Do Physical Educators Promote Students’ Creativity? An Observational Analysis Study

Abstract

The ordinary nature of creativity and the global acceptance of its significance have made it a key characteristic of citizens in knowledge-based societies. Although research interest in recording teachers' perceptions on creativity and its promotion have been noticeably increasing, a remarkable gap has been observed in teachers' behaviors and actions to promote creativity. The purpose of this study was to delineate teaching behaviors and actions when educators try to promote students' creativity in class. The Creativity Fostering Teacher Behaviors (CFTB) checklist is based on the well-established theory of Cropley (1997), who suggested what behaviors teachers should demonstrate to foster their students' creativity. The CFTB checklist has been developed through a content validity method and has been tested for interrater reliability, which has been found to be very satisfactory. We observed 30 physical educators (PEds) twice during PE lessons in which they aimed to foster students' creative expression. PEds expressed only a minority of their creativity-fostering behaviors and actions, especially those associated with encouraging the responsibility of learning, such as the enhancement of autonomy, independence, and social integration, during learning processes. On the contrary, the enhancement of flexibility, a top indicator of creative achievements denoting a person's divergent thinking, and the positive management of failure and frus-Elisavet P.

A Review of Articles Using Observation Methods to Study Creativity in Education (1980–2018)

“…Most studies developed a framework of creative teaching behaviors through exhaustive reviews of research on creativity and instruction in a particular area of learning (Al‐Abdali & Al‐Balushi, ; Konstantinidou & Zisi, ; Pitts, Anderson, & Haney, ; Richardson & Mishra, ) and, in some cases, compared findings from past research with their own field notes. Konstantinidou and Zisi () adapted an extant self‐report measure aligned to Cropley's () framework to create a short behavioral observation checklist of the environment. Al‐Abdali and Al‐Balushi () framed their approach specifically around science teaching for creativity.…”

“…Richardson and Mishra () developed their measure primarily to be used by educators and school administrators to help improve the design of learning environments to support creativity in learning. Konstantinidou and Zisi () produced an 18‐item checklist for evaluative purposes to detect the level of support for creativity in physical education classes. Whereas most designs required observers to check behaviors observed directly, Schacter et al.…”

“…() observed 48 elementary school teachers eight times each for a whole class period at different times of the day using ethnographic field notes as the basis for ratings. Some studies provided extensive detail about the procedures used to observe and rate the environment (Gadja et al., ; Konstantinidou & Zisi, ; Pitts et al., ; Richardson & Mishra, ; Schacter et al., ) and others provided much less specificity (Al‐Abdali & Al‐Balushi, ; Furman, ; Ruscio et al., ). Notably, Gadja et al.…”

“…Across protocol, researchers kept the number of indicators below 20. Most studies used a Likert scale rubric with ratings (e.g., from “no evidence” to “fully present”); only Konstantinidou and Zisi () and Torrents et al. () used a behavioral checklist with actual frequency counts.…”

“…() used a behavioral checklist with actual frequency counts. Most studies included more than one observation instance in their data collection (Konstantinidou & Zisi, ; Schacter et al., ) and Ruscio et al. () used the observation ratings of individuals’ engagement with tasks from three different domains.…”