Conceptions of Creativity among Hong Kong University Students

This research had two objectives. The first was to determine the reliability and validity of the multifaceted assessment of creativity (MAC) for evaluating Hong Kong university students' conceptions of creativity. The second was to establish if the theory-practice and gender gaps discovered among mainland Chinese university students would be replicated. The theoretical foundation for the MAC is the investment theory of creativity. Participants were 156 university students in Hong Kong. Results showed that Hong Kong university students' conceptions of creativity fit well with the six resources for creativity measured by the MAC: intelligence, knowledge, intellectual style, personality, motivation and environment. The present data not only confirmed the theory-practice and gender discrepancies previously found among mainland Chinese university students, but also revealed an additional gap -- a theory-practice gap found only in participants' evaluation of female school students. Implications are discussed for research and for the psychology of teaching and learning.