Towards transformation: conceptions of creativity in higher education

Abstract

Creativity, which has now entered the discourse in higher education alongside other agenda items such as enterprise, entrepreneurship and innovation, is an elusive and complex notion. It may evade the sort of definition, categorisation and compartmentalisation required to integrate it fully into the curriculum frameworks and assessment regimes that are currently in place in higher education. After a contextualisation of the subject, this paper describes the outcomes of a phenomenographic research project that set out to identify the qualitatively different ways university lecturers, across a range of arts, humanities and science disciplines, conceptualise creativity in relation to their pedagogic practice.

Keywords:

• creativity
• conceptions
• phenomenography
• pedagogy
• practice