Provocation and Emotional Mastery Techniques as Strategies for Fostering Creative Thinking Competence among Nigerian Adolescents

Abstract

With rapid changes in technology and global competition, the success of many organisations has become progressively more dependent on their ability to bring innovative products to market. Ultimately, however, innovation depends on the generation of novel ideas, which in turn depends on good strategies/techniques. It is in the light of this that this study investigated the effects of provocation and emotional mastery programmes at fostering creative thinking competence of Nigerian Adolescents. The study also aimed at establishing whether gender will moderate the effects of the two techniques on creativity skills of adolescents. A pretest-post-test 3 x 2 factorial design was adopted. The simple random sampling procedure was used in selecting participants and assigning them to two treatments groups and the control group. A total of 270 participants taken among senior secondary school students in three randomly selected public secondary schools participated in the study. Data were collected using ideative originality scale (IOS). Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was employed for data analysis with significant level fixed at 0.05. Findings from the study revealed that the treatments differentially and significantly affect participants' levels of creativity; Gender, as well as gender and treatment were found not to have any significant effects on participants' levels of creativity. On the basis of the findings, the study advocated for the teaching of creativity as school subject in secondary schools.