Participatory creativity training and creativity self-concepts of students in specialist arts higher education

Abstract

Disciplinary background A. Creativity training and assessment. Considerable progress has been made in the field of creativity research over the last few years in refining the concept of creativity (Plucker et al., 2004), in recognising its importance in a wide range of domains including Higher Education (Park et al., 2020; Ulger, 2018) and in developing creativity enhancement interventions and measures (Kapoor et al., 2021; Said-Metwaly et al., 2017). Disciplinary background B. Training of the entrepreneurial musician. There has been increasing recognition of the need for Higher Music Education (HME) institutions to better equip graduates to manage their future careers, given the uncertainties of the fluid and evolving world of work. In response, some conservatoires have embraced curriculum change toward a greater emphasis on facilitating an entrepreneurial mindset in students but this is not yet the norm in the UK and Europe and it is unclear how this can be most effectively done (Carey & Coutts, 2021). Recent research in entrepreneurship education has foregrounded creativity as a key competence in developing an entrepreneurial mindset (Fillis & Rentscher, 2010). Abstract This research aimed to evaluate the impact of a participatory creativity intervention using acontextual and contextual methods of measurement in students on music, art and speech/drama programmes. This mixed-methods study contributes to understanding of perceptions and development of creativity in creative arts students. An extra-curricular virtual workshop was conducted for undergraduate and postgraduate students from three specialist arts higher education institutions, in the fields of music, visual and dramatic arts. The programme was designed to enable students to work collaboratively in groups on a variety of entrepreneurship and creativity-related tasks over a two-day period. The training was based the CLEAR IDEAS framework for creativity training, drawn from organisational creativity and innovation research (Birdi, 2016). The programme aimed to systematically support skills to better generate ideas (Day 1), and implement them (Day 2). Alongside