Self-Regulation in Creative Learning: Agentic Perspective

Abstract

Creativity is agentic, and so is learning. People create and learn new things most effectively when they are convinced that they can respond appropriately to the task (creative confidence) and value the activity at hand. This investigation explores the role of the relatively understudied aspect of creative agency: self-regulatory strategies. In a longitudinal study, we tested whether self-regulation strategies, previously found to be essential drivers of academic achievement and learning in general (rehearsal, elaboration, critical thinking, and metacognition), might also support creativity in learning. Specifically, we tested sequential mediation, where creative confidence and self-regulation longitudinally mediated the relationship between creative potential (divergent thinking) and effective application of creative skills to solve problems embedded in school subjects. Our findings confirm that self-regulatory strategies predict providing creative solutions to school tasks (a proxy of creative learning) and mediate the relationship between divergent thinking, creative confidence, and creative learning.

Self-regulation for creative activity: The same or different across domains?

“…The effects of creative self-concept were substantial, ranging from β = .17 in the case of uncertainty acceptance to β = .40 in readiness for sharing and β = .42 in emotion regulation. These robust links correspond well with a recent extension of the CBAA model (Karwowski & Beghetto, 2019), theorizing creative self-concept as a prerequisite for effective self-regulation (see Ivcevic & Nusbaum, 2017; Karwowski et al, 2022; Zielińska et al, 2021). Indeed, people who believe they can deal with complex creative tasks often have a richer repertoire of different strategies for approaching these problems (see Anderson & Haney, 2021).…”

“…For instance, in social psychological studies, a growth mindset about self-regulation was linked to actual selfregulation (Mrazek et al, 2018). In a similar vein, a recent longitudinal study in school settings demonstrated that creative self-concept predicted self-regulation while learning (Zieli nska et al, 2021).…”

Democratizing Creativity by Enhancing Imagery and Agency: A Review and Meta-Analysis

“…It engages creative thinking and imagination while solving problems or developing new ideas, and denotes the potential to apply creativity in learning or problem-solving. This form of creativity is fundamental in education as it constitutes the basis of creative learning (Beghetto, 2016; Karwowski, Jankowska et al, 2020; Zielińska, Lebuda, Jankowska, et al, 2021). Mini-c creativity utilizes verbal creative thinking processes (e.g., divergent thinking, analogies, and remote associations) as well as nonverbal aspects of creative imagery, or visual metaphors.…”

Simple yet wise? Students’ creative engagement benefits from a daily intervention.

“…Fourth, the scope of our prompts was relatively narrow. Therefore, we firmly believe that future studies should examine the possibilities to support creativity using prompts that focus on creative self-beliefs and creative self-regulation (Zielińska et al, 2020; Zielińska & Karwowski, in press). Creativity is driven by top-down processes, such as executive control, and is thereby largely controllable and intentional (Benedek & Fink, 2019; Silvia, 2018).…”