University education and creativity: An assessment from students’ perspective

Abstract

Problem Statement: This study consists of three main problems: first what university students understand from creativity, secondly what they conceptualize about creativity in university education, and finally their personal evaluations and recommendations about creativity in university education. Purpose of Study: The study aimed to find out the perceptions, assessments, comments, experiences and suggestions of a group of fourth year university students related to university education and creativity. Method: Designed as a qualitative research, phenomenological methodology was followed, data was collected using focus group interview and analyzed via thematic analysis. Findings: The results indicated that students found their university education mostly as uncreative, and experienced with limited number of creative practices during their education, and they thought that university education did not contribute to their creativity potential in general. Implications for Research and Practice: This study provided findings related to the meaning and evaluation of creativity as well as creative and uncreative practices, effect of university education on student’s creativity potential, and recommendations for university education as it was perceived by university students. It is expected that this research will lead to a broader scale research with the basic data it supplies. The research related to university education and creativity is limited in Turkey, and this study supplies basic and important findings.