Factors Associated with Creativity in Health Educators Who have won University Teaching Awards: A Modified Qualitative Approach

This study was designed to capture the importance of factors associated with creativity in successful teaching in health education. The focus of the majority of earlier creativity studies in education, in general, has been on the students, while few, if any, studies having focused on practicing teachers at the college level. With this in mind, we conductedan open-ended interview to determine what factors were associated with creativity in health educators who had received university teaching awards. The telephone interviews were performed on 10 (five males and five females) university instructor/professors having received at least one student determined award. This study was based in part on the methodology employed in naturalistic inquiry. The challenges of teaching were met by the participants with perseverance, motivational factors were intrinsic, and supportive factors were those on the job and those associated with family members. Participants thought they used both divergent and convergent styles in generating and selecting ideas. Tension was identified as a major trigger in generating new ideas. Participants said that they experimented with new ideas, used personal and student cues, and were resilient when responding to failure. The majority of participants said that they experienced flow-like (optimal or peak) experiences, but were unable to create them on demand. All participants recognized the importance of using stories, analogies, parables, and metaphors in their teaching. The participants revealed what they believed separated them from other teachers. Finally, the participants recognized the role of creativity in their teaching and defined creativity as “the generating of something new and different … or taking something old and giving it a new direction or shaping it in adifferent way.” In conclusion, this study demonstrated the importance of the creative process and related qualities in those health educators having received an award at a university level.