Exploring Korean scientists’ perceptions of scientific creativity and education for scientific creativity

Creativity is considered a key element of the scientific infrastructure and a driving force of scientific advancement. This study aims to present Korean scientists’ voices regarding scientific creativity by investigating their perceptions of scientific creativity and education for it. Extending the phenomenography lens through activity theory, we interviewed eleven scientists in various science research fields and investigated the structural features of the situations that influenced their perceptions. The results show that scientists’ perceptions of scientific creativity were developed by the different epistemic cultures in their research fields. In addition, their perceptions of education for scientific creativity centred on the accumulation of resources to generate novel and valuable ideas and the facilitation of open discussion on knowledge construction. We discuss their perceptions of creativity in the context of their research fields’ epistemic cultures and the design of science education for scientific creativity. We conclude by discussing the implications of this study for developing science education to cultivate creative scientists.