Open science and youth creativity: Evidence from Ukrainian university students
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DOIhttp://dx.doi.org/10.21511/kpm.09(2).2025.12
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Article InfoVolume 9 2025, Issue #2, pp. 163-183
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Type of the article: Research Article
Amid growing global challenges such as technological change and socio-economic uncertainty, fostering youth creativity has become vital for sustainable development. In Ukraine, open science provides a promising pathway to develop key competences like creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration, essential for navigating ongoing social and educational transformation. This study aims to investigate the relationship between Ukrainian young people's engagement with open science practices and their creative development across academic disciplines and educational levels. Drawing on data from a nationwide survey of 2,250 Ukrainian university students (Bachelor, Master, and Ph.D.), this study applies non-parametric methods to analyze how young people engage with open science. The results show that engagement with open science practices among Ukrainian students varies significantly by both level of education and field of study. Ph.D. students report the highest frequency of participation (median = 4.0 on a 5-point scale), significantly more than Bachelor's and Master's students (Kruskal-Wallis χ² = 44.92, p < 0.001). They also rate mentorship and collaborative research as more effective for creativity (e.g., mentorship: p = 0.00008 between Bachelor and Master levels). Disciplinary differences are most evident in the perceived effectiveness of webinars (χ² = 31.69, p = 0.0002) and collaborative research (χ² = 23.34, p = 0.0055), with students from engineering and life sciences showing the highest appreciation. These differentiated patterns confirm that the creative development potential of open science is powerfully shaped by students’ academic stage and disciplinary background.
Acknowledgment
This research was funded by the grant VEGA 1/0271/23 “Sustainable renewal of spa tourism in the Slovak Republic in the context of the impacts of civilisation crises”. This research was also prepared as part of projects 0124U000545 and ERASMUS-JMO-2022-HEI-TCH-RSCH-101085198.
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References51
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Tables9
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Figures4
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- Figure 1. Relationship between education level and frequency of open science usage
- Figure 2. Distribution of open science usage by education level
- Figure 3. Heatmap of student agreement that open access helps idea generation vs. reported motivation from open science initiatives
- Figure 4. Heatmap of differences in perceived effectiveness of open science practices by education level
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- Table 1. Distribution of respondents by field of study, compared to the national proportions
- Table 2. Variables and their descriptions
- Table 3. Distribution of responses by variable
- Table 4. Results of Dunn’s post-hoc test comparing levels of agreement with open access benefits and motivation from open science initiatives
- Table 5. Kruskal-Wallis test results for perceived effectiveness by education level
- Table 6. Dunn’s post-hoc test results for differences in perceived effectiveness of open science practices by education level
- Table 7. Kruskal-Wallis test results for perceived effectiveness by education field
- Table 8. Dunn’s post-hoc comparisons (p-values) for differences in perceived effectiveness of open science practices by field of study
- Table A1. Open science methods assessment checkbox
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