Fostering Creativity in the Classroom: Effects of Teachers' Epistemological Beliefs, Motivation, and Goal Orientation

Abstract

The relationships of teachers' epistemological beliefs, motivation, and goal orientation to their instructional practices that foster student creativity were examined. Teachers' perceived instructional practices that facilitate the development of multiple perspectives in problem solving, transfer, task commitment, creative skill use, and collaboration were measured as indicators of their effort to foster creative thinking in students. Participants were 178 elementary-school teachers of third-, fourth-, and fifth-graders. Teachers' learning goal orientation was the most significant teacher attribute that demonstrated significant impacts on all five creativity-fostering instructional practices. Teachers with sophisticated beliefs about knowledge and with high intrinsic motivation for creative work also reported supporting student creativity through some of their instructional practices. However, teachers' motivation for challenging work, beliefs about learning, or performance goals did not significantly predict most of the creativityfostering instructional practices. Educational implications of the current findings are offered.

Preservice Teachers' Personality Traits and Engagement in Creative Activities as Predictors of Their Support for Children's Creativity

“…Two aspects of teachers' individual characteristics that are related to their teaching approach are personality traits and the nature of previous experiences (Hong, Hartzell, & Greene, 2009;Kourilsky, Esfandiari, & Wittrock, 1996;Rushton, Morgan, & Richard, 2007). This study was designed to examine relationships among personality factors, engagement in creative activities, and preferred teaching practices to support children's creativity in a group of teachers-in-training (preservice teachers).…”

The Relations between Scientific Epistemological Beliefs and Goal Orientations of Pre-Service Teachers

“…When teachers emphasize a mastery oriented learning environment, students were more likely to adopt personal mastery goals (Kaplan & Maehr, 1999). Besides, teachers' mastery goal orientation and sophisticated beliefs on knowledge had significant impact on creativity-fostering teaching practices (Hong, Hartzell, & Greene, 2009). Similarly, scientific epistemological views of teachers affected their own science teaching practices and their students' science perceptions (Tsai, 2006;Muis & Foy, 2010) and students' scientific epistemological views were related to how they perceived their science learning environment (Tsai, 2000).…”

Do Saudi EFL Teachers Promote Creativity in Their Classrooms?

“…The objective of the second part of the questionnaire (an additional 11 items) was to identify EFL teachers' attitudes towards creativity in their EFL classes. In constructing the questionnaire, the items of the section on the instructional activities that facilitate the development of creative thinking and the formation of creative habits were developed in accordance with the findings and recommendations provided by both the leading authors in the field of creativity in general and those who were specifically interested in fostering creativity in foreign language classrooms (e.g., Lee, 2013;Ong, Hartzell, & Greene, 2009;Runco, 2007;Renzulli, Smith, White, Callahan, Hartman, & Westberg, 2002;Daiute & Dalton, 1993).…”