An investigation of perceived levels of creativity ni freshmen and senior colelge males.

Abstract

This study was conducted to investigate the perceived levels of creativity of freshmen and senior male students at Emporia State University in Emporia, Kansas, as measured by the What Kind of a Person Are You? inventory (Khatena &Torrance, 19761 pre-and posttest creative perception index scores. The specific hypotheses were formulated to determine if there were any significant differences relative to freshmen and senior males; experimental and control groups; the three schools of concentration, Education and Psychology, Applied Arts and Sciences, and Liberal Arts and Sciences, as well as What Kind of a Person Are You? (WKOPAY) pre-and posttests for the entire group of 36 male subjects. The methodology of the study included the administration of the WKOPAY inventory and the administration of 20 individual training activities to the experimental group. These 20 activities were representative of the current training techniques for developing creativity by many professionals as described in the theory section of the manuscript. The control group participated in the WKOPAY pre-and posttest but did not take part in the training activities. The results failed to indicate significant differences relative to freshmen and senior males, the three schools of concentration, and WKOPAY pre-and posttest scores. No significant difference was found to exist between the experimental and control groups. These results substantiate the findings of Daniels (1981) that University and social influences have attenuated creative perception in freshmen and senior male college students. It is possible that the training activities which were utilized in this study are an effective means of increasing creative perceptiveness as evidenced by the higher posttest scores of the experimental group relative to the control group. However, as noted earlier, the difference between the two groups was nonsignificant. Future studies may obtain more positive results if more extensive and prolonged training is administered.