Creative practices in the classroom and the creativity of teachers: An exploratory study in elementary schools

Abstract

Creativity has been required for teacher practices in the classroom, but this association needs further evaluation. Also, the concepts of creative person and creative teacher are distinguished, but this distinction is more explored theoretical than empirically. This exploratory study analyzes the relationship between self-assessment of creativity made by teachers and creative practices in the classroom perceived by them. To evaluate the practices, the Inventory of Teaching Practices for Creativity in Higher Education (Morais et al., 2014) was used. To assess teachers’ creativity, the instrument was Creative Personality Scale (Garcês et al., 2015). The sample was 111 teachers from the 2nd and 3rd cycles of Basic Education in Portugal. Mostly they were women, with ages between 31 and 61 years old and exercised the teaching function between 4 and 37 years. The results showed statistically significant correlations between dimensions of the Inventory of Creative Teaching Practices and the unifactorial Creative Personality Scale. The multivariate analysis of variance showed statistically significant differences in teaching practices due to the creativity of teachers, with fluctuations in creative practices in different groups (more and less creative teachers). The data may be useful for the investigation and the training of teachers, namely for reflections and practices.