What is known about the relationship between teachers’ beliefs about creativity

Despite the large number of studies focusing on teachers’ creativity-related views found in the current empirical literature, exploring the relationships between teachers’

beliefs about creativity and instructional practices has been the focus of a relatively small number of studies (n=19). Some of these investigated the direct relationship between teachers’ espoused beliefs and enacted practice triangulating the data collected from questionnaires, interviews, documents with those obtained through classroom

observation. Another group of studies revealed associations between teachers’ beliefs and practices regarding creativity indirectly either by comparing teachers’ perspectives with those of other participants’, such as students or professional colleagues or by relying exclusively on teachers’ self-reports.

The relationship between teachers’ espoused beliefs and enacted classroom practices

Seven studies included in the present review compared the direct relationship between teachers’ espoused beliefs about creativity and their enacted classroom practices.

Adams (2013) showed that teachers’ definitions of and experiences with creativity had an impact on teaching creativity skills. In her multi-case study conducted in a school district from Pennsylvania, primary teachers provided examples of classroom practices which were in alignment with how these teachers defined creativity: those who viewed creativity as thinking outside the box offered lesson examples in which students were asked to generate unique solutions, whereas those who argued that creativity involved the application of knowledge required students to create or build a product. The same consistency between views and practices was found by Lasky and Yoon (2011) in their grounded theory study set in the US which investigated teachers’ assumptions about creativity in the context of an engineering design project. Lasky and Yoon (2011) showed that teachers’ views, both those aligned with creativity research and those based on misconceptions, were evident in teachers’ classroom practices, contributing to either the encouragement of creativity or its suppression.

Other studies highlighted inconsistencies between teachers’ beliefs, perceptions and practices concerning creativity. For example, in his multiple study involving primary school science teachers and students from Kuwait, Alsahou (2015) found some positive creativity-fostering beliefs, but a lack of creativity-fostering practices, across the eight cases he examined. The study also indicated incongruence between technology-enabled creativity beliefs which reflected student-centred approaches and teachers’ actual practices which primarily involved teacher-centred activities of knowledge transmission.

Similarly, Lev-Zamir and Leikin (2013), in their phenomenological study examining two mathematics teachers’ creativity beliefs in Israel, noted that that although the teachers’

declarative conceptions of creativity in mathematics were similar, their conceptions-in-action showed significant differences. In his grounded theory study focusing on English

language teachers’ understanding of creativity in the context of primary education in Kuwait, Alkhars (2013) found several similarities and differences between how participants viewed creativity in the interviews, and how they acted it in the classroom.

Additional studies highlighted a mismatch between positive self-reported views and classroom practice regarding the encouragement of creativity. In a mixed method study focusing on teachers’ creativity beliefs in science, Meyer and Lederman (2013) pointed out that secondary science teachers valued creativity and claimed to encourage it in the classroom, but they demonstrated misconceptions about the nature and efficacy of certain activities in promoting scientific creativity in their practice. Further misalignment between teachers’ positive creativity views and classroom practices were revealed by Shaheen (2011) in an explanatory mixed method study conducted in Pakistani primary education settings. Primary teachers in the study outlined several methods for encouraging students’ creativity in their survey responses. Observational findings showed, however, that these methods were completely absent from the classroom instruction during which teachers emphasized rote memorization rather than creativity.

Furthermore, many teachers claimed that textbooks promote creativity, nevertheless the analysis of these concluded that the contents of these focused primarily on knowledge acquisition.

Differences in teachers’ and non-teachers’ self-reported beliefs

Three studies focused on comparing in-service teachers’ self-reported creativity views with the perspectives of other participants, such as students, principals and domain professionals. Investigating teachers’ and students’ perceptions of the creative climate in the English secondary design and technology classroom in the UK, McLellan and Nicholl (2012) revealed several differences. While students felt that their task lacked challenge, were often asked to do meaningless work, had limited freedom, and needed more support to realize their ideas, many teachers felt quite the opposite. For example, few teachers acknowledged that the work they set was unchallenging and some did not see the necessity of setting real-life meaningful tasks. Also, few recognized the contradiction between indicating that they granted students freedom and affirming to control learning outcomes or simply not allowing students enough time for exploration and risk-taking.

Misalignment between teachers’ and students’ views were also highlighted by Hartley (2015), who, in her study sampling elementary science teachers and their students in

China, found a statistically significant difference between teachers’ perception of how they encouraged primary students’ mini-c creativity and their students’ creative self-efficacy beliefs in science. According to Hartley (2015), teachers’ positive perceptions of creativity-fostering practices and lower student self-efficacy scores suggested that educators might have overestimated the extent to which they promoted creativity in the classroom. Investigating how primary mathematics teachers, mathematicians, and psychologists working in mathematics education conceive creativity, Dickman (2014) found that there was no intra-group agreement among teachers with regard to what constitutes a creative multiplication problem, whereas intragroup agreement was found among psychologists who worked in mathematics education, and poor agreement in case of mathematicians.

Inconsistencies in teachers’ self-reported creativity beliefs

There were nine studies that uncovered the associations between teachers’ beliefs and practices regarding creativity based on teachers self-reports. These studies all revealed inconsistencies or inadequacies in teachers’ self-reported beliefs about the encouragement of creativity. For example, in a case study examining Kuwaiti EFL teachers attitudes and perceptions of practice regarding creative thinking, Al-Nouh et al.

(2014), found that while most teachers had positive attitudes towards creativity and strong perceptions of encouraging it, some of them perceived non-creativity-fostering EFL activities as creative ones. Examining primary teachers’ conceptions of scientific creativity Newton and Newton (2010) found that some teachers did not have clear conceptions of what scientifically creative thought was, and could not distinguish between creative and reproductive activities. Furthermore, in a survey study conducted by Zbainos and Anastasopoulou (2012), Greek music teachers expressed high levels of self-efficacy in teaching and assessing creativity-fostering music activities, nevertheless many of them perceived non-creative activities as creative, also having vague ideas about how to assess students’ creativity in music.

Four survey studies (Aish, 2014; Cachia & Ferrari, 2010; Fairfield, 2010;

Konstantinidou et al., 2014) reported that though teachers held positive views about creativity and had high perceptions of fostering it, they did not support a number of classroom activities that could encourage students’ creative expression, including those enhanced by technology (Cachia & Ferrari, 2010). A correlational study aimed at

investigating US teachers’ implicit conceptions of creativity showed that though teachers held positive beliefs about creativity and felt capable of nurturing students’ creative potential, they perceived low levels of environmental encouragement, suggesting that they might not feel able to foster creativity in their current environment (DaVia Rubenstein et al., 2013).

Finally, in two survey studies many teachers claimed to foster student’ creativity, but did not provide examples of activities when prompted to do so (Al-Nouh et al., 2014;

Tomasevic & Trivic, 2014), which might indicate a lack of time or interest towards completing the survey. It may, however, also signal a lack of knowledge about strategies that encourage creativity in education.