Abstract

BECKER, Maria Alice d'Avila et al. An Exploratory Study about how Creativity is conceived by University Students. Psicol. Reflex. Crit. [online]. 2001, vol.14, n.3, pp. 571-579. ISSN 0102-7972.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0102-79722001000300012.

This study aimed to investigate how university students conceive the concept of creativity. We used a multidimensional analysis based on Facet Theory. Initially, we requested that students express what they think following the evocation of the stimulus word creativity; on the basis of this free association, 15 of the more frequently evoked words were selected. Next, we investigated the structure of the creativity concept of the 15 words through a free sort non-verbal task. The results of the interrelations among all the variables were analyzed by means of a Similarity Structure Analysis that produced a radex structure with item creativity in the central area and with five areas distributed around it. These areas identified five dimensions: Aesthetics, Emotion, Genesis, Cognition, and Volition. The meanings of these dimensions in relation to the major conceptual issues in the literature are discussed to seek better to understand the representational structure of the creativity concept.

Keywords : Creativity; concepts; categorization; free sort; Facet Theory; multidimensional analysis.