The purpose of this study was to investigate, through semi-structured interviews and focus groups, how self-identified creative, high school adolescents perceived their experiences with creativity and its influence on their lives in order to (1) increase the available information on adolescent creativity with the contribution of the adolescent viewpoint and (2) begin to assess what relationships might exist between the creative functioning of adolescents and their social-personal processes, especially the developmental task of identity formation. All of the data, results, and conclusions of this study were based on the adolescents perspective: What did they think and/or feel about the nature of their own creativity? Was creativity important to them? What influenced their creativity? How did significant others respond to their creativity? Did their experiences with creativity relate to their developing sense of self, and if so, how did they characterize that connection? Qualitative research techniques were used to investigate 195 self-reports and the responses of nine interviewed adolescents (4 females/5 males, ethnically diverse, selected from the self-reports) who answered questions about their creativity. Information came from three perspectives: (1) 195 written reflections on personal creativity, (2) nine adolescent viewpoints revealed to an adult in two semi-structured interviews, including information from a biographical questionnaire and creativity measurements, (3) and the same adolescent viewpoint revealed to peers in two focus group discussions. One substantial finding was that the theme of the self and creativity recurred across all data sources--self-reports, interviews, focus groups--and response categories. Another was the 100% response rate describing creativity as increasing the interviewed adolescents' enjoyment and connection to life, nature and themselves. Specifically, they cited motivation, self-esteem, increased productivity, handling difficult emotions (anger, frustration, loneliness, etc.), an alternative to drug use, as processes which were positively affected by their creativity. Such personal testimony holds clues for educational and intervention strategies that could influence at-risk adolescents suffering from hopelessness, drugs, and early pregnancies. If creativity is valuable to adolescents by virtue of its life enhancing effects, then what preventatives might programs design to support and encourage the creative self in at-risk individuals?
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-9030 |
| Date | 01 January 1995 |
| Creators | Goodwin, Ariane |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
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