The Positive Impact of Creative Activity: Effects of Creative Task Engagement and Motivational Focus on College Students' Learning
- 1 October 1995
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
- Vol. 21 (10), 1107-1116
- https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672952110011
Abstract
This study assessed the effectiveness of engaging students in a creative activity on a topic as a means of encouraging an active cognitive set toward learning that topic area. This technique was examined in three motivational contexts. Before reading a short instructional passage, subjects completed either, a creative or a noncreative pretask and heard one of three sets of directions: task focused (emphasizing intrinsic involvement), test focused (emphasizing external evaluation), or task/test focused (previous two combined). After reading the passage, subjects answered questions assessing immediate retention, wrote a creative essay, and responded to a questionnaire assessing intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Long-term retention was assessed 5 days later with a phone quiz. Creative task engagement was found to be an effective means of enhancing creativity (in the absence of evaluation expectation), intrinsic motivation, and long-term retention.Keywords
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