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THESIS
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CREATIVITY IN ADOLESCENTS:
A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF HOW AND WHERE CREATIVITY DEVELOPS
Submitted by
Michelle A. Morrell
Department of English
In partial fulfillment of the requirements
For the Degree of Master of Arts
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, Colorado
Fall 2015
Master’s Committee:
Advisor: Pamela Coke
Cindy O’Donnell-Allen
Heidi Fredericksen
Copyright by Michelle Ann Morrell 2015
All Rights Reserved
ABSTRACT
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CREATIVITY IN ADOLESCENTS:
A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF HOW AND WHERE CREATIVITY DEVELOPS
To best prepare current K-12 students for what will likely be an unfamiliar and changing
future, teachers and educational professionals today consider “21
st
century skills” among the tools
students will need, and chief among those skills is creativity. An understanding of how and where
creativity happens, from the perspective of children and adolescents, could provide valuable
information to educators who seek to prepare students for the work-force of tomorrow. This study
seeks to answer the following questions through gaining the perspectives of a female and a male at
the eighth grade level and their English language arts teacher: 1. What is creativity? 2. How does
creativity happen? 3. Where does creativity happen? From the perspective of the student study
participants whom I interviewed, creativity is an individualistic expression of one’s thoughts
generated in an individual’s mind and then expressed in a visual or concrete media. Creativity is a
process and a result of years of involvement, is aided by internal or external motivators as well as the
presence of examples and feels good when it happens. Creativity does not happen if strict rules or
constraints are imposed. For theses interviewees, creativity can happen almost anywhere, and is
aided by quite, alone time when the creator has time to process his/her thoughts. Allowing students
the time, space, and resources they each require to encourage their creativity process will not only
enable creativity to happen but will make the process more accessible and familiar, developing
creative response as a habit, not an exception.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................................................ ii
INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................... 1
LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................................................................ 4
DEFINING CREATIVITY .............................................................................................................. 4
CREATIVITY'S USEFULNESS AND ACQUISITION IN CHILDREN.............................. 5
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDREN- WHERE CREATIVITY FITS ............ 7
CREATIVITY AS "A PROPERTY OF THE ACTOR".............................................................. 8
METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................................................................ 11
CONTEXT ......................................................................................................................................... 11
STUDY PARTICIPANTS ............................................................................................................... 12
DOCUMENTS .................................................................................................................................. 13
PROCEDURE ................................................................................................................................... 14
ANALYSIS ......................................................................................................................................... 16
DATA ANALYSIS ......................................................................................................................................... 18
PERSONAL PURSUITS AS INFLUENCE ON PERCEPTION ........................................... 18
MOTIVATION AS INTERNALLY OR EXTERNALLY INSPIRED ................................. 19
HOMEWORK AND RULES KILL CREATIVITY .................................................................. 20
CREATIVITY: HOW AND WHERE .......................................................................................... 21
CREATIVITY IN THE CLASSROOM ........................................................................................ 22
REPRESETNING A CONCEPT VERSUS DEMONSTRATING AN OUTPUT ............ 24
CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................... 29
WHAT IS CREATIVITY? ............................................................................................................... 29
HOW DOES CREATIVITY HAPPEN? ..................................................................................... 31
WHERE DOES CREATIVITY HAPPEN? ................................................................................ 32
IMAGES SPEAK OF POSSIBILITY AND PREFERENCE .................................................. 33
RECOMMENDATIONS ................................................................................................................ 34
IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE STUDY .................................................................................. 34
BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................................... 36
APPENDICES ................................................................................................................................................ 38
APPENDIX A: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS ............................................................................. 38
APPENDIX B: WRITTEN INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CREATIVE IMAGES
COLLECTION .................................................................................................................................. 40
APPENDIX C: CREATIVE IMAGES COLLECTIONS ......................................................... 41
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