Interest from creative activity to creativity

Maris Cacka, Mg.Paed.; Prof. Aleksandra Slahova, Dr.Paed.;

Ilze Volonte, Mg.Paed.; Jolanta Savvina, Mg.Paed.

Department of Art, Daugavpils University, Daugavpils, Latvia.

e-mail: artdep@dau.lv

Abstract

The development of students’ creative activity depends on the level of interest in creativity. The higher the level of interest, the more creative a person is.

Interest in creativity develops gradually and passes some levels from cognitive interest to the interest to be engaged in creative activity and, then, to creative interest. These levels are interrelated and constitute dynamics of the development of creativity of a person.

In the article distinctive features of all levels of the development of interest have been considered and ways of dynamics of the development of a creative person have been described.

Introduction

Interest as a psychological phenomenon have been viewed and analysed frequently and different viewpoints exist in its interpretations. Analysing the phenomenon of interest, captivating and interesting seems its pedagogical direction in the field of cognitive interest. Cognitive interest can be analysed as a manifestation of interest when frequent cognitive activity, cognition occurs. A specific manifestation of cognitive interest is observed in its realization in the environment of creative activity. This is because cognitive interest can be either markedly creative or not.

Basing on the analysis of pedagogical practice, we conclude that interest at different levels can be developed within creative activity. That is why the aim of the research had been set: to clarify the stages of the development of interest.

1. The interpretation of interest as a phenomenon in pedagogues and psychologists’ inferences and the interpretation of its essence

Interest plays a great role in the development of every individual. Basing on interest or complete denying of a problem, we can change very many processes by finding the golden mean. The classics of pedagogy investigated interest, as well as outstanding modern pedagogues and psychologists of the 20th century such as B.Ananjev, A.Antciferov, V.Asejev, J.Atkinson, J.Babansky, A.Bodalyev, H.Eisenk, D.Elkonyn, N.Fetherson, M.Jaroshevsky, A.Lyeontjev, K.Madsen, J.Nuttin, E.Peterson, S.Rubinshtein, G.Schukina, B.Veiner, D.Vinter, J.Alen, J.Nerne, A.Špona, I.Žogla [1], and others.

A human being finds interest in the surrounding world. Personal interest, which is as multi-faceted as the surrounding world, is significant for every individual. Within the context of the development of personality, interest gathers round all the psychical processes- perception, memory, thinking, sensations, imagination, which, in a particular direction, activate the development of a personality in general. It is based on the interrelation of several factors.

Many scientists who are conducting investigations into the problems of interest focus their attention on the matters of professional interests. Not enough investigations have been conducted into the formation of interests within creative activity in the pedagogical process.

Interest- a phenomenon that is usually investigated in isolation from external factors, beyond activity, which is the only way interest can develop, if at all. The complexity of a phenomenon is rooted in the bias towards its nature and essence.

The term interest can be viewed according to the meaning. It can manifest itself as interest in something.

The explanations of several authors are expounded in Table 1.

Table 1. The explanation of the term interest in the interpretations of many scientists

Interest	Active attitude towards activities, objects and occurrences that is conditioned by need, experience and imagination. Interest can be active, purposeful and also passive.(I.Beļickis, D.Blūma, T.Koķe, D.Markus, V.Skujiņa, A.Šalme) [2].
Interest	A brightly expressed attitude towards reality, one of character traits of a personality (V.G.Kriskjo) [3].
Interests	Needs, inclinations, passions, objectively or subjectively significant that provide for the physical existence, mental development and/or status in the society, etc.; also goodness, favourableness. (I.Beļickis, D.Blūma, T.Koķe, D.Markus, V.Skujiņa, A.Šalme) [4].
Interest	A feeling of value– it can be aroused by ojects and/or it can testify to the formation of the first stage of a new necessity. If we gain satisfaction from some activity, emotions offer the object to be responsible for this favourable effect in a particular sense. (ed. G.Breslav) [5].
Interest	Tendency and the progress of a personality that advances thanks to condenced reflexion on a particular object. We understand reflexion as complex and diordered education– the progress of thought, thoughts– care, thoughts– participation, thoughts– a corpus including a specific emotional nuance. Manifestation– to be interested in or to get interested in (S.Rubinshtein) [6].
Interest	That is a sense of inner joy, in other words, aspiration that we experience observing a captivating thing or reflecting on pleasant past events, or, finally, looking forward to something pleasant (J.A.Students) [7].
Interese	A form of manifestation of the necessity of cognition that provides for comprehension of the aims of diversity, as well as promotes orientation, acquaintance with new facts, more fully and extensive reflexion of reality (A.Petrovsky ed.) [8].
Interest	The motive or the motivation of mood that promotes the development of creative activity. The emotional and free moments of interest appear specifically as intellectual emotions and efforts to overcome intellectual difficulties (V.Zinchenko ed.) [9].
Interest	One of conditions of the progress of behaviour, thoughts and will (A.Špona). A specific attitude of a personality towards an object that is conditioned by the importance of this object in life and emotional attractiveness [10].

The above table illustrates different views on the explanation of interest. These views are both similar andcontradictory. We shall dwell upon different types of interest in order to grasp the essence of cognition.

Interest has been distinguished in more detail in G.Breslav ed. [11]:

• the material that provide for the physical existence of a human being;
• the social that provide for the place of a person in the society;
• the mental that provide for the mental growth a person and its realization in creative activity, also including cognition.

Drawing 1 reveals the division of interest.

Picture 1. Division of interest

Summarizing the content of the above picture, we can ascertain that the mental interest, the social interest and the material interest provide for the mental growth a person, the awareness of art cultural and aesthetical values, reflecting multi-faceted manifestations of cognition.

Examining the explanation of interest within the context of creative process and creative activity, basing on the pedagogical practice provided in the study programme “The teacher of visual art” at the Daugavpils University, we acknowledge that the most significant in the interpretation of the essence of interest in the above Table 1 is the emotional attitude, the desire to work creatively, aspiration to acquire different modes of fulfilling creative assignments. Basing on this assertion, we offer a definition of interest: Interest is a positive emotional attitude towards active creative process encouraging desire to acquire abilities and perfect skills in creative activity.

2. The essence of creative activity

Nowadays in Latvia in education much attention has been given to the main value- a human being as a creative person who encourages the progress of the development of the society. A creative personality is objective and unique wealth of the society. Definite delimited frontiers do not exist in the process of the development of a creative person. It continues all life long. In pedagogy investigations into creative activity are particularly significant.

The problem of a creative personality has been viewed in Russian and Byelorussian psychology and pedagogy, as well as Western psychology and pedagogy. In Russia and Byelorussia many scientists enormously contributed to the understanding of this problem. Among them are V.Druzhinin, V.Teplov, S.Rubinshtein, D.Bogoyavlensky, N. Vishnyakova, V.Kriskjo and other scientists. In Western psychology- E.Fromm, A.Maslou, K.Rodger, E.Landau, Mark A.Ronco, R.Mey, D.Fontana and others.

In Latvia this problem is significant in pedagogy. Many scientists have given great attention to this problem. Among them are V.Hibnere, J.A.Students, V.Reņģe, P.Tjurina.

In different sources of literature the word “creativity” has got the same meaning as the notion “creative activity”. The word “creativity” in the Latin language means to beget, to form, to create. Creativity must be present in all modes of activity. Creativity is a possibility to grasp the meaning of things from a new angle by dint of fancy and imagination, the ability to find something new and to create something new [12].

Creativity is at the core of personal and community growth. Evolution itself is a creative process - it's as if creativity is woven into fabric of the universe. And yet creativity isn't taught at school [13]. Creative people may look deceptively ordinary or outright strange. They might be robust and productive or scarred and depressed after a lifetime of rejection. Creativity also connects us with deeper things. Creativity, foibles and all, connects us with each other and is the growing point of our world.

According to a psychologist Vygotsky, creative activity progresses if a personality enjoys full freedom to express thoughts and feelings [14]. Creativity is a difficult learning outcome to assess with a traditional scoring rubric. However, a creative assignment can generally be scored on three main things: originality, fluency and flexibility [15].

Creative activity in art– it is the creation of something that did not exist before and it also could not exist without its creator, that is, creative activity in art, which is a particularly creative mode of activity by its content [16]. Creative activity is not only a way to the cognition of the inner world of a human being and creativity, but also a result of comprehension and a manifestation of this inner world [17]. It is inconceivable that Leonardo de Vinci’s masterpieces or Beethoven’s symphonies would have been created without themselves.

By a creative process it is understood the creation of a new product by the means of a new product, growing, on the one hand, from uniqueness of a person, but, on the other hand, conditioned by the material itself, happenings, people and circumstances of life. The most significant in creative activity is the novelty, as K.Rodger acknowledged in his investigation [18].

Many scientists have proved that activity is a general form of activity that represents the greatest unit of activity subordinated to a particular motive [19]. Success of any activity of a human being depends on three components: knowledge, skills and motivation.

М.Кlarin adds that creative environment is significant for successful development of creative activity:

• to eliminate inner contradictions;
• to give attention to the work of subconsciousness;
• to abstain from value judgment;
• to display a possibility of the use of analogy;
• to create the environment of inner freedom and understanding;
• to help to see sense of the direction of creative activity [20].

Because creativity is partly motivational, educators can go quite a bit with it simply by manipulating incentives and rewards. They do, however, need to ensure that they do not undermine the intrinsic motivation of students. This is one reason the diverse expressions of creative expression are so important. Children can be creative in many different ways, if they are allowed to follow their interests [21].

Much has been done to improve the theory of creativity in resent years. New methods of testing have appeared [22], but, irrespective of considerable amount of investigations, the theory has not improved particularly. Testing and analysing not a person, but the product of creative activity (drawings, music, etc.), a creative personality gets out of sight.

A creative personality is a particular type of a human being. Evidently it is closely connected the ideas of holism. According to A.Maslou [23], everything that helps a personality to develop encourages creativity. The essence of a personality changes and reaches a more advanced level of the perfection of creative activity.

Lecturing on a particular course study of visual art, we encourage the development of creative process that constitutes interest of a personality and interest, in its turn, promotes the self-actualization in creative activity.

Creative activity is a process that develops creative abilities and is characteristic of a pupil’s inner readiness to create artistic works [24].

Two types of artistic works exist:

Type 1- artistic works that are created according to a particular plan (mainly academic artistic works);

Type 2- works that are created as if out the artist’s will. At the same time these works are also the expression of the artist’s nature. The artist might be unaware of this, revelation or inspiration can spring up [25].

Inspiration- a result of intensive work in a creative process is a peculiar transition of mental work from one quality to a new quality. Knowledge, abilities and skills- all the components of creating of a new image- intensively accumulating quantitatively, transforms into another, more advanced stage of creative activity at a definite moment. In this case it has been said that an artist, a scientist or a poet has got inspiration. It can be characterized as the most advanced form of creative work on the rise, the most complicated level of the expression of imagination [26].

The artist’s ability to create a creative product can be considered as the artist’s personal ability and talent, which appears to be one of the main conditions of creative activity. Creativity specifically distinguishes an artist from a highly qualified craftsman [27]. Talent miht be applied to a psycho-psysiological phenomenon and considered as something “given” to a human being. Creative work, however, becomes apparent in activity [28].

Scientists started to seek common characteristics of all kinds of creative process as a result of attempts to develop a general theory of creative process and creative activity. It has been acknowledged more often that a process that constitutes the base of all kinds of creative work is the same: a combination of elements with the purpose to gain a new quality and, afterwards, search for revelation and selection of “significant” combinations. The difference is reduced to the difference in an idea. Now we shall elaborate on the analysis of some conceptions in this direction.

A widespread theory of a threefold process of creative work exists in psychology. That is expounded in Vorobjev’s work [29]:

1. A preparatory stage when the aim has been set, possible variants of the solution to a problem have been considered;
2. A correction stage of the realization of new images and notions; An approbation stage of a new object (phenomenon) and its realization in real life.

Many scientists distinguishes (L.Kryzhanovskaya[30], E.Landau [31]) four stages of creative process: preparation, maturation, illumination and verification.

D.Fontana proposes a similar conception [32]:

• Preparation, which is primarily concerned with the recognition that a particular problem is worthy of study, or a particular theme is suitable for a book or a picture or a piece of music.
• Incubation, during which the problem or the theme is mulled over, often at an unconscious level.
• Inspiration, when the possible solution to the problem or a flood of ideas for the book, etc., come abruptly into the conscious mind.
• Verification, when the solution is put to the test or the ideas are tried out on paper or on canvas.

Creative process have been substantiated in N. Vishnyakova’s work [33], where she depicts modelling and describes a creative process comprising five levels: a creative act, a creative informative field; a creative strategic process; creative technologies and a creative result. Such modelling is more complete and reveals more precisely the essence of a creative process.

However, the formation of creative activity also comprises several stages. These stages are closely connected with a creative process.

Basing on E. Kisin’s, V.Procecky’s, N.Gnatko’s and other scientists’ investigations, V.Druzhinin examined the models of creative activity the most broadly [34].

According to the research of a pedagogical process conducted lecturing on different courses of study of visual art at the Daugavpils University, we propose the following model of the development of a creative process. We base on two models developed by E. Kisin and V. Procecky [35].

This is very a complex process, depending on different variables and experience. As it was mentioned above, experience builds and grows gradually and creative activities develop through the peculiar stages of levels [36].

The first stage usually comprises the reproductive creative activities when a student tries to understand and reproduce something resembling the object, i.e. imitate or even copy the object, but satisfying results encourage him to commence the systematic work.

The second stage – interpretative creative activities can be characterized by the creative imitation. This stage focuses on the aspiration of a student towards new artistic methods and techniques, which, in their turn, develop the perseverance and urge towards the unaided quest.

The third stage – imitation of creativity. This stage suggests the disposition of a person to apply all the knowledge and acquired artistic skills in a new situation. This is the situation of creation of new images, which are created due to abilities of anticipation, and which are quite different form the previous experience of a person.

The fourth stage is called the transformation and the characteristic feature of this stage is the search for the recognition of discovered solution from the audience and from the artist. At this stage the student learns not only representation but also transformation of the world.

The given model is used as grounds for designing a study programme of training teachers of visual art.

3. The definition of creative interest and its substantiation

According to the information obtained from the materials of pedagogical practice, the development of the process of creative activity from one level to another (more advanced) coincides with growing interest. It constituted the base for further investigations into appropriate criteria according to which the dynamics of interest is to be determined.

The pedagogical experiment revealed that interest of the students who have not been majoring in art undergoes the same levels of development as creative activity does. This is because different technical methods in art have been used.

The bigger the interest, the more sophisticated the level of creative activity is. The abilities obtained at the next level encourage interest in the new, that is, different techniques and methods. The levels are mutually interrelated and supplement each other successively. As interest grows gradually, creative activity activates and creative activity, in its turn, encourages interest. It allows of four levels of interest:

1. primeval interest;
2. cognitive interest;
3. creative cognitive interest
4. creative interest.

Each level of interest corresponds with a particular level of creative activity.

• the first level- the primeval interest- the activation of cognitive processes all that is creative;
• the second level- the cognitive interest- the motion of cognitive process, motivation towards a particular activity;
• the third level- the creative cognitive interest- the formation of one’s own initiative with the purpose to reach creative aims more proficiently;
• the fourth level- the creative interest- emotional satisfaction derived from independent permanent creative tasks.

Table 2 reveals a close correspondence between the levels of creative interest and the levels of creative activity.

Table 2. Parallels between creative activity and creative interest

Level of interest	Peculiarities of interest	Level of creative activity	Characteristics of each stage of creative activity
Primeval interest	Activation of cognitive processes all that is creative	The first stage	This stage usually comprises the reproductive creative activities when a student tries to understand and reproduce something resembling the object, i.e. imitate or even copy the object, but satisfying results encourage him to commence the systematic work.
Cognitive interest	Motion of cognitive process, motivation towards a particular activity	The second stage	This stage – interpretative creative activities can be characterized by the creative imitation. This stage focuses on the aspiration of student towards the new artistic methods and techniques, which, in their turn, develop the perseverance and urge towards the unaided quest.
Creative cognitive interest	Formation of one’s own initiative with the purpose to reach creative aims more proficiently	The third stage	This stage – imitation of creativity. This stage suggests the disposition of person to apply all the knowledge and acquired artistic skills in the new situation. This is the situation of creation of new images, which are created due to abilities of anticipation, and which are quite different form the previous experience of person.
Creative interest	Emotional satisfaction derived from independent and permanent creative activity	The fourth stage	This stage is called the transformation and the characteristic feature of this stage is the search for the recognition of the discovered solution from the audience and from the artist. At this stage the student learns not only the representation but also the transformation of the world.

Conclusion

Interest generates as a result of the process of creative activity interest and develops accordingly to particular levels that correspond with the levels of creative activity.

Creative activity proceeds in four levels: imitation; creative imitation; imitation of creativity; transformation. Each level of interest corresponds with a particular level of creative activity. Interest proceeds from primeval interest to cognitive interest, which perfects itself in the process of creative activity and results in the next stage- creative cognitive interest. The most sophisticated level- creative interest.

The research allows of the following definition of creative interest:

Creative interest – is positive emotional satisfaction derived from independent and permanent creative activity in the context of art.

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