Abstract:

Creativity is no longer assumed to be an inherent phenomenon. The science of psychology including Guilford’s works taught us that we could invoke our students to think divergently rather than convergent. However, we know about cultural obstacles to creativity in children, in family, and school more than the past. Since we believe there are advantages to creativity in students, we need to know more about psychological factors that affect it. This study is designed to investigate and compare the relationship between creativity and self-esteem, with the relationship between creativity and academic achievement in university students. 200 students were selected through a Stratified Random Sampling among all who were studying in different fields in a certain university in a certain period. It was a descriptive analytical study. Coppersmith Self-Esteem Inventory and Torrance Test of Creative Thinking were administered. The annual average scores of the students were the indicators of academic achievement. Inferential statistics including Pearson Correlation Coefficient and Pearson's Chi-Squared Test were used to analyze data. Findings indicate that there is a correlation between Creativity and self-esteem (Pearson Correlation Coefficient=0/199 (p<0.007)). There is also a correlation between Creativity and academic achievement (Cramer's V = 0/312 (p<0.05)). None of these correlations is strong but the results show that these relationships deserve further research. If higher level of self-esteem is correlated with higher creativity, we can hypothesize that in order to encourage students to gain more creative cognition we may need to work on their valuation of themselves. On the other hand, we can investigate if working on thinking systems of children towards more divergent ways can help them to improve their self-esteem. Furthermore, if there is a correlation between academic achievement and creativity, we can hypothesize that it is possible that rigid academic systems that result in lower scores and achievements for the same effort prevent students from developing creativity in different ways. As a proof, we can point to various examples of weak students inside the country that became outstanding ones just after they started studying abroad. We can conclude from both of these relationships that positive feedback either from school in the form of a good score, or from students themselves in the form of good self-esteem, have a positive relationship with creative processes in students.

Keywords:

Creativity, Self-Esteem, Academic Achievement.