Creativity among business and tourism management university students: Determining sociodemographic factors

Abstract

There is a clear link between creativity levels, entrepreneurship and employability that implies the need for higher education students to acquire creative skills and abilities. For this reason, this study aims to analyse creativity levels among university students and verify whether certain sociodemographic factors have an impact on creativity. Two approaches were applied to measure creativity; on one hand, divergent thinking measured through three tasks, originality, fluency and flexibility, and creative potential (ideation – Runco Ideational Behavior Scale) on the other. A survey was administered to 303 Business and Tourism Management degree students during the academic year 2016–2017. The results reveal that our students’ creative potential (Runco Ideational Behavior Scale) is relatively high, while the divergent thinking measurements (originality, fluency and flex-ibility) obtained lower scores. There are gender-based differences in the three divergent thinking constructs, with men gaining higher scores; likewise, differences also appeared in the constructs of fluency and originality depending on the degree being studied, with Business degree students displaying a higher average score. In addition, students living with their families scored higher on flexibility than those that did not. Moreover, students’ creative potential (Runco Ideational Behavior Scale) is greater among those who both study and work. These results emphasize the need to encourage the development of creativity among Spanish university students.