Encouraging Creativity in the Social Work Classroom: Insights from a Qualitative Exploration

Creativity is vital to the learning process of social work students. Despite its importance, educators are still uncertain of ways to enhance creativity and translate it from classroom to practice. Therefore, this study examines social work student perspectives on ways to define creativity, infuse it into the classroom, and apply it as practitioners. This study qualitatively explores the open-ended insights of 37 social work students. Through an unguided semantic analysis and application of Kolb’s experiential learning theory, the following themes emerged: classroom, creativity, performance, activities, and ideas. These themes indicate that students believe that additional creative opportunities in their classrooms would eventually benefit them as practitioners. Further pedagogical emphasis on increasing student creativity through experiential learning activities would be beneficial.     

Quality of College Life (QCL) of Students: Further Validation of a Measure of Well-being

This paper reports a study designed to further validate a measure of quality of college life (QCL) of university students (Sirgy, Grzeskowiak, Rahtz, Soc Indic Res 80(2), 343–360, 2007). Two studies were conducted: a replication study and an extension study. The replication study involved surveys of 10 different college campuses in different countries. The results of the replication study provided additional nomological (predictive) validation support of the measure based on a theoretical model mapping out the antecedents and consequences of satisfaction with college life. With respect to the extension study, the focus was to further test the nomological validity of the QCL measure by arguing and empirically demonstrating that the consequence of QCL is life satisfaction. The extension study involved a survey of three college campuses in different countries. The results were also supportive of the nomological validity of the QCL measure.