INTRODUCTION
I choose to evaluate a qualitative study titled “ Its own reward: A phenomenological study of artistic creativity”. The researchers finding a need for phenomenological basis in studying its impact on creativity as according their review of literature there has been an highlighted need in the area of creativity to take a detour from the natural science paradigm.
Phenomenological psychology is a paradigm marked by its emphasis on description, understanding and meaning. The study’s main concern revolves around “lived” experiences and derives meanings from these experiences. The main research question of this particular study being: how is creativity experienced? What are the essential features of this experience? What role does this experience of creativity play in an individual’s being-in-the world (the ‘lived meaning’)?
Hence the researchers rationale behind the study being that If the research question can be validated then it has to be concerned with questions of understanding, description, and meaning, in addition to questions of explanation and prediction, hence the phenomenological approach to creativity becomes research is inherently important.
PARTICIPANT SELECTION:
The sampling method mainly consisted of recruitment by advertising the study at two schools of art, a music school, in a newsletter for writers, and through contacts and acquaintances of the researchers. Hence a purposive convenience sampling was used. Purposive sampling can be very useful for situations where you need to reach a targeted sample quickly and where sampling for proportionality is not the primary concern. With a purposive sample, there are more chances of getting the opinions of your target population. This method of sampling is also known as a “judgment” sampling. Selection is based on the availability of subjects such as volunteers or pre- existing groups.
This method of sampling as potential for inaccuracy in the researcher’s criteria and resulting sample selections as most often the research overlooks the other criteria involved. The problem with all of this type of a sample is that there is no evidence that the sample is representative of the populations we're interested in generalizing the research findings to and in many cases the theory cannot be generalized because of the sampling methodology used.
So where this particular study is concerned the type pf sampling used has resulted in constricting the generalization capacity of the study as the sample need not be representative of the creative population as a small convenient sample was chosen, even though a range of artistic backgrounds were chosen.
METHODOLOGY:
Overall, there is a large degree of overlap between the current study’s findings and the findings of other phenomenological studies, as well as other descriptive studies of the artistic creative process. The methodology used was similar to other phenomenological studies done in the filed of creativity.
The main form of data collection was in the form of semi structured interviews. The interviews were based around two broad, open-ended questions. The first question asked the participant to describe a particular experience of artistic creativity. The intention behind asking the participant to describe an experience when they were “pleased” or “satisfied” with their artistic activity was to encourage the participant to choose a highly creative episode of artistic activity. The assumption being that an artist will be more pleased or satisfied with work that they consider to be more creative. While the very
activity of artistic production might be considered creative, a particular focus on more creative episodes of this activity is consistent with phenomenology’s emphasis on pursuing essential features of a phenomenon.
The drawbacks of using interviews as the main source of data collection are that the research participants may be experienced may require more intrusive forms of questioning which semi structured interviews limit. Participants may say more than they intended to say, and later regret having done so. Hence the data collected may be coloured by imagination and socially relevant answers. The research participants are
also acutely aware of personalities, moods, and interpersonal dynamics between the interviewer resulting in confounding answers that are especially detrimental to phenomenological studies. Training interviewers and conducting interviews can be expensive and time-consuming, because qualitative interviewing requires considerable skill and experience. Analyzing and interpreting qualitative interviews is much more time-consuming than analyzing and interpreting quantitative interviews. Subjective elements tend to creep in more in qualitative interviews because the evaluator/researcher decides which quotes or specific examples to report.
THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL INTERVIEW PROCESS
The principal aim of the research study was to capture through phenomenological interviews how artists experience the creative process. Through analysis of their descriptions, the aim is to explicate the psychological predicates and meanings of the phenomenon as it is lived in its 'everydayness'. The research question guiding this aspect of the research is: How is the creative process experienced by artists?
The interviews were designed to direct the participant towards his or her experience of the creative process without predefining the content of interaction. An uniform phenomenological method of analysis was imposed indiscriminately in every case. Rather than an uniform method of analysis in each case , it seems important to look at phenomenological psychology in ways that advocate processes of analysis that evolve in contact with the unique phenomena in question . The entire process of creativity of the research participants were analysed in the various general categories wherein the each phenomenon was described using key features that existed as discrete entities. The background to the experience of the artistic creative process was considered as general commitment to the artistic activity. That this commitment would lead to various forms of artwork involving preparatory work. These preparatory activities belong to a general process of the artist narrowing her focus of attention to the artistic activity.
It would be of value to conduct studies that approach the phenomenology of creativity through alternative means, while maintaining the focus on the qualitative explanation of lived experience, and comparing the results of these investigations to the current findings. For instance, interviews might be conducted while or shortly after the artist is engaged in the artistic process (e.g., after coming off stage or finishing a piece of writing, while at the easel, and so on). This approach might be beneficial in further achieving the phenomenological research goal of gathering pre-reflective accounts of experience. Another option would be to adopt the contextual approach to creativity which puts forward that creativity needs to be understood not purely with reference to the individual but in the relationship between individual and context. Drawing on Csikszentmihalyi’s (1988, 1990a, 1999) systems model of creativity, artists could describe the experiential features of producing particular artistic products judged to be creative within the field, using prizes or the judgment of others within the field as a criterion. This approach would take into account the contextual understanding of creativity, rather than limit the definition of creativity to particular experiences identified by creators themselves. The relationship between the experience of artistic creation and artistic appreciation (or between art and aesthetics) needs to be addressed in further detail.
Hence the research methodology though appropriate to the research question needs to be more sensitive to the nuances of the approach.
REFERENCE:
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1988). Where is the evolving milieu? A response to Gruber (1981).Creativity Research Journal, 1, 60–67.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990a). The domain of creativity. In M. A. Runco & R. S. Albert
(Eds.), Theories of creativity (pp. 190–212). London: Sage.
Nelson, B., Rawlings D. (2007). Its Own Reward: A Phenomenological
Study of Artistic Creativity, Journal of Phenomenological Psychology 38 (2007) 217–255. Brill Academic Publishers: Melbourne.
Nelson, B. (2005). The creative process: A phenomenological and psychometric investigation of artistic creativity. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of Melbourne.
