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Purpose Despite growing interest in creativity in higher education, clearer empirical evidence is needed on how lecturers’ creative traits translate into concrete pedagogical practices. This study aims to examine whether higher education institution (HEI) lecturers’ creative personality traits foster the implementation of organized and methodical teaching practices associated with creative pedagogy. Design/methodology/approach A quantitative research design was adopted using an online questionnaire disseminated via social networks (n = 202). Data were analysed in SPSS through exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and principal component analysis, followed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to validate the measurement structure and test the proposed relationships among latent factors. Findings The EFA identified six factors characterising lecturers’ creative traits and practices: (1) organized and methodical practices, (2) curiosity and experimentation, (3) immersion and pleasure in the creative process, (4) flexibility and adaptation, (5) resilience in the face of creative challenges and (6) sensitivity and creative intuition. The CFA supported a refined five-factor solution after item purification. In the structural model, curiosity and experimentation, flexibility and adaptation and resilience in the face of creative challenges positively influenced organized and methodical practices, whereas immersion and pleasure in the creative process did not show a significant effect. Practical implications The results suggest that strengthening structured creative teaching in HEIs benefits from institutional strategies that encourage experimentation, adaptability and persistence in pedagogical innovation, supported by appropriate training, resources and organizational conditions. Originality/value This study integrates lecturers’ creative personality traits with pedagogical practices within a validated factorial structure and tests their relationships empirically, offering a more differentiated understanding of which creative traits most strongly translate into organized and methodical teaching practices.
Rodrigues et al. (Tue,) studied this question.