Abstract:

Located within a social constructivist pedagogical orientation and informed by the theoretical perspectives of multiple intelligences, this quantitative study investigated the effectiveness of problem-based learning in developing and promoting the creative intelligence of first-year accounting student teachers. Through a phenomenological research design underpinned by interpretivism, quantitative data were collected using a questionnaire which had eighteen statements rated on a Likert scale. The descriptive analysis of this data presented an overwhelming exposition that pedagogically, problem-based learning is highly effective in developing and promoting the creative intelligence of students. This quantitative finding was attributed to the compatibility of problem-based learning and self-regulated learning in developing and promoting creative intelligence. Premised on these findings, the study recommends that students should be exposed to learning activities that have been specifically adapted and modified to conform to the cognitive and assessment provisions of creative intelligence. Lecturers are therefore discouraged from relying exclusively on the assessment activities in the textbooks. Instead, they should be sufficiently creative to infuse and incorporate the cognitive constructs of creative intelligence into their assessment activities. To this effect, the study proposes that all teaching and learning activities should be creatively designed to reflect and resemble the cognitive requirements of creative intelligences and social constructivist learning, in line with the higher order level functions of the Bloom taxonomy. The study further submits that lesson presentations must be structured and designed to kindle and sustain the imagination, creative thinking and problem-solving abilities of students.

Keywords:

Multiple intelligences, Creative intelligence, Problem-based learning, Social constructivist learning.