Creativity and the field work performance of graduate social work students

Abstract

This study posits that creativity is a positive characteristic and deserves nurturing. It is suggested that it is through the activities of its creative practitioners that the profession will grow and advance. Therefore, creativity is a cognitive style that deserves to be nurtured.;Social work students are in the formative stages of their professional development and their work is more closely monitored than that of their already established colleagues.;This study viewed the way that social work students were assessed by their field work instructors. It asked whether or not the field work instructors detected a difference in the quality of the work between the students who were creative people and those who were not. It also asked if there was a perceived difference, in what way(s) was that difference perceived.;Participants in this study were social work students and their field work instructors. These participants were members of the Queens Field Instruction center, a consortium of Queens country social agencies and various schools of social work in New York City and Nassau County.;All student participants were interviewed and demographic base data collected. All participants were administered instruments for assessing creativity that consisted of two procedures to assess visual creativity and three to assess verbal creativity. The procedures were developed by Wallach and Kogan. All field work instructor participants were interviewed regarding their assessment of their students' work.;The findings in this study led to the conclusion that creative students are rated higher, by their field work instructors, than are the noncreative students. The creative students had fewer problems, in general, and more strengths in areas that were work related, than the noncreative students. The creative students were also more highly rated in an overall assessment of their work. This was the case whether or not their field work instructors were creative or, whether or not they and their field work instructors were similar vis a vis creativity.;In short, students who were identified as creative, in general, were seen as performing better, at a higher level, than those students who were not creative individuals.