Emergence mechanism of creativity through outdoor education classes as university physical education:

A theoretical study based on the Geneplore Model

Abstract

In today’s society, creativity is emphasized to overcome the difficulties of predicting the future, and higher education institutions are required to cultivate it in their students. In this study, we focus on outdoor education class as a form of university physical education to clarify how creativity is nurtured in outdoor education class using the Geneplore Model to clarify the emergence mechanism. First, the potential of university physical education and outdoor education class in cultivating creativity in students has long been recognized as the practical knowledge, and the need for theoretical investigation was confirmed. In recent years, as a result of an overview of the theoretical trends in creativity, it has been confirmed that creativity is revealed through environmental involvement, although clarification of its definition and criteria are academic issues. Considering the above, we examined the function and structure of outdoor education class using the Geneplore Model, a general cognitive model of creativity emergence. In the Geneplore Model, the structure of the back-and-forth process of generative phase and exploratory phase is incorporated, and these processes are always constrained by products. But in outdoor education class, the unique constraints of problem solving, consisting of “physical environments” “social environments” “problem contents” trigger the emergence of creativity. The results also revealed that sharing ideas among group members triggers creativity emergence. In addition, sharing ideas among group members is an important part of the creative process, and it is clear that techniques for generating creativity are intentionally incorporated into outdoor education class.