities areas, but less so in the areas of science/mathematics

and problem solving. Other requirements are only specific to a particular

area; for example, adolescents with intrinsic motivation and interest in the

performing arts did not necessarily display these qualities in any other area.

Level 3 – Domains: The third level is the domain level, and acknowledges

that how the Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity applies to specific

domains can vary. To continue with the performing arts area as an

illustration, adolescent creativity was most commonly identified in the

performing arts domains of theatre, film, and music. Domain-specific

creative self-efficacy is a prime example of the differences observed at this

level: adolescents who were confident in their ability to be creative in

music were not necessarily confident in film or theatre.

Level 4 – Sub-domains: The most specific level of the hierarchy relates to

sub-domains. For example, the domain of theatre includes sub-domains

such as acting, directing, producing, costume design, and set design and

construction. Some knowledge and skills were so specific to a sub-domain

that they were of little use to another one. For example, within theatre, the

carpentry or artistic skills required for set design and construction were of

no relevance to acting.

There will also be even more specific task-related differences; however, for the

purpose of a theoretical model, similarities and differences among the adolescents’

creative experiences can be largely explained in terms of the fundamentals, areas,

domains, and sub-domains. This model acknowledges that there are central

underlying foundations of all creativity, and some similarities among broad, related


areas of creativity; however, there is increasing specificity in the requirements of

more disparate domains and sub-domains of creativity (Figure 8.5).

Figure 8.5. A nested hierarchical model of domain-generality and domain-specificity in adolescent creativity.

This type of hybrid model closely resembles the hierarchical model proposed

by Kaufman and Baer (Baer & Kaufman, 2005; Kaufman & Baer, 2005). The

authors of the model use an amusement park metaphor to explain the overlapping

domain-general and domain-specific components of creativity, and thus it is called

the Amusement Park Theoretical (APT) model of creativity. Like the model

proposed here, the APT model has four levels of generality and specificity in

creativity (Table 8.4). Comparisons with illustrative examples drawn from

participants’ experiences are provided for each of the levels. The authors of the APT

model reported a plan to conduct further research to create a more detailed model

(Baer & Kaufman, 2005). This study contributes by providing some details of how

this type of nested hierarchical model applied to the creativity of adolescents.


Table 8.4

A Nested Hierarchical Model of Domain-Generality and Domain-Specificity in Adolescent Creativity

My study’s model

Fundamentals Areas Domains Sub-domains

APT model Initial requirements

General thematic areas

Domains Micro-domains

Adolescent examples from this

study

Creative personality traits Intellectual ability Supportive environment

Performing arts

Theatre Dance Film Music

Acting Directing Producing Costume design Set design and construction

Visual arts

Painting Drawing Digital art Photography

Portrait Landscape Abstract Still life

Science/ mathematics

Biology Chemistry Physics Mathematics Design technology

Ecology Physiology Genetics

Humanities

Literature Languages History Philosophy

Fictional short story Poetry Essay

This study focused only on 20 adolescents’ self-reports of creativity, and is

therefore limited in scope to providing conclusive evidence for the generality versus

specificity debate. Overall, however, findings indicate the value of a hybrid view in

which adolescent creativity involves overarching domain-general fundamentals,

underpinned by specific area, domain, and sub-domain requirements. In terms of the

relationships among these levels of the nested hierarchy, recent evidence has

suggested that general creative ability causally affects domain-specific creative

ability (Hong & Milgram, 2010). Further research requires a shift in focus from the

dichotomous question of, “Is adolescent creativity domain-general or domain-

specific?” to a more comprehensive examination of, “In what ways, and to what

extent, is adolescent creativity domain-general and domain-specific?”


8.5 Conclusion

This chapter presented the culminating Grounded Theory and Model of

Adolescent Creativity explaining participating adolescents’ creative processes and

products, and how creativity is influenced by their dispositions and environments. At

the core of adolescent creativity is the perception and pursuit of novelty, entailing

dispositional qualities, processes, and outcomes that are not the norm in comparison

with typical peers. This core category, labelled Perceiving and Pursuing Novelty:

Not the Norm, connects the main categories of findings, including the Sub-Processes

of Creativity and strategies for Managing Constraints and Challenges, Approaches to

Creativity, Types of Creativity, and Contexts for Creativity. Situating these findings

in the literature revealed that the proposed theory is a comprehensive,

multidisciplinary, empirical theory of adolescent creativity that applies to a range of

personal, social, and educational experiences. Construction of this theory revealed a

new form of creativity that I have coined ed-c or educational creativity. Ed-c

represents creativity for learning or achievement in formal educational contexts.

Adding ed-c to the existing Four C’s – mini-c, little-c, Pro-c, and Big-C – creates a

Five C’s model differentiating different forms and levels of creativity. These forms

of creativity linked closely with the varying Effects of Creativity on Creators and

Audiences. This study contributes to both domain-general and domain-specific

understandings of creativity, suggesting a need for an integrated, hybrid view.

Although some findings in this study were shown to link to existing constructs, the

research is original in how it has used grounded theory to synthesise and depict the

various components of the creative experience for adolescents in one comprehensive

theory and graphic model. As advocated by Picasso at the beginning of this chapter,

this research has applied a grounded theory methodology to construct an

“abstraction” (theory) of adolescent creativity from the “concrete realities” of

adolescents.


Chapter 9 Conclusion

We live in boxes and the world won’t wait for us to come out … Will we ever get out?

Are we even capable of getting out? Can we think without boxes?

~ Kate, WHS

9.1 Preamble

Thinking outside the box is common parlance for describing creativity. The

screenshot and voiceover excerpt above, from Kate’s machinima film (see also

Section 7.2.2), captures creative adolescents’ frustrations of trying to fit within the

“boxes” that society defines, and their concerns about their ability to “think without

boxes”. The creative experiences of the adolescents in this study revealed that

thinking outside the box could be more accurately described as creating outcomes

that are not the norm through a process of perceiving and pursuing novelty.


Interactions among dispositional and environmental conditions supported or

inhibited their ability to think outside the boxes of conventional views. An

underlying assumption guiding this study was that, given the opportunity to share

their views, adolescents could make insightful contributions to understandings about

their experiences of creativity.

9.2 Introduction

Rhetoric abounds espousing creativity’s importance for individuals, for social

and environmental issues, for advancement of society, and for the economy. The

importance of creativity in education has also been established. However, little is

known about adolescents’ creativity in school or other environments, and yet

education can be a substantial inhibitor of creative development. A grounded theory

research design was effective for comprehensively exploring the nature of adolescent

creativity, as well as the interrelationships among the various aspects of the overall

creative experience.

This chapter will highlight key findings and how the Grounded Theory of

Adolescent Creativity addressed the research questions (Section 9.3). The emerging

theory has theoretical and methodological contributions (Section 9.4), and

implications for adolescents, teacher practice and training, policy, and parents and

other significant people in adolescents’ social networks (Section 9.5). Limitations of

the study are acknowledged (Section 9.6) and potential future research is proposed

(Section 9.7). This chapter and thesis concludes with a final summary of the

importance of creativity and the role of education, and closes with participants’

reflections on our shared research experience (Section 9.8).

9.3 Addressing the Research Questions

This study investigated adolescents’ complex and dynamic creative

experiences, with consideration of their creative processes, their creative outcomes,

the effects of outcomes on creators and audiences, how creators’ dispositions

influenced their creativity, and how their creativity was supported or inhibited by the

environment. A constructivist-interpretivist grounded theory methodology was

adopted, drawing on data from focus groups, individual interviews, an online

discussion forum, and email communications. These data were analysed, synthesised

and abstracted to address the key research question: What are adolescents’


experiences of creativity? Emerging from this research process was a Grounded

Theory of Adolescent Creativity, from the perspectives of the participating

adolescents. The core category, Perceiving and Pursuing Novelty: Not the Norm, is

central to explaining the experience of adolescent creativity due to the way it

connects findings regarding the adolescents’ creative processes, outcomes,

dispositions, and environments (Section 8.2.1).

This section will highlight how the study’s findings contribute to answering the

research sub-questions:





The Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity comprises five major categories of

findings: (a) the Sub-Processes of Creativity; (b) Approaches to Creativity; (c)

Managing Constraints and Challenges; (d) Contexts for Creativity; (e) Types of

Creativity; and (f) the Effects of Creativity on Creators and Audiences. Previously,

adolescent creativity has been classified as either demonstrating mini-c (intrapersonal

creativity) or little-c (everyday creativity). This study proposed an additional

construct of ed-c (educational creativity) to create a more inclusive schema to

encapsulate the diversity of adolescents’ creative experiences. Development of the

theory revealed both domain-general and domain-specific components of creativity.

Some aspects of the creative experience were common across all adolescent

creativity; other aspects differed depending on the specific area, domain, or sub-

domain. Findings related to the research sub-questions (RSQ) will now be addressed.

RSQ 1, regarding the adolescent creative process, was addressed by the

theory’s categories of Sub-Processes of Creativity, Approaches to Creativity, and

Managing Constraints and Challenges. The specific sub-processes involved in

creative thinking and production described by participants were: identifying a

need/want; imagining; brainstorming; planning; learning knowledge and skills;

assessing constraints; gathering materials; experimenting; achieving insight;

creating outcomes; and evaluating. These adolescents’ creative processes entailed

one of four approaches of applying these sub-processes: adaptation of an existing


idea within a domain, transfer of an existing idea from its usual task or domain to

another, synthesis of two or more ideas from the same or different domains, and a

genesis approach where the outcome was not a modification of a particular idea, but

rather was based on an aggregate of the adolescents’ experiences and differed

significantly from anything to which they had been previously exposed. To manage

constraints and challenges during the creative process, the adolescents drew on a

range of strategies, most notably: allowing incubation, verbalising ideas, revising,

enhancing the context for creativity, and starting afresh. Managing emotions was

also necessary when the adolescents had an affective response to the task, for

example, managing feelings of failure. The creative process was not always

successful, and therefore sometimes the adolescents perceived that discontinuing the

creative process was the best (or only) option. Together, the Sub-Processes of

Creativity (Section 4.3), Managing Constraints and Challenges (Section 4.4), and

Approaches to Creativity (Chapter 5) explicate the specific steps and general ways in

which the adolescents engaged in the creative process.

RSQs 2 and 3 explored how adolescent creativity was influenced by their

dispositions (RSQ 2) and environments (RSQ 3). The interactions between these

influences can be thought of in terms of four Contexts for Creativity: high creative

disposition–supportive environment; high creative disposition–inhibiting

environment; low creative disposition–supportive environment; and low creative

disposition–inhibiting environment. The optimal context for creativity was

established when the adolescents who demonstrated high creative dispositions were

in environments supportive of their creativity. In contrast, the pessimal context for

creativity resulted when the adolescents had low creative dispositions and were in

inhibiting environments. Two intermediate contexts existed in which there was some

support for creativity. These contexts comprised the adolescents with high creative

dispositions in inhibiting environments, or the adolescents with low creative

dispositions in supportive environments. If the supportive conditions outweighed the

inhibiting ones, these contexts offered potential for creativity. The Contexts for

Creativity (Chapter 6) had a substantial influence on the success of adolescent

creativity.

RSQ 4, looking at how the adolescent creative process is manifested, revealed

three Types of Creativity by adolescents in the study: creative personal expression,


where they expressed their personality, emotions, and ideas in a novel way; creative

boundary pushing, where the adolescents’ outcomes extended the limits of typical

knowledge or behaviour, proportionate to what was expected of them; and creative

task achievement, where they used creativity to accomplish a particular task or

external demand. The intended type of creativity reflected the adolescents’ purpose

for being creative and affected their creative process. Hence, the adolescents’

dispositions and environmental influences played a role in the types of creativity they

pursued.

The creative process (RSQ1) and types of creative outcomes (RSQ4) had

potential Effects of Creativity on Creators and Audiences with whom they shared

their creativity. For the creator, adolescent creativity could have emotional effects

and/or effects on future creativity. This study did not research how audiences

perceived adolescents’ creativity affected them; however, it did consider adolescent

creators’ intended effects on their audiences. The adolescents typically had one or

more of the following three objectives when sharing their creative outcomes:

affecting others to receive a reaction, affecting others to receive recognition, or

affecting others to make a contribution.

The Effects of Creativity were related to the form of adolescent creativity

(mini-c, little-c, or the newly identified form of ed-c). Mini-c creativity affected the

creator, but was not intended for an audience, and was therefore unlikely to affect

others in any significant ways. However, when mini-c was shared with an audience,

the adolescents sometimes expected validation. By definition, little-c and ed-c

creativity are creative to others in a particular context, and therefore, in addition to

potentially affecting the creator, the adolescents usually (but not always) had a

specific intention for their creativity to impact on the audience. Little-c creativity

covered a broad range of tasks, and therefore could affect creators and audiences in

line with any of the three identified intentions (i.e., reaction, recognition,

contribution). For ed-c, most often the adolescents’ aims were some sort of reaction

or recognition of creativity related to competency or achievement. This was because

ed-c tasks were created in formal educational environments and creative outcomes

were generally assessed. These assessed outcomes were a demonstration of the

adolescents’ mastery of particular knowledge or skills, and therefore the importance

of positive reactions or recognition was typically greater than for little-c. Thus,


identification of these forms of creativity enhanced understandings about how the

adolescents’ creative processes and outcomes can affect the creators themselves and

their intended audiences.

This theory is underpinned by the core category of Perceiving and Pursuing

Novelty: Not the Norm to address the study’s key research question, What are

adolescents’ experiences of creativity?, and the four research sub-questions. Findings

for each of the RSQs emphasise a hybrid view of the generality and specificity of

creativity. There were domain-general and domain-specific aspects relevant to the

adolescents’ creative processes (RSQ1), creative dispositions (RSQ2), environments

for creativity (RSQ3), and creative outcomes (RSQ4). This view was founded on

analysis of adolescents’ experiences across a range of personal, social, and

educational tasks. Collectively, these responses were synthesised and abstracted as

the Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity.

9.4 Contributions of the Study

The culmination of this study was a grounded theory and model explaining the

complex, dynamic, integrated, and iterative phenomenon of adolescent creativity.

The Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity accounts for the shared and unique

experiences of diverse adolescents creative who were creative in varied domains.

Explained from the perspectives of the adolescents themselves, the theory provides a

unique view of their creativity.

This research is pioneering in its construction of the Grounded Theory and

Model of Adolescent Creativity. Comprehensive theories of creativity that use a

confluence approach (see Section 2.3.5) to investigate the multifaceted components

of creativity are limited, and this study is unique in how it specifically explains the

confluence of aspects relating to adolescent creativity in a range of domains. Given

the dearth of research about adolescent creativity, there were no adequate

frameworks to apply. A grounded theory methodology enabled the emergence of a

broad new lens for understanding creativity. Using grounded theory, rather than an

external theoretical framework for analysis, enhanced the research’s potential

originality and contribution.

Situating this theory within the literature highlighted that existing forms or

levels of creativity – the Four C’s of mini-c, little-c, Pro-c, and Big-C (Kaufman &


Beghetto, 2009) – were insufficient for explaining adolescent creativity, particularly

at school. Therefore, another contribution of this study is the identification of a form

of creativity I coined ed-c or educational creativity. Within a zeitgeist of

performativity, education systems prioritise curricula that achieve results on

standardised testing of knowledge acquisition and analytical thinking. However,

creative thinking and more traditional academic learning or analytical thinking are

not mutually exclusive. Hence, it is important to identify how creativity can be

accommodated or, preferably, enhanced in this educational milieu. The construct of

ed-c highlights that creativity can be supported and developed within the constraints

of formal educational contexts. Ed-c acknowledges a form of creativity that builds

on, and is at a higher level than, mini-c creativity in personal learning and

development. While often at a similar level to little-c, ed-c differs from the purpose

and context of creativity in everyday life. Supplementing the existing Four C’s, the

addition of ed-c led to the proposition of a Five C’s model of creativity (Section

8.3.4).

A methodological contribution of this study is its combination of two

approaches to grounded theory by Corbin and Strauss (2008) and Charmaz (2006),

and use of face-to-face and online interactions to source data. The constructed

Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity benefited from drawing on the

complementary grounded theory approaches of the constructivist model first

developed by Charmaz (2006), and the rigorous methods and techniques of Corbin

and Strauss (2008). The constructivist-interpretivist research design recognised that

the theory presented in this thesis was co-constructed through my interactions with

participants and my interpretations of the meanings the adolescents assigned to their

creative experiences. The range of individual and group, and face-to-face and online,

data collection sources provided various forums for participants to share their

experiences. This combination of data collection methods facilitated effective and

ongoing co-construction and member checking of the theory. The different data sets

also contributed to the rigour of the data collection and analysis, and achieving

saturation. The face-to-face sources of data collection – focus groups and individual

interviews – provided an opportunity for me develop relationships with the

adolescents. The online methods – the discussion forum and email communications –

were considered natural, everyday forms of communication for participants, provided


rich data, and were more convenient for them than face-to-face meetings. Therefore,

although individual interviews have traditionally been the most common source of

data for grounded theory research, my study contributes a practical and effective

model of complementary face-to-face and online data collection methods with

individuals and groups, within the combined grounded theory approaches.

This study advances existing understandings by providing a Grounded Theory

of Adolescent Creativity developed using grounded theory methods, based on a

constructivist-interpretivist approach. It considered the complex, multifaceted

phenomenon of creativity in diverse domains and tasks within adolescents’ personal,

social, and educational contexts. In sum, this study contributes to the field of

creativity research by presenting an original theory to explain adolescent creativity,

and identifies a new form of educational creativity (ed-c). Moreover, it offers a

methodological contribution through a research design using a combination of

Corbin and Strauss’ (2008) and Charmaz’s (2006) grounded theory approaches, and

drawing on complementary face-to-face and online sources of individual and group

data collection.

9.5 Implications of the Study

This study has implications for adolescents, teacher practice, teacher training,

policy, and parents and other significant people in adolescents’ social networks. It

was a study of adolescents’ perspectives; therefore, an initial consideration is the

potential implications of this research for other adolescents. The participants in this

study reported that they found it a valuable experience to have opportunities to

explore their creativity. Based on their comments, the Grounded Theory of

Adolescent Creativity can potentially assist other adolescents to reflect on: their

conceptions of creativity; when, where, and how they display creativity; how they

and their peers differ in the ways they perceive things and pursue tasks (e.g.,

particularly for highly creative adolescents who might see themselves as “weird” or

“quirky”, as some in this study did); how they can develop their creativity further;

and why they are more creative in some domains, tasks, classroom settings, and

environments than in others. In short, the theory provides a tool for adolescents to

explore how they think and how their creativity is influenced by their disposition and

environments.


In terms of teacher practice, the Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity can

provide empirical evidence to guide teachers’ evaluations of their students’ creativity

and how their classrooms might be supporting or inhibiting creativity. Adolescents in

this study found it useful to explore their creativity. Therefore, teachers might also

find it useful to: explicitly explore conceptions and misconceptions of creativity with

their students; provide opportunities for students to think metacognitively about their

creativity; and ascertain how they might create optimal contexts for creativity in their

classrooms. For example, creative role models or mentors were found in this study to

contribute to a supportive environment for creativity. Hence, teachers who capitalise

on their own creativity might become role models for their students. Creativity

researchers could play an important role in directly assisting teachers to support

creativity and address common barriers to creativity (Beghetto, 2010).

Education for creativity should include opportunities to learn about and

practise creativity in specific domains, as well as in cross-disciplinary tasks. While

some aspects of the adolescents’ creativity were domain-general (e.g., their creative

personality traits), other aspects were more domain-specific (e.g., knowledge). Given

the importance of domain knowledge and skills, findings suggest that context-free

creative thinking activities and training (e.g., “Think of as many uses as you can for a

brick”) are not likely to result in transferable skills. Generic programs and techniques

(e.g., De Bono, 1994, 2000) are popular among teachers, have had commercial

success, and might be useful for encouraging different ways of thinking. However,

they are not theoretically-based and their efficacy has not been validated by rigorous

empirical work (Smith & Smith, 2010; Sternberg & Lubart, 1999). Adolescents in

this study described creativity as sometimes being an intrinsically fun and

spontaneous process. However, often it took hard work and effort to be creative.

Therefore, in an era of “raising standards”, it seems paradoxical and

counterproductive to “dumb down” creativity with extrinsically motivated, generic

creative thinking programs. “Creativity” activities without meaningful, authentic

content and contexts do not promote creativity as an integral part of learning and life.

Implementing education for creativity requires in-service and pre-service

teacher education. Like their students, current and future teachers would benefit from

understanding their own creativity, and recognising how they use it in their lives and

teaching. This might provide a real and personal foundation from which they can


teach creatively, and teach about and for creativity. In addition, introducing teachers

to the different forms of adolescent creativity – mini-c, little-c, and ed-c – has

implications for how they identify, perceive, and encourage creativity in their

students. In particular, ed-c supports teachers to recognise how creativity can be

encouraged within the educational system and balanced with the competing priority

of performativity.

An additional educational consideration is policy. In Australia, the importance

of creativity in education has been flagged in policy and curriculum documents,

including the new Australian national curriculum (ACARA, 2010) and the 2008

Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians (MCEETYA,

2008). Creativity has been embedded in policy and curricular documents; however,

many lack clear definitions of, and consistent discourse about, creativity. Simply

adding the word “creativity” to policy, and hoping for creativity to be developed in

current educational systems, is insufficient (McWilliam & Haukka, 2008). We

cannot rely on impromptu or accidental creative experiences to foster lifelong

creative capacity. As shown in this study, adolescents can be insightful about their

creative experiences and therefore can contribute to shared understandings about

creativity. These insights, added to those of other educational stakeholders, could

contribute to informed and consistent policy and curricula that promote systematic

methods of developing creativity.

Finally, the study revealed the important role that people in adolescents’ social

networks, such as parents, like minds, mentors, and other role models, could play in

their creativity. The implications for parents and other significant people relate to

providing some understanding of adolescents’ creativity and how it can be fostered.

For example, at home the adolescents appeared to benefit from having a parent or

other family member who was a creative role model, being encouraged to be

autonomous, original, and resist conforming to the crowd, and being able to pursue

passions and activities that were intrinsically motivating. The adolescents’ creativity

was also supported when they could participate in leisure, extracurricular, or school

activities with creative like minds, access role models, and establish mentoring

relationships. Thus, fostering creativity goes beyond the individual and their school

environment.


In summary, five key implications emerged from this study. First, the

Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity could provide a useful tool for

adolescents to explore, understand, and enhance their creativity. Second, it could also

provide a framework for teachers to think about their students’ creativity, evaluate

how their classroom environment might be supporting or inhibiting creativity, as

well as how they might teach creatively, teach about and for creativity, and

encourage creative learning. Third, pre- and in-service teacher training about

creativity would assist teachers to understand and foster different types and forms of

creativity in their classes, while also encouraging teachers to understand the nature of

their own creativity. Fourth, it would be beneficial to further clarify creativity in

policy and curricula based on shared conceptions and empirical research, a process to

which adolescents could contribute. Finally, the findings highlight various ways in

which families and other significant people and social networks in various

environments can contribute to fostering adolescents’ creativity. By enhancing

understandings of adolescents’ creative process and outcomes, and how they can be

supported and inhibited, the Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity could

contribute to developing adolescents’ creative self-awareness, creative self-efficacy,

and capacity for creativity in various tasks and domains.

9.6 Limitations of the Study

This study adopted a pragmatic research design to work within the time frame

and other constraints of the research context. In shaping my study, I was guided not

only by my research aims, but also by the needs and concerns of my participating

schools and adolescents. Here, I address some limitations of participation selection,

data collection, and the study’s applicability to other cultures and contexts.

One limitation of participant selection and data collection relates to the

collection and evaluation of participants’ work samples. The selected participants

submitted two work samples to be evaluated by domain experts. These artefacts

provided further confirmation of the adolescents’ creativity, rather than being a

central focus of the study. It was beyond the scope of this study to ask the

adolescents to complete psychometric divergent thinking tests or engage in identical

creative tasks that could be compared; therefore, I was limited to adolescents’ self-

selected examples of creative outcomes evaluated by one domain expert for each

work sample. This prohibited full application of Amabile’s (1982, 1996) Consensual


Assessment Technique (see also Section 3.5.6). Moreover, although participants

completed a description of their work to provide a context and details about the task,

a few evaluators said it was difficult to assess the work with this limited contextual

information. In addition, the provided evaluation form was domain-general, by

design, so that it was applicable to any work samples submitted by adolescents. This

did not account for differences between domains about how creativity is assessed.

However, these work samples were one source of evidence and understanding of

participants’ creativity to triangulate with participant nomination and selection data,

and the adolescents’ self-reports.

Two new selective schools provided the context for this research. As the first

schools of their kind in the state, they had received considerable interest from

researchers, and were sensitive to being scrutinised and to the pressures on their

students. It was important to carefully balance my requests of research participants

with their demanding schedules in the final two years of high school. I was acutely

aware of these adolescents’ drive for high achievement in the rigorous International

Baccalaureate Diploma Program. Therefore my data collection was limited by how

and when it was possible to interact with adolescents without impinging on their

school, extracurricular, or family commitments.

The data used to develop the Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity was

limited to adolescents’ personal accounts of their experiences. Self-reports are

essential for research where other sources of data do not exist (Baldwin, 2000). It

was not possible to observe what adolescents were thinking; therefore, participants’

personal accounts were the only source of these data. Similarly, adolescents’

perceptions of what influenced their creativity, which might be as important as

effects observed by others, were only available by asking them. Recall and encoding

problems can affect the accuracy of self-report data (Tourangeau, 2000; Yin, 2003);

therefore, I used various strategies to aid recollection and reconstruction of creative

experiences. For example, since a creative experience in its entirety might be

difficult to remember, the experience was decomposed into various elements or steps

(Tourangeau, 2000). Other possible methods of data collection were discussed with

the research sites, such as observations during creative tasks, which might have also

yielded interesting data to triangulate adolescents’ self-reports. However, in line with

school staff’s concerns about being observed or “evaluated”, as well as potential


interruptions to classes, less intrusive research methods (focus groups, interviews, an

online discussion forum, and email communications) were selected (Section 3.6).

Finally, the Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity is limited in the

contexts in which it can assist understanding or explaining creativity. Therefore, in

interpreting the findings, readers should consider the context in which the theory was

developed and how it compares to their context. I do not assume this theory is

necessarily reflective of, or appropriate for, other cultures or contexts. While having

the favourable result of focusing attention on creativity, the “universalisation” of

creativity has the potential to lead to “culture blind” approaches that assume

creativity is conceptualised or manifested in the same ways within and across

cultures (Craft, 2008c; Ng, 2003). The applicability of this theory to other cultures

and contexts is a possible area of future research (see Section 9.7).

9.7 Future Directions

The Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity establishes a new theoretical

framework for understanding and explaining creativity. It was developed from a

study of 20 diverse adolescents in two research sites. This section describes potential

directions of future research in regards to testing and extending on this theory.

A valuable future direction for research is investigating the applicability of the

Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity to adolescents in diverse educational

environments, as well as in other contexts, cultures, and countries. Such research

would address a noted limitation of the study’s lack of generalisability to other

contexts (Section 9.6). Within Australia, this could include different cities and states,

schools with different socioeconomic and demographic profiles, regional and rural

schools, schools in indigenous areas, non-selective schools, schools without the IB

curriculum, and extracurricular and interest activity groups outside school. It would

also be interesting to explore the relevance of the theory abroad, in Eastern and other

Western cultures, in developing and other developed nations. The significance of

creativity is recognised globally (see Section 1.4), and therefore it is important to

understand how it is similar and different across international contexts and cultures.

The theory constructed from this research explains the creativity of

adolescents, and therefore another potential area of research is the theory’s

applicability to younger children and adults. Mini-c and little-c is demonstrated by


people of all ages, and given that education begins in early childhood and continues

into adulthood, ed-c might also be relevant to other populations. Research could

include other cross-sectional studies of populations, or longitudinal studies that

investigate the development of creativity from childhood, to adolescence, to

adulthood in various settings.

Testing the Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity could also be conducted

using other research designs and data collection methods and sources. For example,

creativity could be studied using ethnography or phenomenology, and additional data

collection might include microgenetic methods (e.g., observations and talk aloud

protocols during the creative process) and experimental designs. The data could be

further analysed through other lenses, such as existing psychological or sociological

theories. The perspectives of the adolescents in this study could be supplemented by

seeking the views of relevant stakeholders who observe adolescent creativity, such as

teachers and parents. Other types of research, such as the examples given here, could

extend on the grounded theory self-report findings of this study.

The Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity could provide a framework for

teachers and adolescents to explore adolescent creativity (see Section 9.5). A

practical direction of future research is evaluating how the Model can enhance

understandings of creativity and contribute to creating more supportive contexts for

creativity in schools. The contribution and relevance of the theory to different forms

of creativity demonstrated by adolescents (mini-c, little-c, and ed-c), and the

interrelationships between creative teaching, teaching for creativity, and creative

learning, all warrant further research.

This study revealed that most adolescents’ creativity had egotistic motives, as

might be expected from this age group. Few participants described how they used

their creativity to make a contribution to others. Moreover, data were limited to

participants’ intentions for how their creativity affected others or their observations

of its effect. Absent from the research was an investigation of the consequences of

adolescents’ creativity for other people and the environment. However, creativity is

not value-neutral; creative outcomes can contribute positively and negatively to

individuals, society, and the environment (Claxton et al., 2008; Craft, 2006; Craft et

al., 2008). A point of significance raised in Chapter 1 was the need to harness

individuals’ creativity towards responsible and constructive endeavours. Therefore,


an important area of research is an exploration of whether or not adolescents

demonstrate “wise creativity” and are encouraged to consider the ethical and

ecological implications of their creative processes and outcomes. A focus on wise

creativity might foster a sense of trusteeship amongst young people (Gardner, 2008).

In summary, there are both theoretical and practical future directions of

research that emerged from this study. The aim of the study was to develop a theory

that would contribute rich perspectives of adolescent creativity, an important goal in

the field of creativity:

… creativity scholars have much work ahead of them – be it focused on

expanding existing theories or in developing new, more robust models, all of

which hold the potential to yield ever-richer perspectives on this most

fascinating and important topic (Kozbelt et al., 2010, p. 41).

Although this research has taken a productive first step, following other lines of

inquiry can contribute to more robust models of creativity. Comparing and

contrasting the abstract concepts from this substantive Grounded Theory of

Adolescent Creativity with other contexts and research, could also contribute to the

eventual rendering of a formal grounded theory (see Section 8.1) that explains

creativity in a wide range of populations and contexts (Charmaz, 2006; Corbin &

Strauss, 2008).

9.8 Concluding Remarks

Our lives, by necessity, are full of boundaries and constraints. However, it

would be unfortunate if we allowed the “boxes” that society creates, and the

standardised curricula and assessments that are imposed in educational contexts, to

standardise or constrain young people’s thinking. This thesis began with the words of

Italian poet Loris Malaguzzi, who captured children’s worldview as one of “one

hundred” possibilities for viewing and experiencing the world. Individuals who

transition through childhood, adolescence, and adulthood still curious about the

world of possibilities, and with the capacity and motivation to perceive and pursue

novelty to produce things outside the norm, will be potentially better equipped for

the present and their future. Individuals’ creativity can assist them in their personal

lives by enhancing capacity for self-expression, self-actualisation, learning,

completing complex or ill-defined tasks, and facing challenges and change.


Adolescents who harness and develop their creative capacity now can potentially

contribute in the future to solving global issues such as disease, poverty, war,

environmental degradation, and other mounting social and ecological problems.

Furthermore, by meeting the needs of an economy that highly values new ideas,

individuals who cultivate their creativity will have a greater chance of career success.

Creativity should take centre stage as a major priority in young people’s

development and education.

Much has been learned from the adolescents in this research. These adolescents

indicated that they had also benefited as participants in the study. Although I cannot

speak for all participants, it was encouraging to hear from many who had: enjoyed

participating in study (e.g., “I thoroughly enjoyed doing the study and it was really

nice working with you” [CandleJack, WHS, EC]); learned more about creativity

(e.g., “I believe I have a better understanding of what creativity is through this study.

I now see it from more sides than just mine” [PeterPan, WHS, DF]); and embraced

the opportunity to share their voices and experiences with others (e.g., “I'm very glad

to help you with your research and I'd love for you [to] keep in touch since I'd love to

know what people think of your research and our thoughts as young people”

[DaVinci, WHS, EC]). Therefore, it seemed fitting to conclude in the same way that

I began this chapter, with the insights of a participant. In contrast to Kate’s

introductory excerpt, I would like to finish on a positive note with the encouraging

words of one of the adolescents who now believes in his creativity and how it can

contribute to his life:

This study has been the first time I’ve really thought about creativity and

how it has affected/affects me. I never really thought myself as creative, but

different to most others. … Right now, having reflected on what creativity is

through the study and how I am “creative”, I definitely feel that I posses

[sic] some form of creativity, more than I felt before the study. I guess it has

made me aware of the areas I am creative in and now I just have to use it to

my advantage ... ... in life of course.

~ JeremiahGonzalez (NHS, DF)


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Appendices

Appendix A Glossary

Creativity Definition The confluence and interaction among person, process, and environment by which an individual or group produces an outcome that is novel and appropriate, as defined within the relevant context. (see Section 2.2.1)

mini-c Intrapersonal creativity that is novel and appropriate to the creator. (Beghetto & Kaufman, 2007b)

little-c Everyday creativity that is novel and appropriate within a relevant social context. (e.g., Beghetto & Kaufman, 2007b; Craft, 2001; Kaufman & Sternberg, 2007)

ed-c Educational creativity for learning and achievement, within formal educational contexts and constraints, which is novel and appropriate to teachers, peers, or other relevant educational stakeholders. (see Section 8.3.3)

Pro-c Professional creativity by professionals with high levels of expertise who make a significant contribution to their domain. (Kaufman & Beghetto, 2009)

Big-C Eminent creativity that changes a domain or even society. (e.g., Beghetto & Kaufman, 2007b; Kaufman & Sternberg, 2007)

Grounded theory

Definition A qualitative research method that focuses on constructing a theory that is “grounded” in the data. Data analysis is conducted simultaneously with data collection, and moves from description to abstraction. (Charmaz, 2006; Corbin & Strauss, 2008; Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1998)

Concepts Words to represent interpretations of groups of ideas in data that share common properties; the basic building blocks of theory. (Corbin & Strauss, 2008; Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1998)

Sub-categories

Groups of concepts within a category that provide elaboration and variation. (Corbin & Strauss, 2008; Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1998)

Categories Higher-level concepts that group lower-level concepts and sub-categories according to shared properties, and stand for major interpretations of a phenomenon. (Corbin & Strauss, 2008; Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1998)

Substantive theory

A theory to interpret and explain a delimited phenomenon within a particular context. (Charmaz, 2006; Corbin & Strauss, 2008 Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1998)

Formal theory

An abstract and general theory of a generic phenomenon that applies to a range of substantive fields of study. Charmaz, 2006; Corbin & Strauss, 2008 Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1998)

Theoretical sampling

Grounded theory sampling, the purpose of which is to access a diverse group of participants to maximise the types of data collected to provide an opportunity for a range of concepts and categories, and their relationships, patterns, and variations to emerge. Initial data collection and analysis inform subsequent data collection, in order to explore emerging concepts and questions required for theory development. The focus is on sampling for concepts, not people; therefore, the aim is not to selective a random or representative sample of the population. (Charmaz, 2006; Corbin & Strauss, 2008 Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1998)


Appendix B Survey of Creativity Conceptions


If survey respondent answered “Yes” to previous question:

If survey respondent answered “No” to previous question:



(Continued on next page)



Appendix C Creative Personality Scale

(Adapted from Gough, 1979)


Appendix D Creative Self-Efficacy Scale

(Adapted from Tierney and Farmer, 2002, and Beghetto, 2006)


Appendix E1 Whimsical High School Student Nomination Form

(Nomination form on next page)

WHS



Appendix E2 Nerdopolis High School Student Nomination Form

(Nomination form on next page)

NHS



Appendix E3 Whimsical High School Staff Nomination Form

2009 is the Year of Creativity! As a PhD Candidate at Queensland University of Technology, I am conducting a research project that will explore adolescents’ ideas about creativity, their experiences of being creative, their creative processes and products, and factors that influence their creativity. This form is to seek your assistance with my study. After conducting a survey with Year 11 adolescents, I would like to select a small group of highly creative adolescents to be involved in more in-depth case studies. In order to do this, I need your assistance with selecting the most creative adolescents. You have many opportunities to teach, assess and interact with adolescents in different situations, so I would like to seek your insight into who you consider to be creative in different subjects/activities. Your participation is voluntary. Information will be held in confidence and your nominations will not be revealed to anyone. I would be very grateful if you could nominate some Year 11 adolescents at WHS who have demonstrated they have creative ideas or have made creative products. This creativity might have been demonstrated in class, during extracurricular activities, or even outside of school. Different people have different ideas about what creativity is. For the purpose of this study, I would like you to use the following definition when you write your nominations: Creativity can be found in all fields in life and is not limited to the arts. Creativity is the ability to produce ideas or products that are both novel (original, unexpected) and appropriate (valuable, useful, meets task requirements/constraints). Guidelines: • Only nominate current Year 11 adolescents at WHS who you think are creative. They

don’t need to be the best or smartest adolescents; the focus is on their creativity.

• Please nominate adolescents for as many of the listed subjects as you can. You can nominate someone for a subject you don’t teach, as long as you have seen evidence that the adolescent is creative in that subject area.

• You can nominate more than one person for the same subject. You can do this by using

the “Other subject/activity” categories. • You can also nominate a adolescent in an “Other subject/activity” that is not a school

subject, but in which you’ve seen evidence of his/her creativity. • You can nominate the same person for more than one category. • Please write the adolescent’s first and last name. • Please provide evidence of their creativity (give examples of creative things they have

done) to explain why you nominated the adolescent. Please complete the nomination form on the next page.


STAFF NOMINATIONS OF CREATIVE YEAR 11 STUDENTS AT WHS

Your name: Email address:

Subject/s taught / Role at WHS:

(Please note: Your responses will remain confidential, and your name and details will not be published.)

SUBJECT STUDENT/S EVIDENCE OF CREATIVITY

Biology

Business and Management

Design Technology

English

Environmental Systems and Societies

Film

Mathematics

Music

Second language (please specify whether Mandarin, Spanish, or French)

Theatre Arts

Visual Arts

Extended Essay

Theory of Knowledge

Creativity, Action, Service (please specify activity)

Other subject/activity (please specify)



Appendix E4 Nerdopolis High School Staff Nomination Form

2009 is the Year of Creativity! As a PhD Candidate at Queensland University of Technology, I am conducting a research project that will explore adolescents’ ideas about creativity, their experiences of being creative, their creative processes and products, and factors that influence their creativity. This form is to seek your assistance with my study. After conducting a survey with Year 11 adolescents, I would like to select a small group of highly creative adolescents to be involved in more in-depth case studies. In order to do this, I need your assistance with selecting the most creative adolescents. You have many opportunities to teach, assess and interact with adolescents in different situations, so I would like to seek your insight into who you consider to be creative in different subjects/activities. Your participation is voluntary. Information will be held in confidence and your nominations will not be revealed to anyone. I would be very grateful if you could nominate some Year 11 adolescents at NHS who have demonstrated they have creative ideas or have made creative products. This creativity might have been demonstrated in class, during extracurricular activities, or even outside of school. Different people have different ideas about what creativity is. For the purpose of this study, I would like you to use the following definition when you write your nominations: Creativity can be found in all fields in life and is not limited to the arts. Creativity is the ability to produce ideas or products that are both novel (original, unexpected) and appropriate (valuable, useful, meets task requirements/constraints). Guidelines: • Only nominate current Year 11 adolescents at NHS who you think are creative. They

don’t need to be the best or smartest adolescents; the focus is on their creativity.

• Please nominate adolescents for as many of the listed subjects as you can. You can nominate someone for a subject you don’t teach, as long as you have seen evidence that the adolescent is creative in that subject area.

• You can nominate more than one person for the same subject. You can do this by using

the “Other subject/activity” categories. • You can also nominate a adolescent in an “Other subject/activity” that is not a school

subject, but in which you’ve seen evidence of his/her creativity. • You can nominate the same person for more than one category. • Please write the adolescent’s first and last name. • Please provide evidence of their creativity (give examples of creative things they have

done) to explain why you nominated the adolescent. Please complete the nomination form on the next page.


STAFF NOMINATIONS OF CREATIVE YEAR 11 STUDENTS AT NHS

Your name: Email address:

Subject/s taught / Role at NHS:

(Please note: Your responses will remain confidential, and your name and details will not be published.)

SUBJECT STUDENT/S EVIDENCE OF CREATIVITY

Biology

Business and Management

Chemistry

Computer Studies

Design Technology

English

Mathematics

Music

Physics

Psychology

Second language (please specify whether German, Spanish, French or Mandarin)

Extended Essay

Theory of Knowledge

Creativity, Action, Service (please specify activity)




Appendix F Creativity Work Sample Student Description Form


Appendix G Creativity Work Sample Evaluation Form

Drop down list items: High level of creativity Moderate level of creativity Low level of creativity No creativity

Drop down list items: High level of knowledge Moderate level of knowledge Low level of knowledge No knowledge

Drop down list items: High level of skill Moderate level of skill Low level of skill No skill


Appendix H Preliminary Focus Group Schedule

1. People have a lot of different ideas about creativity. What are some words that

come to mind when you hear the word creativity?

2. Who can be creative?

Possible prompts:

• Everyone? Or only certain people?

• Can some people be more creative than others? Why?

• Do people who are more creative than others have special characteristics?

• How important is skill? Why?

• Need to be a certain age?

• Are there some areas where young people (children and teenagers) are more creative than adults?

• Are there some areas where adults are more creative than young people?

• Is it something people usually do when they’re alone or in groups?

3. Can you learn to be creative?

• Why/Why not?

• If so, how?

4. Can creativity be taught?

• Why/Why not?

• If so, how?

5. In what fields, activities, areas in life/study/work can we find creativity?

Possible prompts:

• Where do we see it?

• Where is it important?

• Amongst this group, in your survey, visual art and drama came up as the most creative subjects. Why do you think that is?

• Amongst this group, in your survey, creativity was seen as least important for the fields of medicine, politics, research and sport. Why do you think that is?

• Is it the same in all these fields? If not, how is it different?

• Are there places or situations where you DON’T think you generally find creativity?


6. People use different words when they’re talking about creativity or creative things. How do you think being creative or creativity is the same as or different from:

• Artistic?

• Imagination?

• Innovation?

• Invention?

7. Can we assess whether something is creative or not? If so, how? If not, why not?

Possible prompts:

• Is there a way to judge whether one thing is more creative than other? How?

• Can we judge people – who are more creative than others? How?

8. Thinking about what we’ve discussed, let’s try drawing a concept map about creativity. What words and phrases would you include and how would you link them together?

(Students collectively draw concept map on whiteboard.)

9. Using the concept map, everything we’ve talked about, as well as your own personal understandings and experiences, how would you define creativity?

• Don’t try to remember what you wrote in the survey or write an answer you think will be like others’ answers. Just write what you’re thinking at the moment, which might be different from what you thought when you did the survey or even when we started the focus group.

10. Final task – construct a joint, shared definition of creativity that all students agree on.


Appendix I Individual Interview Schedule

1. Tell me about yourself. How would you describe yourself?

2. Would you describe yourself as creative? Why/Why not?

3. In what areas would you consider yourself creative?

4. Do you feel more creative since you’ve come to QACI / SMT or at your old school?

5. What opportunities do you have to be creative at school? (in class or extracurricular)

6. What opportunities do you have to be creative outside of school?

7. Tell me about a time when you did something creative. Can you talk me through it from start to finish?

Possible prompts:

• Stimulus for the creative experience

• Reason for the creativity

• Process to get to the final idea/product

• Environmental factors

• Social factors

• Students’ feelings during/after creativity

• The final idea/product and how the adolescent knew it was creative

• Who was shown/told about the product/idea, and how did people respond to it?

• Do things in one sitting, or keep coming back to it?

8. Can you tell me about another time you did something creative? (Repeat)

9. Where do your creative ideas normally come from?

10. How do you know if your ideas are creative?

11. Do other people tell you you’re creative?

12. What things have you learned that has helped you to be creative?

13. Do teachers comment on creativity in your work? Is it something they look for when they’re assessing your work?

14. Do you feel you’re more creative when you’re alone or in a group?

15. Can you give me some examples of when you were creative when working in a group?

16. Can you give me some examples of when you were creative when working alone?


17. In what sort of places or situations do you feel most creative?

18. In what types of places or situations do you feel least creative?

19. What has the greatest effect on your creativity?

20. Who has the greatest effect on your creativity and how?

21. Is there anyone else who has an effect on your creativity? It can be positive or negative.

22. What about being in the WHS/NHS environment? How has that influenced your creativity?

23. What things at school help you to be creative?

24. What things at school make it difficult to be creative?

25. What else could teachers at school do to help you be more creative?

26. What else would you change about school, if you could, to make it somewhere that helped you to be even more creative?

27. How do you balance being creative with school work and all the other things you have to do?

28. Overall, what do you think most helps you to be creative?

29. How do you feel when you’re doing something creative?

30. Is there anything else you can tell me about your creativity?

31. Before we finish, are there any questions I should have asked, but didn’t?


Appendix J Example of a Memo

Memo 21/09/2010: Experimenting or Risk-Taking?

Maybe I’ll be mucking around and I’ll have an idea that I come up with on my

instrument and then I’ll write that down and work from there.

This participant (UltraShiny) is describing how his musical compositions often start

with “mucking around” or experimenting. His words focus my attention on the

recurring theme of experimenting coming through in the data, across the arts

domains (e.g., Orange’s visual art experiments) as well as the mathematics and

science domains (e.g., GLaDOS’ electrical circuits and 3D Pascal’s Triangle

experiments). What I’m not seeing is much talk of is risk-taking. This is in contrast

with a lot of literature that says risk-taking is key to creativity. Is it because the

participants’ schools and other environments they are in offer safe situations for them

to try things and make mistakes, and therefore they don’t feel there is any risk? It’s

possible, although selective school environments could be considered high-stakes

risk environments by some students. Is it that highly creative adolescents have less

fear of making mistakes and social disapproval of doing something different? This

would seem atypical from my reading about adolescents’ need to conform. Is my

sample biased because of the schools they attend or because they have all been

identified in some way as being creative? Maybe a different group of participants

who are less creative or in less ‘safe’ environments might view these kinds of

behaviour as risky. This is something I need to explore further, and I will particularly

target participants who provided work samples that were judged at lower levels of

creativity and those with whom I get a sense of being less creative than others in the

study (although my judgment of their creativity is limited to our interactions so far,

they often seem to match other measures/judgments of their creativity used in the

study). I will pose a question about this in the discussion forum and see what

interpretations the participants offer. So far, the discussion forum is proving a great

medium for member checking and theoretical sampling, as well as for involving the

participants in constructing my theory.


Appendix K Example of an Early Diagram


Appendix L Examples of Participants’ Creative Outcomes

Creative products Creative performances Creative ideas Creative methods

Animation

Bedroom interior design

Board game

Digital art

Documentary

Drawing

Equation

Fashion design

Film

Graphic art

Hovercraft

Machinima

Marketing campaign

Mathematical model

“Mockumentary” (fictitious documentary)

Multimedia

Music composition

Music lyrics

Music video

Painting

Photography

Poetry

Robot design

Short story

Solar cooker

Theatre costumes

Theatre script

Theatre stage and set design

Website

Woodwork construction

Dance performance

Group presentations

Musical performance

Speech/debate

Theatrical play

Game ideas and rules

Interpretations of texts

Philosophical discussions

+ Creative ideas not manifested as a product

Acting technique

Cleaning method

Dance technique

Experiment design

Improvisation (music/theatre)

Learning/studying technique

Music video editing

Problem solving strategy

Visual art technique