INCULCATING LEADERSHIP VALUES THROUGH CREATIVITY: A HEURISTIC LEARNING PROCESS

Abstract

This research intends to expose current youth to the essential philosophy of a great thinker, as well as to preserve traditional virtues. An action research project was carried out to explore and integrate a heuristic structure within an educational learning process that promotes selfawareness through the transmission of the essential philosophy of a great thinker. The aim of applying a heuristic cognitional structure to the learning process is to benefit learners and, ultimately, those who responded to it through their actions. This action research project, based on the four key components of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting, was conducted in the context of a group assignment implemented within an undergraduate multimedia design program at a higher education institution in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The group assignment was to design a greeting card for Parents’ Day. The findings indicated that this methodology of evoking positive thinking that is intrinsic to the philosophy of a great thinker within the learning process was beneficial not just for the actual learners (students), but it also inspired a positive response from 72 percent (152 out of 211) of end users, namely those who responded to, integrated, and applied this heuristic cognitional structure. They reacted by writing a few words by hand on the specially designed greeting cards, expressing love for their parents, and sent them out by traditional post. The extending of the learning process would also help to share these values in Malaysia’s multicultural context. This would provide a core model for upholding humanistic moral values to sustain future generations and developing leadership qualities.