Understanding and enhancing personal transfer of creative learning

The ‘actor-orientated transfer’ approach was adopted to examine the personal transfer of creative learning in a thematic course on toys in a higher education of Hong Kong. The personal transfers of creative learning were found to be spontaneous, far, diverse, multidirectional, highly individual and, sometimes, quite unexpected. Creativity-related attitudes, conceptions, habits and thinking strategies were commonly transferred from the initial study over to daily life, new learning and teaching, all because the learning was impressive, useful, full of surprises and easy to remember. A number of curricular, contextual and student's personal factors were identified to be either facilitating or hindering these transfers. It is concluded that significant parts of creative learning can be transferred in personal ways, if the curriculum is suitably designed and implemented to meet the needs of students in local context. A model for personal transfer of creative learning, which consisted of four core themes (i.e. context, content, impact and factor of personal transfer) and their sub-themes, was depicted. The ‘transfer in pieces’ theory was applied to explain the nature of personal transfer. Ultimately, this study helps to establish a new conception of creativity education as a type of education that values and facilitates personal transfer. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd.