Relationships Between Beliefs about Scientific Work and Creative Achievements in Science : A Preliminary Version of the Orientations Towards Scientific Work Scale *

This article is a part of a larger research project, carried out with funds granted by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education for statutory Decision No. 25504/E-560/M/2013. Project No:WP/2013/B/61. I thank Maciej Karwowski for his valuable comments.


INTRODUCTION
Creative achievements depend on the coincidence of intra-and interpersonal factors (Eysenck, 1995).Personality traits such as openness to experience, independence (Batey & Furnham, 2006;Karwowski, 2009Karwowski, , 2010;;McCrae, 1987;Nęcka, 2001), creative self-efficacy and creative personal identity (Jaussi, Randel & Dionne, 2007;Karwowski, 2012;Lim & Choi, 2009;Tierney & Farmer, 2002;2011) and cognitive abilities, i.e. divergent thinking (Carson, Peterson & Higgins, 2005;Cramond, 1994;Plucker, 1999;Kim 2008) as well as an ability to solve problems requiring insight (Szen-Ziemiańska & Karwowski, in preparation) are among the main determinants of creative achievement.Feist (1998) has demonstrated that openness characterizes more creative scientists in comparison to less creative ones.Openness to experience, together with creative thinking increases the chances for creative achievements (King, McKee Walker & Broyles, 1996).In drawing attention to the motivational aspect of creative activity, it is commonly acknowl-edged, that intrinsic motivation is required for creative actions (Amabile, 1996), but under certain circumstances (i.e. in professional creativity) extrinsic motivation may also be important for creative accomplishments.It is assumed that motivational synergy fosters creativity (Amabile, 1996;Karwowski & Gralewski, 2011), because of the emergent coincidence of interest and happiness with applause and external gratification.Motivation is obviously linked to individual values, attitudes or orientations.Hubristic motivation, that focuses on the effects which confirm the importance and value of a person (Kozielecki, 1997), is often observed among scientists (Tokarz, 1998).This suggests, that hubristic motivation will be manifested in beliefs and action strategies for this professional group.This article analyzes orientations toward scientific work among young scientists.The term "orientation" concerns a set of individual beliefs about work effects and issues related to a career in science.Orientations may influence the range and level of scientific activity and lead to creative achievements as predicted by socio-cognitive theory (Bandura, 1997;Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara & Pastorelli, 2001).Hence, such orientations may also be interpreted as mindsets (Karwowski, 2013) concerning science as a domain of creative activity.Orientations translate into motivation by activation of the processes that enable scientists to accomplish their goals and thus are related to the scope and level of creative achievements i.e. in science.Therefore the article's goals are: (1) to elaborate and test a new scale measuring orientation towards science among young scientists; and at the same time to examine (2) whether, and to what extent, specific orientations are associated with activity in science and (3) whether, and to what extent, specific orientations are associated with creative achievement in science, such as: publications, attending conferences, creating inventions or winning grants.The study described below was realized among young scientists in order to ensure external validity and to fill a gap observed in the creativity literature.It is hypothesized, that orientations play a predictive role, explaining differences in creative activity and creative achievements, adding significantly to other well-established predictors of scientific accomplishments, such as personality and cognitive factors (Feist, 1993;1998;2006).

ORIENTATIONS TOWARDS SCIENTIFIC WORK
Scientists differ not only in terms of their traits and abilities, but also in terms of their be- Orientation toward quantity focuses on scientific productivity, especially in terms of publishing.Its essence lies more in the quantity, rather than the quality of scientific publications produced.Sometimes there is even the suspicion that quality may suffer and give way to quantity, but this need not be the casein the long term, quantity may turn into quality in the case of publishing.People who hold this orientation believe that writing articles is a skill, that can be developed.For this reason, orientation may be treated as specific mind-sets, which play a regulative role: when the ability to write scientific articles is perceived as being possible to develop (malleable), the chances for achievements grow, whereas the chances decrease, when the ability is seen as fixed (stable) (Karwowski, 2013).Publishing large numbers of articles leads to a higher standard in subsequent manuscripts.This belief has been confirmed several times by the high correlations that are found between number of publications and their quality or degree of scientific eminence (Buses & Mansfield, 1984;Simonton, 1988) and is reflected in the popular saying "publish or perish".Individuals, who believe that the number of publications has a major meaning, often adopt the "the more, the better" strategy.Those, who are oriented toward quality are focused on a more ambitious goal, with fewer publications.Therefore orientation toward quality manifests itself in a tendency to elaborate.People with an orientation of this kind, set the standards for their work at a higher level and believe, that the quality of their work determines their future career as scientists.Thus they do their best to elaborate the effects of their work.Individuals oriented toward productivity are probably likely to take the risk, sometimes even experimenting, by submitting an imperfect manuscript for review and awaiting comments, which they treat as a form of development.On the other hand, scientists oriented toward quality will not submit a manuscript until it meets their internal standards.Orientations defined this way may constitute opposite poles of the same continuum, but lack of a quantitative attitude does not have to lead to an orientation toward quality and vice versaif a scholar is not qualitatively oriented, the tendency towards greater productivity does not necessarily increase either.
Orientation toward originality manifests itself in a sensitivity towards problems and a tendency for novelty-seeking.People who are oriented toward originality believe that science develops through discoveries and solving new problems is more likely to make their careers successful.An important aspect of this orientation is to be inspired by experience gained in creative activity in domains other than science itself.This means that they acquire their original approach to scientific problems through an orientation towards non-scientific activity (like artistic experiences).Artistic activity and the use of experience from other domains allows scientists to cross the borders of their discipline, stimulates scientific discoveries and leads to multiple scientific insights.Creative activity in many domains translates into outstanding achievements in one of them (Root-Bernstein & Root-Bernstein, 2004;Root-Bernstein, Bernstein & Garnier, 1995).Undertaking various activities mediates the relationship between creative potential and achievements.It has recently been demonstrated (Jauk, Benedek & Neubauer, 2013) that fluency, originality and openness to experience predict everyday creativity, which then translates into creative achievements.Therefore the meaning of creative non-scientific activity for scientific effectiveness may not only be inspiring, but may also have developmental importance.
Orientation toward adaptation is not the simple inverse of orientation toward originality, but an expression of another, more pessimistic vision of science.It consists of two elements: first -orientation toward restriction -is an expression of helplessness and the manifestation of a focus on constraints in the scientific environment.With this perspective, creative scientific work is very difficult.Scientific work requires subordination to a superior and it is the environment that decides which problems should be undertaken.People oriented this way also avoid different activities and hobbies, because they believe that other activities distract them from scientific work.Another element is the belief that not every scientist has to be a discoverer: improvements and the compilation of many people's work are important as well.We are therefore faced with the conviction that limitations are inevitable and the lack of a positive attitude towards creative work, which may limit the range of activities and creative achievements.
The orientations described are expected to emerge as an effect of the interaction between scholars' individual characteristics and their environment.On the one hand -traits such as openness to experience, conscientiousness or risk taking, may influence the formation of orientation, e.g.high openness to experience and high risk-taking may have particular importance for the orientation toward originality, while low levels of openness may be associated with an orientation toward adaptation.A relationship between these two orientations with creativity style (Kirton, 1976) is also expected.Correlations between style and personality have already been tested (Gelade, 2002;von Wittich & Antonakis, 2011).Orientation plays an adaptive function -the knowledge of "what to do and how", especially at the early stages of a scientific career, builds a feeling of security and supports motivation towards work."Know-how" refers to tacit knowledge and may be an expression of practical intelligence (Sternberg & Hedlund, 2002).On the other hand however, the scientific environment forms the attitudes of young scientists, because of external Relationships Between Beliefs about Scientific Work ... / CREATIVITY 1(1) 2014 expectations and standards.Supervisors, superiors and the overall climate influence the orientation adopted by graduate students and postdoctoral researchers.It still remains to be shown, whether and to what extent, these orientations predict scientific activity and achievements.

CREATIVE ACHIEVEMENTS IN SCIENCE
Creative achievement -defined as the sum of creative products generated by an individual during his/her life (Carson, Peterson & Higgins, 2005) -stems from creative thinking and actions, realized through conscious activity and deliberate practice (Karwowski, 2009).In science, creative achievements are elaborated products (Stumf, 1995).The most common approach to establishing a measure of creative achievement used in studies about creativity in science is the number of publications (a measure of the productivity) and the number of citations (a measure of the impact on the field).People at the beginning of their scientific career usually have minor influence on the domain in which they work.In the course of their work and with the passage of time, their chances of making an impact increase.The relationship between productivity and quality or eminence of scientists is positive, with a moderate to strong effect (Simonton, 1988;Stumpf, 1995); productivity translates into quality as assessed by the gate-keepers (reviewers, editors accepting the article, experts granting funding or patents).The productivity indicator is a better measure of scientific achievements at the early stage of a person's scientific career than the citation index.The citation index may increase not only as a result of positive aspects, such as the significance of a finding, but also as an example of a specific methodology or a negative example of errors in contents (Stumpf, 1995).Moreover the citation index de-favours authors publishing in languages other than English.
Despite the exploratory character of the study presented in this article, it is possible to tentatively draw up some hypotheses and to propose a rationale for them.It is hypothesised that the orientation toward quantity is positively related to the actual level of productivity and quantity of creative achievements.This is based on the assumption that people having this orientation are more motivated to finalize as many creative products as possible, because these products guarantee their development and success.Further, it would seem plausible that a more qualitative orientation correlates negatively with the quantity of creative achievements.One direction of conjecture is that excessively high standards may form an obstacle at the initial stage of a person's scientific career.An expected positive relationship between orientation toward originality and achievements is based on the assumption that non-scientific inspirations help to discover new and original research problems and foster achievements.It is also hypothesized that the orientation toward ad-aptation is negatively correlated with achievements.It is highly probable that interactions will occur between particular orientations, especially between the orientation toward quantity and the orientation toward adaptation.The most favourable conditions for scientific work are likely to be a strong focus on quantity and low orientation toward adaptation and restriction.Orientation toward quantity and quality, as well as the orientation toward originality and adaptation should occur in negative, but weak relationships.

Participants
Thirty young scientists (17 women) aged around 30 years (with M=29.43,and SD=6.91) participated in the study.Graduate students formed the majority of the sample, although it also included 8 postdoctoral researchers and one Associate Professor.All the participants were affiliated to different departments of Social Science and Science at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities (psychology and cultural studies), the University of Warsaw (English philology, philosophy), the Academy of Special Education (pedagogy), the Jagiellonian University in Krakow (mathematics and physics), Warsaw University of Technology (energetics, mechanics and management), the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw (philosophy).One participant was affiliated to the Univerisity of Euroregional Economy in Józefów -Warsaw (sociology), one other with the Paris-Sud Univerisity (computer science), and two respondents did not report their affiliation.
The response rate was very low, which indicates that young scientists are a group that are difficult to access.Voluntary participation in a study, especially one concerning creative achievement and scientific career reduces willingness to participate.At the same time, selfless assistance becomes something special in very competitive environments.

Procedure
The study was conducted via the Internet.Snowball sampling was used to complete the group.Participants received an e-mail including an invitation and a link to the study.They were informed about the goals, the subject matter of the study and its pilot nature.Their participation was not rewarded.
They were asked to provide responses on the Scale of Orientation towards Scientific Work first, and afterwards they completed the Profile of Creative Activity together with a demographic and professional description.At the end the participants were asked if they had any comments with regard to the content of the questions or any suggestions for improvement.The whole study took about 5 minutes.

Measures
Two instruments were used for the research: The Creative Activity Profile has been used in the author's earlier research, conducted among graduate students, and obtained good validity (in terms of correlation with a science scale from the Creative Achievement Questionnaire; Carson et al., 2005) and satisfactory reliability.In the current study, the reliability of achievements index was good (α=.79) and for scientific practice it was acceptable (α=.60).
The distribution of scores for creative achievements and scope of scientific activities is usually skewed (Silvia, Kaufman & Pretz, 2009).The minimum value is zero (which may occur in the first year of doctoral studies), but the maximum value has no limit (Carson et al., 2005;Silvia, et al., 2009).Eminent young scientists may have a lot of diverse accomplishments and engage in almost countless scientific activities -two eminent young scientists, whose achievements are clearly higher than the rest of the respondents, participat-ed in the study.This result reflects the real situation as regards achievements -the presence of eminent young scientists in society is undeniable.In contrast, only one person within the sample demonstrated a lack of achievements.

RESULTS
The structure of the OSWS Descriptive statistics for the assumed scales were calculated and their reliability was examined in the first step of the analysis.It was found that the reliability was too low (e.g.orientations towards quantity α=.33 and quality α=.45 ) and the correlations between the scales were ambiguous.Thus despite the small sample, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with Varimax rotation was conducted.Descriptive statistics and factor loadings for each of the 24 items used for the EFA are shown in Table 1.The analysis extracted 7 factors, explaining 64% of the variance.Only the items with loadings equal or higher than .40were analysed.Because of the small sample size, a liberal limit of acceptable skewncss of data (+/-2) was set.Only statement 15 was found to be above this limit and thus it was removed from further analysis.

Content analysis of the factors
The analysis of the factors obtained generally the assumed structure of the OSWS, but the number of items in each of the scales was reduced.Factor IV was considered as the orientation toward quantity and included items: 5, 13, 17.Items belonging to factor III -orientation toward quality -which were confirmed by the EFA are: 2, 14, 18.
Orientation toward originality was only partially confirmed and is reflected by factor II (items: 7, 11, 20).These statements focus on the role of creative activity in different domains, so the factor label was changed to "orientation toward non-scientific activity".The orientation toward adaptation was less consistent with theoretic predictions, although the obtained structure was indeed interesting (factor I).Items that loaded on this factor showed a rather pessimistic vision of scientific work, a negative evaluation of own scientific activities and helplessness.This scale consisted of statements (1, 4, 24) concerning superiors' pressure, the low ranking of problems undertaken, and the view that scientific work is time-consuming and highly difficult; therefore, the obtained factor was re-named as "orientation toward restrictions".This factor needs to be clarified and retested in further The remaining two (among seven) factors elicited by the analysis show complexity of content, which makes their interpretation difficult, therefore they will not form part of the further analysis.

TABLE 2
Structure and the Reliability of the OSWS after item reduction

Orientations, achievements and the range of scientific practice
The main purpose of this study was to explore the possible relationships between orienta- Item Orientation toward quantity α = .66717 The more publications, the greater the chance of success in science.
13 One needs to write many articles to gain ease in writing.
5 Quantity becomes quality in the case of publishing.
Orientation toward quality α = .72514 The number of articles published is less important than their quality for success in science. 2 It is better to publish one article in a good journal, than five in a moderate one.18 It is better to carefully refine one article, than write two or three quickly.
Orientation toward non-scientific activity α = .79911 People should look to apply their non-scientific interests to science.20 Artistic activity (drawing, playing a musical instrument) is an inspiration to scientific work.7 Experience gained in different domains of life should be used in scientific work.
Orientation toward restrictions α = .799 1 A scientific career depends mainly on the number of publications, not on the rank of the problems.24 Problems undertaken by scientists mostly depend on pressure from their superiors or current tendencies in the particular domain.4 It is very difficult to create something new in science.
tively and strongly, both with quantity of creative achievements (the sum of published writing, conferences and inventions) and with scientific activity (practice).Orientation toward quantity correlated positively with creative achievements (Table 3).(Aiken & West, 1991).
Figure 3 Interaction between orientations toward quantity, orientation toward quality and creative achievements.
Figure 4 Interaction between orientations toward quantity, orientation toward quality and scientific practice.
The next two analyses reflected, that orientation toward restriction is also a moderator.
The relationship between orientation toward quantity and scientific practice is not significantly different from zero for high orientation toward restriction (+1SD: B=-3.03,SE=2.07, p=ns).In circumstances where pessimistic attitude is at either low or mean levels, the relationship between orientation toward quantity and range of scientific practice is  Finally, it is worth mentioning that no significant relationships were observed when Spearman rank-order correlations were used, or when creative achievement and scientific practice were log-transformed.The skewness for the distribution of the scores for both achievements and practice indicates, that we might be dealing with Poisson distributions (Silvia, et al., 2009), which impedes data analysis using simple correlational or regression methods.Regression analyses, using a log-transformed creative achievements indicator, demonstrated a significant relationship only with the orientation toward restrictions (β = -.42;p < .05),although orientation toward quantity was marginally significant (β = .31;p =.09).

DISCUSSION
Orientations toward quality, quantity, originality and adaptation express different beliefs and mind-sets (Karwowski, 2013) related to scientific work: writing articles and solving problems.Orientations may influence the range and level of scientific practice and creative achievements (Bandura, 1997;Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara & Pastorelli, 2001).
Discovering the way in which people think about their work and its results, may form an important direction in studies about the determinants of creativity.Orientations or attitudes of scientists have so far not been defined clearly enough to allow their psychometric measurement (Root-Bernstein, Bernstein & Garnier, 1995).Research conducted among students concerning perception of scientific work (Eijck van, Hsu & Roth, 2009) also differ from the approach proposed in this paper, where it is assumed that orientations are flexible, and amenable to being shaped by the environment.
The results obtained are only partially coherent with the initial model.However, after the reduction of the variables, the remaining items reliably measured orientations toward quality and quantity in scientific work.Orientations toward adaptation and originality, were only partially reconstructed.In the case of orientation toward originality, only the component which concerns non-scientific activity was confirmed, therefore the name "orientation Relationships Between Beliefs about Scientific Work ... / CREATIVITY 1(1) 2014 toward non-scientific activity" would seem to be more adequate.The orientation toward adaptation also showed a different character than that expected, and hence the obtained factor was named "orientation toward restrictions".The small number of statements for particular scales leaves space for further work, although the brief nature of the instrument should be treated as an advantage -short research instruments require less time and guarantee reliability of results (Jonason & Webster, 2010;Karwowski, Lebuda & Wiśniewska, in press).
Orientation toward quantity confirmed its predictive validity towards creative achievements in both correlation and regression analyses.The young scientists examined, who regard publishing as a crucial aspect of scientific work and a skill that may be developed with practice, demonstrating awareness that their career depends on the number of articles published, are characterized by higher creative achievements.The belief that quantity becomes quality, may form one of the correlates of success in science.Orientation toward restrictions showed a negative relationship with both scientific practice and creative achievements.The vision of science that characterizes less active and less effective scientists consists of the following elements: perception of a career in science as being dependent only on productivity and not the rank of the problems undertaken; the choice of direction in research being influenced externally and evaluation of creative work as highly difficult.These associations are quite strong and require deeper reflection: are such beliefs a result of actual experience in the work environment, that influence orientation and inhibit work?Or perhaps people, who for some reason do not work effectively enough, are looking for reasons in the specificity of scientific work?Causal relationships should be examined in future research, but significant interaction effects between orientations are an important step towards a better understanding of the problem.The interaction of orientation toward quantity along with low self-constraints and external influence is beneficial for practice and performance in science.This means, that beliefs about the specifics of scientific work manifest themselves in decisions concerning how to work and the effects of these actions.
Neither orientation toward quality, nor orientation toward non-scientific activity correlated with creative output.The orientation toward quality showed marginal negative tendencies in correlations, which became even stronger in regression analysis.This suggests that too strong a need to elaborate and excessively high ambitions do not necessarily foster practice and achievements.The results of the further regression analyses confirm the importance of orientation toward quality.Its interactive relationships with orientation toward quantity indicate that recognition of productivity as a way for developing a person's own skills and as an important element in fostering the development of a scientific career together with low orientation toward quality and elaboration, leads to a higher number of creative achievements in science.The results illustrate, that science is a highly competitive work environment, in which the principle: "more, faster", leads to success.

Limitations and Future Studies
This research was conducted on a small sample and should be treated as a pilot study.
Such a small group may cause instability in the results of the factor analysis, and hence the results should be treated indicatively.However, it is particularly important to emphasize that both creative achievements and scientific practice were analysed through the prism of individual productivity.In future, it is necessary to take into account qualitative criteria of achievement -scientific work is a phenomenon that cannot be limited only to the raw quantity of accomplishments.
In the future it is important to improve the presented scale.More complex research, conducted on a larger scale, will allow the status of orientation towards practice and creative achievements to be clarified, while at the same time considering the stage of an individual's scientific career.Is the orientation toward quantity related to the beginning of a scientific career?Does it become crucial when the potential is realized?Does the orientation change over the years, and with a decrease in productivity (Simonton, 1988) are achievements driven by a more qualitative orientation?These and other questions so far remain unanswered.
liefs about scientific work.Differences in publishing and research priorities seem to be especially important when attempting to explain different attitudes and styles in scientific practice.So far, no scale measuring orientation towards scientific work has been published.Based on the results discussed below, as well as the informal analysis of the work of young scientists (author's unpublished research), in this study, four orientations have Relationships Between Beliefs about Scientific Work ... / CREATIVITY 1(1) 2014been distinguished: the orientation toward quantity, the orientation toward quality, the orientation toward originality and the orientation toward adaptation.
Relationships Between Beliefs about Scientific Work ... / CREATIVITY 1(1) 2014 The Orientation toward Scientific Work Scale (OSWS) is a new scale developed for the purposes of this study.It describes individual beliefs about work and a career in science.Participants used a 5-point scale to describe the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with each of the statements (1=definitely not, 5=definitely yes).The initial version of the OSWS consisted of 24 statements, 6 relating to each of the 4 scales: orientation toward quantity, orientation toward quality, orientation toward originality and orientation toward adaptation.The Creative Activity Profile (CAP)a scale concerning detailed achievements and productivity in science.Based on the CAP, two indicators were extracted: (1) creative achievements and (2) scientific practice.Creative achievements were defined by means of a total of 14 questions which concerned: the number of published scientific articles (peer-reviewed and published in Polish or English languages), the number of chapters published in edited books, the number of authored books (as author or co-author), the number of utility designs, inventions, patents, implementations i.e. in industry, the number of grants received and active participation in conferences.Scientific practice was measured in terms of all scientific activities, that foster gaining new experiences and contributing to an increase in competencies.The practice indicator shows the level and range of scientific activity and it includes elements such as: the realization of individual and team research projects, seminar activity, authorship of unpublished research reports, popular publications or preparation of materials for conferences.These important elements of scientific work precede any achievements but can lead to them (the more you work, the greater the chance of achievements, the more research projects realized, the more material you have for publication, etc), but practice alone cannot determine the success of a scientist.
tion toward science and the actual level of creative achievements and scientific practice among young scientists.Distributions and descriptive measures of creative achievements and scientific practice are shown in Figure 1-2 and Table 3.To examine whether the obtained orientations (qualitative, quantitative, orientation toward non-scientific activity and orientation toward restrictions) are related to creative achievements and scientific practice, a correlation analysis was conducted.Orientation toward restriction correlated nega-Relationships Between Beliefs about Scientific Work ... / CREATIVITY 1(1) 2014

Figure 1
Figure 1 Distribution of creative achievements.

Figure 2
Figure 2 Distribution of scientific practice.

Figure 5
Figure5Interaction between orientations toward quantity, orientation toward restriction and creative achievements.

Figure 6
Figure 6 Interaction between orientations toward quantity, orientation toward restriction and scientific practice.
The reliability of the four main factors is presented in Table2.Further work is also required in the case of the next factor, which consisted of two parallel statements concerning individual and group publishing, and statement 8 concerning compilation of work and exploration.Nevertheless, in this case the reliability was acceptable (α=.761); it is likely that reformulation of statement 8 to a more unequivocal statement is necessary.

TABLE 3 Intercorrelations between orientations, achievements and scientific practice
Two regression analyses were conducted to determine whether orientations predict creative achievements in science and scientific practice.The significant predictors of quantity of creative achievements were: orientation toward quantity (β=.44; p<.01), orientation toward quality (β=-.33;p<.05) and orientation toward restrictions (β=-.55;p<.001).