Didactic Opportunities For Developing Students' Creative Thinking Based On The Competency-Based Approach Abdisharipova Shaydo

Аннотация

The shift toward competency-based education has foregrounded creative thinking as a core transversal competence demanded by contemporary knowledge economies. This article investigates didactic opportunities for fostering students’ creative thinking within the framework of the competency-based approach and offers an empirically grounded model for its integration into higher-education curricula. Drawing on a mixed-methods study conducted at three Uzbek universities over two academic years, the research analyses classroom practices, evaluates learning outcomes with validated psychometric instruments, and explores students’ and instructors’ perceptions through semi-structured interviews. Quantitative findings demonstrate statistically significant growth in creative fluency, originality, and flexibility among cohorts exposed to a redesigned instructional sequence integrating problem-based, project-based, and reflective modalities. Qualitative data reveal that explicit alignment of creative tasks with clearly articulated competence descriptors strengthens learner motivation, while formative feedback loops cultivate metacognitive regulation of the creative process. The article argues that creativity-centred competence formation is most effective when embedded in authentic disciplinary contexts supported by dialogic pedagogy and digital collaboration tools. Recommendations for curriculum designers and policy makers are provided. Keywords: Creative thinking; competency-based approach; didactics; higher education; pedagogical design; formative assessment. conative, and environmental components. When Introduction: Over the past two decades competency- mapped onto the logic of CBE, these components fit the based education (CBE) has transformed curricular triadic model of knowledge, skills, and attitudes, architectures worldwide by reorienting learning suggesting fertile ground for didactic integration. Yet outcomes toward demonstrable, transferrable the practical translation of this conceptual competences rather than discrete bodies of compatibility into classroom practice remains under- knowledge. Central among these competences is examined. Prior investigations, often limited to single- creative thinking, which international frameworks such discipline case studies, provide valuable but as the OECD 2030 Learning Compass and UNESCO’s fragmented insights into task design or assessment Education for Sustainable Development position as without articulating a holistic didactic ecosystem. This pivotal for innovation, social resilience, and lifelong gap motivates the present study, which seeks to learning. In Uzbekistan the Presidential Decree “On identify, implement, and evaluate systematic Measures to Fundamentally Improve the System of opportunities for nurturing creative thinking through a Training Qualified Personnel” (2023) explicitly competency-based lens in diverse higher-education underscores the cultivation of creative competences settings. across all levels of schooling. Nevertheless, empirical studies show uneven implementation, with many The article pursues three research objectives: first, to programmes still privileging reproductive cognition conceptualise a coherent alignment between creative over generative inquiry. thinking indicators and national competence standards; second, to design an instructional sequence Existing literature delineates creativity as a operationalising this alignment across humanities, multidimensional construct encompassing cognitive, International Journal of Pedagogics 360 https://theusajournals.com/index.php/ijp International Journal of Pedagogics (ISSN: 2771-2281) social-science, and STEM domains; and third, to patterns persisted across disciplinary contexts, measure the impact of the sequence on student suggesting the transferability of the didactic model. creativity and to elucidate mediating pedagogical Covariate analysis confirmed that baseline cognitive- mechanisms. In doing so, it aims to contribute both style orientation did not significantly interact with theoretical refinement of creativity-oriented CBE and treatment effects. evidence-based guidelines for educators tasked with Thematic synthesis of interview data produced three curricular renewal. recurrent categories. The first, “Visible Competence MATERIALS AND METHODS Pathways,” encapsulated students’ appreciation of clear criterion-referenced rubrics that converted the The study employed a convergent mixed-methods abstract ideal of creativity into tangible performance design. Quantitative data were collected through a indicators. The second, “Dialogic Scaffolding,” captured quasi-experimental procedure involving 362 second- instructors’ use of Socratic questioning and peer year university students (experimental group = 184; critique sessions, which students credited with control group = 178) enrolled in Russian philology, catalysing ideational risk-taking. The third category, educational psychology, and computer engin