Abstract

Although person-environment fit (PEF) has been extensively studied in organizational psychology and business literature, its application to educational context has been limited. The current study used PEF framework in terms of creativity within the context of higher education. The nature of relationship between person-environment fit, college culture, creative and academic self-efficacy has been investigated. Analyses based on two different formulations of PEF indicated that college culture, creative and academic self-efficacy are the highest when both person and environment components are high. Specific analyses with misfit scores indicated that college culture generates a pro-environment discrepancy. Creative self-efficacy is more related to person component whereas college culture and academic self-efficacy were related to environment component. Results are discussed in relation to the literature and theories of creativity.

Key words: Person-environment fit, creativity, college culture, creative self-efficacy, academic self-efficacy.