Creativity in Higher Education: The use of Creative Cognition in Studying

There is consensus among educational researchers from differing theoretical perspectives that creativity is an ability essential to adaptation in a constantly changing work environment. Despite the growing popularity of creativity as a field of study and intervention in business and education in the last decade, Higher Education institutions have made surprisingly little progress in successfully teaching and developing students' creative ability. The objective of this chapter is to disentangle the various facets of creativity in order to identify those psychological processes underlying creativity that are more amenable to intervention in Higher Education. The first section of this chapter reviews the main theoretical perspectives on creativity - the Big-C and little-c, the four Ps, and the creative process perspectives - and explores their potential for application in Higher Education. The second section reviews the evidence supporting a link between the use of creative cognition in studying, positive affect in studying, and academic performance, and argues that the use of creative cognition as a volitional, context-appropriate habit is the key target variable for interventions aiming at enhancing students' creative ability.