The Profiles of Creative Students

Abstract

Students may differ on their standards of performance, reasons for attending school, beliefs about their academic and creative abilities, and the importance they place on school and creativity. The current study employed Latent Profile Analyses to identify sub-populations of university students based on the following seven indicators: standards of perfectionsim and excellencism, academic autonomous motivation, controlled motivation and amotivation, as well as academic and creative self-concepts. From a sample of n = 184 university students, five profiles were identified. The profiles could be described as Perfectionists with controlled motivation, Excellentists with autonomous motivation, Intermediate strivers with autonomous motivation, Intermediate strivers with controlled motivation, and Low strivers. The profiles were regressed onto various academic and creative outcomes. The results of three profiles in particular offered informative comparisons. In particular, the Perfectionists and the Excellentists profiles had similar achievement goals orientations (i.e., high on performance and mastery) but different motivational profiles and different divergent thinking abilities. The Excellentists profiles was higher than all the other profiles on divergent thinking except the Low strivers. The Low strivers profile was low on all achievement goal orientations but high on divergent thinking abilities. We discuss the implications of finding creative profiles within the academic environment and situate our findings within the achievement goals literature.