Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The questions concerning how creativity can enhance the culture of learning in schools, especially amongst the previously marginalized groups, are not simple and straightforward. In South Africa, the general questions often posed are: “What form of creative activities exists in schools?” and “How do learners’ develop creativity that improves life skills?” This study provides empirical findings that suggest answers to these questions. It focuses on how creativity can enhance the culture of learning and why it is significant in nation building. In particular, the results of the study show, through experimental exercises with learners and observational data, that the arts may be regarded as a mechanism to enhance creativity in spaces of learning for the vast majority of people in South Africa. The analysis revealed that in-school-time participation in the arts transformed the conditions for and structure of participation in different phases during schooling. The experimentation showed the learners making choices and participating in all forms of activities. As the in-school-time learners developed experience, self-esteem, and competence in the arts, their life and labour skills developed. The results also revealed that primary experiences provide learners with a head start in learning – from commitment (motivation) to enhancement (learning how to learn) to competency (skills). Thus, the basis for the enhancement of creativity is how learners participate as this affects the intensity with which they learn how to learn. The study concludes with suggestions for the implementation of various educational endeavors in the application of creativity as an enhancement for a substantial education that can play a major part in social, political, and economic development and prosperity in South Africa.

Sensory-processing sensitivity, or neurosensitivity, is a biologically-based personality dimension with implications for personality, creativity and cognition. This thesis focuses on sensitivity and its cognitive implications using recent state-of-the-art sensitivity and creativity assessments with an aim to identify objective cognitive tests of sensitivity that can supplement self-report measures, whilst providing insight into the brain basis for creativity. In Chapter 1, we review literature on creativity and sensitivity. Chapter 2 presents new evidence that positive-affect-related dimensions of sensitivity benefit creativity independently and/or interactively with Big-Five openness. Factor analysis in Chapter 3 provides important evidence that multiple dimensions of sensitivity are distinct from Big-Five personality traits. Chapter 4 and 5 explore sensitivity-related attention components in relation to endogenous and exogenous attention tasks, revealing that positive-affect-related sensitivity is characterized by differences in exogenous inhibition-of-return, and defocused, disinhibited attention states that facilitate creative potential. Chapter 6 shows sensitivity has positive implications for learning and memory processes, demonstrating that neurosensitivity affects neuroplasticity favourably. Chapter 7 explores how individual differences in unconscious cognitive mechanisms of latent inhibition (LI) may underlie higher creative potential and achievement in sensitive, open creators, as theory and evidence suggest low LI in high sensitivity and creative achievement. No evidence was found to support the hypothesis that LI differs in sensitivity, or underlies the sensitive creator. All findings are interpreted in light of a new sensitivity framework that is consistent with cognitive disinhibition and hemispheric asymmetry hypotheses of creativity and models of the creative process suggesting an important role for conscious and unconscious cognition.

Master's thesis deals with guerilla marketing as one of the innovative ways how to promote. The theoretical part describes main characteristics and situation in the Czech Republic (including legislative regulation related to this topic and examples of campaigns). The practical part focuses on guerilla and its use in culture events like film, music festivals or books. It analyses a few campaigns, evaluates relevance of using this instrument and tries to find out what these campaigns have in common and what is different. Culture is creative and successful campaigns should be creative as well, which is confirmed by analysis.

Esta é uma investigação sobre a imaginação do artesão, captada na zona pré-reflexiva do ser, ou seja, num espaço psicológico anterior ao pensamento racional onde se enraíza um complexo individual do artesão, que caracteriza seu fazer. Através de entrevistas e observações de artesãos em seus trabalhos, buscou-se a imaginação criativa no campo da experiência do fazer manual, nascida da intimidade atenta entre o artesão e uma matéria que ele escolheu, por ter ressonância com sua individualidade. Conclui-se que o trabalho do artesão é fonte inesgotável de realização de sua individualidade, na medida em que o artesão consegue acolher, em seu íntimo, as limitações da matéria-prima onde imprime sua vontade / This is a study about the artisans imagination captivated in the pre reflexive zone of being, that is, in a psychological space before the rational mode of thinking where it roots the artisans individual complexity that characterize his work. Through interviews with and observations of the artisans in their working place, on search for the creative imagination, in the field of labor and doing experience, born from the attentive intimacy between the artisan and the raw material that he had chosen, because of its resonance with his individuality. One come to the conclusion that the artisans work is an inexhaustible wellspring of individual fulfillment as the artisan is able to shelter in his innermost the limits of the raw material where he prints his will

It is vital for online educators to know whether the strategies they use help students gain 21st-century skills. One skill that has been identified as important in the 21st century is creativity; however, a gap existed in the literature concerning whether online courses could help students to develop creativity. Thus, the purpose of this study was to determine whether participation in online courses can help students develop creativity using asynchronous online discussions, textbooks, and teacher developed materials. Amabile's componential model of creativity formed the study's conceptual framework. A case-study approach was used to examine the question of whether asynchronous online discussions and other materials used in online courses could help students develop creativity. One professor, recognized by her peers for her expertise in online education, and three of her online graduate students who volunteered for the study, were interviewed using Zoom. Twenty-nine transcripts of asynchronous online discussions were analyzed using a sequential process of building an explanation, checking the explanation against the data, and repeating the process. Key results from the study indicated that project-based prompts, problem-based prompts, and heuristics used in asynchronous online discussions can help promote creativity. Recommendations for future research include conducting a similar case study with a more diverse group of participants and with a course in a different specialty. These findings may promote social change by helping online instructors use appropriate prompts for asynchronous online discussions that will help students refine their creative skills to ultimately use them in the 21st-century workplace.

Research shows the importance of a childhood home environment encouraging of creative and imaginative play. I designed a set of children's furniture that, in addition to being play toys, stimulates creativity, interactivity and understanding of design construction. When a child understands how furniture is assembled and is encouraged to be creative in play, he or she gains valuable learning experiences while having fun. Together, a child and adult can easily assemble all the pieces of furniture without any need for tools. Much like a puzzle, the child has fun assembling the furniture while, at the same time, learns valuable lessons of spatial relationships and structural stability. This also leads to an understanding of safety in play. The added element of a portable three-inch LED orb encourages interaction once all pieces are assembled. Abstract design elements were used to stimulate imagination during play. Using basic Gestalt design principles, the furniture series was constructed to not only be structural but to be beautiful in design. The curved abstract shapes encourage the child to take control and imagine the furniture as integral components of their play scene.

While creative thinking is often conceptually associated with performing and visual arts, research has suggested that music education often focuses more so on convergent skills, such as singing or music literacy, than on divergent skills, such as composing and improvising. The primary purpose of this study was to examine elementary general music teachers' (EGMTs) perceptions of creative thinking and its value as part of the elementary general music curriculum. The secondary purpose was to determine how, and to what extent, EGMTs designed and facilitated creative thinking activities for their students. EGMTs (N=283) completed an on-line questionnaire with closed- and open-ended questions. The duration of participants' teaching experience ranged from a few months to 43 years. The participants reported a wide array of additional training including Orff, Kodaly, Dalcroze, Music Learning Theory, and Technology in Music Education (TI:ME). Quantitative data analyses consisted of descriptive statistics, including frequency counts, percentages, and descriptions of central tendency. A series of Friedman's tests measured differences between dependent variables; Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to find significant relationships between teacher demographics and creative thinking perceptions and practices. Qualitative data analyses included open-coding of categories generated from participant responses. Results indicated that 94.8% of participants perceived creative thinking as an essential outcome of elementary general music. However, participants rated composition and improvisation as less essential than most other national content skills. A majority of participants, 72.0%, reported that they considered themselves well-trained to facilitate creative thinking activities. However, 71.7% of participants reported difficulties in designing and implementing on-going creative thinking activities for their students, citing lack of time, resources, and physical teaching space as significant challenges. Narratives from open-ended questions indicated that most participants desired more ideas for implementing creative thinking tasks, in the form of training, collaboration with peers, and published materials. This investigation indicated a need for continued discussion among practitioners, researchers and learners as to the role of creative thinking in elementary general music, in order to achieve a shared professional vision that enables creative thinking as a common practice in elementary general music classrooms.

This study is derived from the claim that multidisciplinary groups are more innovative than homogeneous groups; a claim that has flooded the business industry and has become criteria for accreditation in higher education. However, the impact of disciplinary diversity in work groups is a growing area of research; therefore, it is yet to be thoroughly understood. The purpose of this study is to answer the question: are multidisciplinary teams more innovative than homogenous teams. To accomplish this university students from differing majors were sorted into multidisciplinary and homogeneous groups while participating in a two-day innovation course. The course taught the students about divergent thinking, and invited them to work as teams to develop an innovative product, system or service. Each group's final product was independently judged by three experts using the Creative Solutions Diagnosis Scale (CSDS) measuring the innovativeness (functional creativity) of student work. The homogeneous groups outscored the multidisciplinary groups in every category. Group dynamics have been assessed as also playing a vital role in the successfulness of a diverse group. The Teamwork Quality Questionnaire (TWQ) was used to measure the quality of team interactions, student sentiments, and student attitude. These self-evaluations were used to assess if the group dynamics played a significant role in the functional creativity of the end product by checking for correlation with the results of the CSDS. The findings were inconclusive, meaning they did not correlate. Despite the findings not aligning with past research, they should be considered important. At a minimum, they describe a context and environment where multidisciplinary groups do not function at the same level as homogenous groups. Accordingly, there is a need to further investigate group formations and function in regards to innovation and creativity production. We recommend for future research performing a similar study on a larger scale to discover if the findings from this study would vary when tested under similar or varying contexts. It would also be important to analyze how the make up of the group is affecting the students understanding and learning.

This research explores how computers may be used by individual researchers engaged in cognitive activity and creating original outputs, specifically, how one of the emerging information technologies, hypertext, is able to provide suggestions for the understanding to support and empower human cognitive activity.The study investigates the possibility of a new model within which to approach that part of research that seeks to make connections to what has been done previously, and to stimulate new thoughts.Imagine swimming in a vast sea of potentially useful information. How can one possibly begin to make sense of it? Engage in a phenomenological experience in which the data is permitted to speak to you. Immerse yourself, navigate around with the ability to backtrack, search, explore trails of associative thought, all with a prepared mind. The mind is prepared, or sensitised, due to the previous research and learning ? the culture to which one belongs. The process will gradually cause an uncluttering of the sea of information resulting eventually in what in this thesis is termed Generative Conceptualisation. The tools and techniques used to do this (for it is impossible to work unaided with large amounts of data) will have provided the empowerment to generate and create. The tyranny of linear order has been replaced by the dynamically varying structure of selected, sometimes hierarchical and othertimes herterarchic or network views of the data, forming or exposing (primarily through juxtaposition) insights, new ideas, and new knowledge. These are some characteristics of working in a hypertext paradigm.Generative Conceptualisation is introduced to describe the intermingling of human mind and computer hypertext, which, it is argued, results in a greater degree of original output by researchers. A hypertext paradigm, the definition of which emerges in the thesis, is ++ / suggested as being an environment for Generative Conceptualisation. A theory (substantive) of knowledge creation is offered in the concluding chapter, in the light of which existing formal theories of knowledge creation may be reviewed or elaborated.

This thesis asks: ‘How can tertiary education nurture entrepreneurial creativity?’ Entrepreneurship is considered to be a vital determinant of economic growth and the entrepreneur is understood as someone who innovates and commercialises their own innovation. The setting is New Zealand which is struggling to make the shift from relying on primary production to becoming a ‘creative economy.’ The creative individual has been identified as a new mainstream but it is argued that in New Zealand, education provision is inadequate for supporting the development of the practice of entrepreneurship. The problem is not unique. Various writers are critical of business education generally, and of the mismatch between the passion and chaos in entrepreneurs’ lives and the way education programs are typically organised as a linear sequence of discipline-based courses with prescribed content, activities and outcomes. Rich data were gathered from in-depth interviews with twelve nascent, new or experienced entrepreneurs and two associates (one a marketer, the other a scientist). Each participant was drawn from a different area of economic endeavour. They were asked to share their stories and views about creativity, the connections between creativity and entrepreneurship, business success, formal and informal education, and ways to improve tertiary education programs. The research found that a suitable environment for nurturing creativity will most likely have structure but will also enable chaos. It will present opportunities for experiencing diversity, and will stimulate unconscious and conscious mental processes. It will provide scope for hard work that is fun and involves authentic risk-taking, and will enable both individual and purposeful teamwork. The study also found that business success is not based on knowledge but is rather about being resourceful. The becoming of the creative entrepreneur thus includes developing capability to network with peers and mentors and communicate with customers and staff, and developing passion for and resilience in the pursuit of a dream. The findings suggest that in an age of uncertainty, nurturing entrepreneurial creativity and resourcefulness requires learning to be viewed as a practice-based community process where knowing and doing are interwoven with being. It is argued that this needs to align with Ronald Barnett and Kelly Coate’s (2005) notion of ‘a curriculum for engagement.’ It is suggested that an entire program might simply invite students to work collaboratively to identify and exploit an entrepreneurial opportunity by producing and commercialising an appropriate product/service innovation; to undertake this work as two separate projects – one within an existing organisation, and the other as a new venture; and to theorise their work. It is proposed that a suitable framework lies in William Doll’s (2002) advocacy for a curriculum based on a matrix of five Cs: ‘currere,’ complexity, cosmology, conversation, and community. To these, creativity is added as a sixth C.