Psychological Research of Teenagers’ Creativity

Abstract

The aim of the research is: to investigate the level of the development of creative potential of students – future foreign language teachers, to apply the program of group activity developed by us in order to develop the creativity of respondents, to analyze its effectiveness.

The following theoretical methods of the research were used to solve the tasks formulated in the article: a categorical method, structural and functional methods, the methods of the analysis, systematization, modeling, generalization. Also we used experimental methods, such as statement research. For the last one we used such methodology, as: the test «Circles» by E.P. Thorens; the author’s methodology «The development of Creativity of teenagers» (Михальчук, Eр. Івашкевич & Яцюрик, 2021).

The results of the research. In our research low results were obtained at both heuristic and reconstructive research levels. This indicates considerable difficulties that are arisen in a case when students are characterized with: a) the emergence of the ideas of solving the problem; b) making the design of the personal development; c) the embodiment of the idea in the activity, in communication with other students within the micro-group; d) the analysis and the evaluation of the results of pupils’ own creativity or innovation. The results having been obtained by us also indicate the need to organize special training for adolescents in order to make targeted influences on the development of their creativity.

In such a way we’ve to make some conclusions. The concept of «creativity» is more general, because it includes creative qualities. Creativity reflects, in addition to subjective moments, also the process of reconciling novelty, innovation of the activity generated by the subject with the existing (so-called stereotypical) socio-cultural context.

We consider creativity as the process of interaction that necessarily leads to the personal development. We also define creativity as an activity that creates something new, original, which is included not only into the history of the creator, but also into the history of science, art, etc. A similar point of view is expressed by us when we define creativity as going beyond the existing human knowledge, overcoming certain boundaries and obstacles. In such a way creativity means the creation of something new, which can mean both the transformation of the consciousness and behavior of the subject, generated by the person, but also which is alienated from his/her products.

Conclusions. According to received data of our empirical research we offer some more definitions of the creativity, focusing the reader’s attention on the procedural aspect of this activity. In particular, we define creativity as the creation of something new in a situation where the problem-stimulus causes the invention of the so-called dominant, around which there are concentrated the necessary subjective statistics to solve this problem, requiring mandatory reference to their past, the person’s experience.

The problem of creativity is considered by us through the concept of intellectual activity. The last is the phenomenon of self-movement of the activity, which is manifested in the process of cognitive activity of the individual, which goes beyond the requirements of this particular problem situation. In this process in the content of the ability to continue cognition independently outside there are actual the requirements of the initial situation, which situationally are not stimulated by productive activity and the secret of external forms of creativity is hidden. We mean the ability to see in the subject something new what other people do not see. Thus, the creative process is a kind of «derivative» of the intellect, refracted through the motivational sphere of the individual, which inhibits or stimulates its manifestations. After all, intelligence is determined by the dialectical relationships between two constructs. Defining, thus, the nature of creativity dwells on its immanent phenomenon, which considers creative abilities of the individual. We believe that understanding of human creative abilities should be considered as a kind of projection of unresolved problem of the nature of creativity. Although, in our opinion, having been given the existence of a variety of approaches of solving this problem, there are two main (or fundamental) ones: the approach to study creative abilities given the individual psychological differences of the subjects (B.М. Тeplov) and the approach of L.S. Vygotskyi (studying of creative abilities taking into account the personal qualities of a man).

Defining the nature of creativity, we proceed from the delineation of the essence of the creative process, and from the characteristics of the creative product itself. This review coincides with our vision of this problem, because with this approach it is possible to consider the phenomenon of creativity not so much given the constant with genetic neurophysiological characteristics of homo, the creator, but taking into account the psychological manifestations of the individual’s ability to self-actualization (such as to the process of the man’s cognitive activity). We focus our attention on the position of the development of gifted and talented children. We believe that the learning and the development of such children creates an ideal model of creative human development, and the problem of the development of creativity should be considered in the paradigm of activity mediated by the creative abilities of the subject.