Psychological analysis of higher education applicants’ creativity indicators

Abstract

The article describes the content of the concept of «creativity», highlights the theoretical foundations of the individual’s creativity indicators, determines the place and role of creative thinking in the process of professional training of higher education applicants. Creativity is claimed to be a level of endowments, capacity for creating manifested in individual productive, flexible thinking which is the individual’s relatively stable characteristic influencing the performance of certain activities. The analysis of the scientific literature has revealed that the issue of considering creativity in the context of the personality theory, systematic psychological analysis of the main indicators, parameters and criteria of higher education applicants’ creativity formedness needs more detailed research. The main parameters characterizing the modern youth’s creativity are as follows: 1) the individual’s capacity for implementing a creative approach in the activities manifested in: the flexibility of thinking, ability to quick and effortless switching from one idea to another, generating ideas that are different from conventional ones, openness and interest in everything new, ability to make decisions in uncertain situation, not to doubt in their own conclusions and bring them to an end, searching and transformative thinking style, aspiration for inventions, creativity; 2) the ability to constantly develop creative experience, general and professional competences manifested in: the desire to improve professional competence, gain new knowledge, develop relevant skills, ability to quickly search out, acquire new knowledge in creative pursuits, expand their professional outlook, creative dissatisfaction with the level of achievement as a condition for further growth of professional competence; 3) the ability to formulate and implement a creative strategy for their own activities, which implies a stable need for systematic gaining new professional experience; the ability to independent building in-depth and systematic knowledge in the process of solving key educational problems; the ability to mobilize their own experience or quickly gain additional competence to solve an important and complex problem; the sense of the creativity level in modern psychology, standardized and expert diagnostic methods are used. The most common methods are empirical such as observation, interview, product activity analysis and methods of verbal and nonverbal creativity diagnosis (J. P. Guilford and E. P. Torrance), the «Completing Pictures» test (a short variation of the Torrance test adapted by A. Voronin). The psychological analysis of higher education applicants’ creativity indicators in the conditions of an agrarian higher educational institution has been carried out. The development of higher education applicants’ creativity is facilitated by purposeful training in the flexibility of thinking, associativity, the use of dreams, fantasy, intuition, imagination and research teaching methods. Moreover, it is still an important condition to establish the supportive creative educational and developmental environment in a higher education institution, characterized by an atmosphere of respect, tolerance, friendliness, etc., to encourage each applicant’s creative work and reveal their individual characteristics. These aspects are developed by the block of humanities and social subjects that first and second year students are taught which allow to fully prepare future specialists for their professional creativity development through various methods: brainstorming, synectics method, Delphi method, project method, gaming techniques, debates, conferences, presentations, art-therapy methods and others.