The Relationship between Philosophic-Mindedness and Creativity among Faculty Members of IAU Zanjan Branch

This study aimed at investigating the relationship between philosophic-mindedness (measured as comprehensiveness, penetration, and flexibility) and degree of creativity among faculty members of Islamic Azad University (IAU), Zanjan Branch. The population of the study was comprised of 440, out of which 210 were selected using stratified random sampling. Data were collected administering creativity and philosophic-mindedness questionnaire with validity indices of 0.81 and 0.80 respectively. Both descriptive and inferential statistics indices were applied to analyze the data. The findings of the study indicate that there is a significant relationship between philosophic-mindedness and the degree of creativity of the faculty members (p< 0.01). Also, there exist significant relationships between three indices of comprehensiveness, penetration, flexibility and degree of creativity. Applying t test, no significant relationship is found between philosophic-mindedness and the degree of creativity of the faculty members in humanities and basic sciences. Moreover, there is no significant relationship between male and female professors regarding their creativity (p< 0.05), whereas regarding their level of philosophic-mindedness, male exceeded female. Taking the indices of philosophic-mindedness into account, penetration shows a gender difference. That is, male professors present a more significant level of penetration than female while both were similar regarding other indices of comprehensiveness and flexibility.