Teachers Are Not Always Right: Links between Teacher Ratings and Students' Creativity Scores, Self-Images and Self-Ratings in School Subjects

Abstract

The study investigated the relation between teachers' assessments and creativity tests. Earlier research has shown that teachers are not accurate judges of creativity. We sought to clarify what might bias teachers' assessments. Results from creativity tests were compared with school children's self-descriptions and teachers' ratings of creativity. Sixty-one 10-year old children (31 girls, 30 boys) took three creativity tests (e. g. Alternate Uses Test) and filled out a self-image inventory. Their teachers (N = 7) filled out a 16-item scale for each student. The results showed that high levels of students' academic achievement, cooperation ability and psychological well-being were associated with the teachers' assessments of their students' creativity but not with the creativity measures. The teacher assessments of creativity were significantly related to only one of three creativity measures. Moreover, teachers rated both traits typical of creative people and traits typical of non-creative people as closely linked to their conception of creativity. The teacher ratings of creativity were not related to the children's idea generating ability.

Polite Girls and Creative Boys? Students' Gender Moderates Accuracy of Teachers' Ratings of Creativity

“…First, these studies are most frequently conducted on small, rarely random samples. This is especially apparent when it comes to the number of teachers—often the creativity of quite a large group of students is assessed by a few teachers, often less than a dozen or so (Hoff & Carlsson, ; Kousoulas & Mega, ; Sommer et al., ).…”

Are Teachers' Implicit Theories of Creativity Related to the Recognition of Their Students' Creativity?

“…Let us put it simply: teachers are usually poor in recognizing their students' creative potential—at least these aspects of creative potential that creativity tests measure. Teacher nominations of students' creativity either have nothing to do with students' (psychometrically measured) creativity (Brandau et al., ; Hoff & Carlsson, ; Morgan, Latham, & Shifflet, ; Rudowicz, ) or only weakly correlate with them (Auzmendi, Villa, & Abedi, ; Gralewski & Karwowski, ; Karwowski, ; Karwowski, Gralewski, & Szumski, ; Kousoulas & Mega, ; Mann, ; Sommer, Fink, & Neubauer, ; Urhahne, ). Such correlations range from r = −.14 (Hoff & Carlsson, ) even to r = .48 (Renzulli, Hartman, & Callahan, ); in most cases, though, they are in the low twenties (Auzmendi et al., ; Urhahne, ).…”

“…Teacher nominations of students' creativity either have nothing to do with students' (psychometrically measured) creativity (Brandau et al., ; Hoff & Carlsson, ; Morgan, Latham, & Shifflet, ; Rudowicz, ) or only weakly correlate with them (Auzmendi, Villa, & Abedi, ; Gralewski & Karwowski, ; Karwowski, ; Karwowski, Gralewski, & Szumski, ; Kousoulas & Mega, ; Mann, ; Sommer, Fink, & Neubauer, ; Urhahne, ). Such correlations range from r = −.14 (Hoff & Carlsson, ) even to r = .48 (Renzulli, Hartman, & Callahan, ); in most cases, though, they are in the low twenties (Auzmendi et al., ; Urhahne, ). Teachers similarly poorly recognize their students' creativity‐related personality traits (Karwowski, ), and their ratings weakly correspond with students' self‐assessments (Beghetto, Kaufman, & Baxter, ; Hoff & Carlsson, ), peer nominations (Lau & Li, ), or parents' nominations (Chan, ).…”

“…Such correlations range from r = −.14 (Hoff & Carlsson, ) even to r = .48 (Renzulli, Hartman, & Callahan, ); in most cases, though, they are in the low twenties (Auzmendi et al., ; Urhahne, ). Teachers similarly poorly recognize their students' creativity‐related personality traits (Karwowski, ), and their ratings weakly correspond with students' self‐assessments (Beghetto, Kaufman, & Baxter, ; Hoff & Carlsson, ), peer nominations (Lau & Li, ), or parents' nominations (Chan, ). To sum up, usually the accuracy of teachers' nominations is only slightly higher than a coin toss (58.2%, Urhahne, ).…”

Criatividade na educação infantil: contribuições da psicologia cultural para a investigação de concepções e práticas de educadores

“…A predominância de modelos que investigam a criatividade por meio de uma perspectiva positivista e experimental tem sido fortemente evidenciada na psicologia. Em grande parte dos estudos, encontramos o fenômeno criativo analisado quantitativamente, com suas dimensões constituintes apartadas do todo, sem que haja, necessariamente, a construção de um corpo teórico sistêmico e integrado, com enfoque desenvolvimental, que explique a criatividade em sua complexidade e abrangente constituição (Batey, Furnham, & Safiullina, 2010;Hoff & Carlsson, 2011). Compreendida como fenômeno humano, a criatividade pode e deve ser investigada em sua gênese e processo de desenvolvimento, com foco no sujeito e suas dinâmicas de inserção na cultura por meio de reguladores semióticos que a circundam e mobilizam ao longo da ontogênese.…”