Creativity and Teaching Strategies in Institution of Higher Learning

The challenges facing society in the 21st century has illustrated the importance of creativity and innovative thinking in our daily live. Thus the education system, particularly in higher education play a vital role to ensure that graduates possess the qualities needed to meet these challenges. This study aims to identify factors affecting the development of creativity at institution of higher learning. The focus of the study is to identify students’ practiced creativity, creative self-efficacy, and their perception towards the teaching practices and the importance of such practices in helping them to develop their creativity and innovation skills. This is a quantitative survey research and data collection was carried out using a questionnaire adapted from previous studies and literature review to measure the variables. A total of 919 second year and third year students from several public universities in Malaysia involved in the study. The results were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The findings show that there is a need to enhance creative self-efficacy and practiced creativity among university students. The results of the study revealed that most students agreed that teaching strategies that employ group activities such as small group discussions, project-based learning and problem-based learning can help develop their creativity and innovation skills. However, the study revealed that lecture is the most common teaching strategy employed on campus. It is hoped that this study will create awareness to relevant parties in the effort to enhance creativity and innovation among university graduates.