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Early Child Development and Care

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The creative environment: teachers’ perceptions,self-efficacy, and teaching experience for fosteringchildren’s creativity

Kholoud Adeeb Al-Dababneh, Eman K. Al-Zboon & Jamal Ahmad

To cite this article: Kholoud Adeeb Al-Dababneh, Eman K. Al-Zboon & Jamal Ahmad (2017): Thecreative environment: teachers’ perceptions, self-efficacy, and teaching experience for fosteringchildren’s creativity, Early Child Development and Care, DOI: 10.1080/03004430.2017.1400969

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2017.1400969

Published online: 12 Nov 2017.

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The creative environment: teachers’ perceptions, self-efficacy, andteaching experience for fostering children’s creativityKholoud Adeeb Al-Dababneh, Eman K. Al-Zboon and Jamal Ahmad

Department of Special Education, Queen Rania Faculty for Childhood, Hashemite University, Al-Zarqa, Jordan

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this study was to compare the availability of a creativeenvironment within regular schools between the academic year 2009/2010 and 2015/2016 by measuring teachers’ perceptions concerningcreativity, their self-efficacy, teaching creativity, and barriers to creativity.A questionnaire was developed and distributed among 297 teachersteaching the basic primary stage (grades 1–3). The findings indicatedhigh averages for teaching creativity in the classroom, and teachers’ self-efficacy to foster children’s creativity in the classroom ranked thehighest, while barriers to creativity ranked the lowest. The resultsshowed significant differences due to teacher gender, in favour offemale teachers, and teaching experience only regarding perceptions ofthe creativity domain. There were statistically significant differencesbetween the academic years for the overall scale and the four domainsin favour of the 2015/2016 academic year. Directions for further researchand practical implications for policy and practice are discussed.

ARTICLE HISTORYReceived 14 September 2017Accepted 1 November 2017

KEYWORDSChildren; primary teachers;creative environment

Introduction

Creativity is considered as a process that strengthens mind skills in a way that leads to bringingabout a completely new approach; creativity is not only originality, but also efficacy (e.g. Runco,2014; Runco & Jaeger, 2012), and results in something original and effective being produced, aswell as being a form of behaviour in which a child resists routine answers, tolerates and evenlooks for contradictions, considers uncertainty, and instigates insecurity that may give way tonovel and effective products based on previous experience (Cole, Sugioka, & Yamagata-Lynch,2009; Peter-Szarka, 2012). Creative children are intrinsically motivated, and try different ways totackle a problem and finish complicated tasks, while working with others to find imaginativevalue solutions (Fazelian & Azimi, 2013; Turner, 2013).

Thus from an education perspective, creativity is considered an essential skill for children to fosterand adapt within our complex and changing society, as it helps a child to be an effective and pro-ductive person (Craft, 2003). Fostering children’s creativity in schools plays a fruitful role in their per-sonal and intellectual development (Hui, Chow, Chan, Chui, & Sam, 2015), together with increasingtheir self-concept (Fleith, 2000), self-esteem, and social development (Uszynska-Jarmoc, 2005). Itcan also help them to release tension, and be more healthy, optimistic and persistent in solving pro-blems in a creative way (Peter-Szarka, 2012), thereby improving their expression and empathyresponses (Webster, 2010), and increasing their motivation and sense of personal well-being(Humes, 2011; Turner, 2013).

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

CONTACT Kholoud Adeeb Al-Dababneh dababneh@hu.edu.jo Queen Rania Faculty for Childhood, Department of SpecialEducation, Hashemite University, Al-Zarqa 13115, Jordan

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As a result, there is a growing awareness of the benefit of teaching creativity for all children andtheir communities. Creative thinking can help in building effective interactions between children andprovide encouragement in their environment, and in recent years many countries have begun to con-sider creativity as an important aspect of education (Craft, 2003), with a corresponding high interestin providing creative environments where children’s creativity can be fostered (Hui et al., 2015). Thus,the role of schools has changed from simply being a place in which to provide children with infor-mation to being a place which enables the development of children’s talents and creative potential(Peter-Szarka, 2012; Stojanova, 2010). As a response to this change, teachers, who are considered themain people within the education process and who have the responsibility to encourage children’screativity, are required to find new pathways to nurture children and facilitate a creative teachingenvironment within their classrooms (Sak, 2004; Smears, Cronin, & Walsh, 2011).

In order to create a creative environment, teachers need to teach creatively and to teach creativity.Teaching creatively may be described as teachers using imaginative approaches to make learningmore attractive, engaging, exciting, and effective. Teaching creativity is described as using modelsand strategies for creative teaching that aim to foster children’s creativity (Morris, 2006). Thus, tocreate a creative teaching environment, teachers need to be highly motivated, have high expec-tations, and have the ability to communicate and listen to children (Morris, 2006).

Beghetto and Kaufman (2014) highlight teachers’ behaviours that can effect on foster children’screativity in the classroom, which is through playing as a model for the formation of children’s crea-tive behaviours, as well as building a classroom atmosphere where creativity flourishes by respondingconstructively to unusual ideas. Teachers’ characteristics should include openness, knowledge of therequirements, and confidence in themselves and in their particular field (Morris, 2006). Teachers alsoneed to be familiar with techniques that stimulate children’s curiosity and creativity (Lou & Chen,2012), including motivating children to reflect, engage in dialogue and ask questions, instead ofimposing on children the requirement to simply listen, dictate, and memorize, thereby preparing chil-dren to be active and discover new things (Morris, 2006; Stojanova, 2010). To create a creativeenvironment, teachers need to work as a stimulus for creative thinking through brainstorming, toler-ating disagreement, and encouraging children to trust their own judgements (Brinkman, 2010).Diverse strategies should be employed to present content and when leading discussions, in orderto encourage studying issues from a variety of different perspectives (Hamza & Griffith, 2006). More-over, teachers must encourage self-initiated projects (Starko, 2005), make learning fun and providechildren with positive feedback (Beghetto & Kaufman, 2014).

Teachers also need to create a ‘responsive’ and flexible classroom climate, where children are notafraid to express and share their ideas, and which encourages imagination and values collaborativework between children (Cameron, 2010). To achieve such a creative environment, teachers shouldalso be highly enthusiastic, appreciate individual differences, value children’s efforts and ideas,provide opportunities to practise and experiment without the threat of assessment (Fasko, 2001),and pay greater attention to children’s self-evaluation rather than the evaluation of others (Stojanova,2010). As well, children should participate actively in the learning process and have their own specifictasks and activities, and should be encouraged to be free thinking, to choose activities (Cole et al.,1999; Peter-Szarka, 2012), and make their own decision (Puccio & Cabra, 2010).

Fleith (2000) reported that in a creative environment the teacher should place a greater emphasison discovering information, should pose open-ended questions, and should provide many options,rather than employing a standardized model and planned curriculum. In a creative environment,there is less need to teach because this renders students more passive, and all forms of workshould be undertaken as this makes the students become activists (Stojanova, 2010). Finally, enhan-cing children’s creativity requires a rich learning environment with diverse materials and a wide rangeof resources and tools, including technologically based resources (Beghetto & Kaufman, 2014), andwith space to work independently (Stojanova, 2010).

Despite the education policies of many countries focusing on preparing children to be a pro-ductive person within society and some teachers accepting the concept of a creative environment

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and trying to apply it within their classrooms, many researchers have highlighted the lack of empha-sis on creativity within education systems (Dababneh, Ihmeideh, & Al-Omari, 2010), school environ-ments rarely developing children’s creative potential, and many actively suppressing creativeexpression (Cole et al., 1999). Many researchers have emphasized that developing a creative environ-ment is a step that many teachers do not take (Raths, 2001), and in most classrooms children’s crea-tivity is discouraged, with children perceiving little freedom of choice (Gentry, Rizza, & Owen, 2002). Inaddition, teachers rarely employ divergent learning activities, and do not take creativity seriouslybecause it takes both time and effort to apply it in the classroom (Fasko, 2001). Stojanova (2010)also found that a teaching process focusing on verbosity and the passivity of children prevails, requir-ing them to rigidly stick to what is presented in the classroom or textbook, insisting on one correctanswer, with intolerance of children’s errors, ignoring or resisting children’s ideas or new solutions,and an authoritarian teaching attitude. There is an emphasis on students’ recalling information,and an autocratic social climate of decision-making, resulting in student being unwilling and nottaking the initiative due to an atmosphere of fear of failure, ridicule, being different, being a fool,or not willing to take risks (Strom & Strom, 2002). Children in regular schools are usually asked tosolve problems correctly the first time they are presented with them, and failure is not accepted,which has a negative effect on children’s opportunities to try a variety of ways to solve problems,and children are required to follow the provided instructions without having a choice (Potur &Barkul, 2009). Student self-evaluations and rewarding students’ creativity is rarely rewarded (Fleith,2000).

Many researchers have tried to identify factors that lead to limiting the development of a creativeenvironment, and the reasons for teachers’ failure to implement creativity. It has been noted thatdespite many teachers enjoying working with creative children and recognizing their significantrole in fostering children’s creativity and trying to bring creativity into their classroom (Hui et al.,2015), they actually tend to favour children who appear to possess less creative characteristics,such as conformity and an unquestioning acceptance of authority, disliking personality traits associ-ated with creativity (Sak, 2004), and teachers feel inadequate in achieving a creative environmentwithin their classrooms (Cheung & Mok, 2013). In results of studies in Jordan are consistent withthe results of other studies conducted around the world, demonstrating that despite increasedawareness of the importance of developing children’s creativity within school situations and thenecessity to integrate it within curriculums and daily activities, the current creative environmentremains quite limited (Dababneh, 2015; Dababneh et al., 2009).

This lack of confidence in implementing creativity in the classroom may be due to many factors,including a lack of training programmes, unskilled teachers, and teachers’ traditional views and per-ceptions of creativity (Hui et al., 2015). Some researchers have reported that teachers are often ill-equipped to foster creativity among their students, which leads to appropriate modification beingonly slowly implemented within the teaching process (Mathers & Murdock, 1999). Similarly, an exces-sive number of children within a classroom, a lack of time, material limitations, and an inadequatecurriculum can all inhibit children’s creativity (Stojanova, 2010).

In fact, having a creative environment depends on teachers’ awareness of their essential role infostering children’s creativity, and on their competency to integrate knowledge in a new way,making different combinations, or adding new ideas to existing knowledge in order to produceunusual and useful results (Mariani & Ismail, 2015). Many researchers have emphasized the influenceof teachers’ perspectives and attitudes about creativity on teachers’ ability to foster children’s crea-tivity within the classroom. Increasing teachers’ ability to foster creativity in children requires teachersto adopt realistic perceptions and positive attitudes towards fostering children’s creativity (Ruben-stein, McCoach, & Siegle, 2013). In addition, teachers’ beliefs about their self-efficacy affect boththeir motivation and actual practices for fostering children’s creativity (Gorozidis & Papaioannou,2011; Koc, 2013). Teachers’ self-efficacy, which relates to their beliefs about their ability to obtainthe desired outcome in children’s learning, affects their effort in teaching to foster children’s creativity(Ozkal, 2014). Teachers with high self-efficacy support children’s autonomy (Guvenc, 2011),

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understand their mistakes, are open to new experiences and ideas, consider child-centredapproaches in teaching (Gorozidis & Papaioannou, 2011; Koc, 2013) and use more humanistic class-room management (Savran-Gencer & Cakiroglu, 2007). All these support the development of a crea-tive learning environment in the classroom (Ozkal, 2014). Teachers with low self-efficacy levels tendto establish strict rules in the classroom and depend more on external rewards and punishments forclassroom control (Tschannen-Moran, Woolfolk-Hoy, & Woolfolk-Hoy, 1998); they also experiencehigher levels of fatigue (Bumen, 2010).

Teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning processes affect them in fostering a creative climatein the classroom. So, teachers who often use creativity-supportive practices tend to enhance theireducation goals, enjoy creative work (Hong, Hartzell, & Greene, 2009), and have knowledge aboutthe means of creativity and how to enhance it in the classroom (Ariffin & Baki, 2014).

Other different variables are effective in teachers’ fostering of a creative environment. Forexample, different results were found in studies that focused on teacher gender. Some of thesestudies found that female teachers tended to higher ratings in creativity than male teachers (Kousou-las & Mega, 2009); in contrast, other studies have shown no significant differences based on genderregarding teachers’ abilities in fostering creative behaviour among children in their classroom (Dikici,2014; Ozkal, 2014; Yenlimez & Yolcu, 2007). Much research suggests that experienced teachers stillfocus on traditional teacher-centred strategies when trying to integrate creativity into their educationactivities (Cheng, 2010; Cheung, 2010). However, Dababneh, Ihmeideh, and Al-Omari (2010) found nodifferences due to teacher experience level in promoting children’s creativity in the classroom.

The Jordanian context

Jordan is considered to be a small Arab country in the Middle East with limited natural resources; con-sequently it has paid great attention to developing its educational system, and fostering children’stalents and creativity. In order to achieve this goal, following the First National Conference on Edu-cational Development in 1987, the Ministry of Education (MoE) has implemented several policies andmeasures to improve the quality of education. For example, the adoption of action plans for the years1988–1995 and 1996–1999. In July 2003, the MoE, in coordination with the US Agency for Inter-national Development, launched Jordan’s Education Reform for the Knowledge Economy (ERfKE) pro-gramme, of which the first phase was July 2003–2009 and the second phase 2010–2015, which aimedto bring about a qualitative upgrade to school curricula and environments based on the needs of a‘knowledge economy’, employing technology, as well upgrading the capacity of workers within theeducational sector (National Center for Human Resources Development [NCHRD], 2012; MoE, 2017).The National Strategy of Early Childhood Care and Development was launched in December 2000with the aim of improving the quality and the quantity of edu-care provided to all Jordanian children,including at the lower basic education stage (6–9 years old) (MoE, 2017; UNICEF, 2008). In addition,more than 19 pioneer centres and 80 resource rooms have been established in regular schools withinthe mainstream programme for gifted and creative students across Jordan (Abu-Hamour & Al-Hmouz,2014; MoE, 2017), together with 10 public full-time schools for gifted and creative students scatteredacross the Kingdom and named King Abdulla Schools for Excellence, with an academic accelerationprogramme for students from the first to the eighth primary stages (Dababneh et al., 2009). Based ontrust in the role of teachers’ in fostering children’s creativity, Jordanian universities present many pro-grammes and courses at the undergraduate and graduate level to aid teachers and special educationteachers to prepare creative environments which aim to foster all children’s abilities and creativities(Dababneh, 2015).

However, despite the high interest in developing basic primary education in Jordan, the quality ofprimary education remains questionable, and primary grade children suffer from many educationproblems. For example, more than 100,000 students, representing 22% of children in the firstthree primary grades, suffer from weaknesses in reading and mathematics, as well the absence ofteaching creativity within the educational curriculum, and a lack of developing talent among children

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(Studies Informatics and Economics for Center Phenix, 2014). Moreover, teachers remain unclearabout their role and best practices for fostering children’s creativity (El-Zraigat, 2012).

Thus, the first step to enhancing teachers’ abilities for developing a creative environment thatfosters children’s creativity is to equip them with a good understanding of creativity and the relevantstrategies (Hui et al., 2015). Hence, there is a need to investigate whether a creative environment isbeing created by teachers and to what degree, and this is the rationale behind this study. This studyaims to increase knowledge concerning the availability of creative environments within schools andto examine whether according to teachers’ perceptions this has changed over the last five years. Thisknowledge will assist policy-makers and curriculum designers by providing valuable information con-cerning fostering creativity within classrooms via teachers’ realistic perceptions. This may help inimproving training programmes, enabling changes to be made through teacher educators or via con-tinuing professional development courses for teachers. To achieve the aim of this study the followingquestions are posed:

(1) What are teachers’ perceptions concerning the availability of creative environments withinregular primary schools that foster children’s creativity?

(2) Do teachers’ perceptions about the availability of creative environments within regular primaryschools that foster children’s creativity vary in terms of the academic year, teaching experience,and gender?

Methods

This study is quantitative in nature and was conducted using a survey methodology to study tea-chers’ perception concerning the availability of creative environments within primary schools.

Participants

The study sample consisted of 297 teachers randomly selected from 30 regular schools in Zarqateaching the basic primary stages (grades 1–3). Four or five teachers from each school were randomlyselected and asked to complete a questionnaire.

The current study was implemented in two phases; in the first phase, the study questionnaire wasissued during the academic year 2009/2010 and then the same questionnaire was reissued five yearslater during the academic year 2015/2016 within the same schools but to different teachers. For the2009/2010 academic year, the study sample consisted of 144 teachers, and for the 2015/2016 aca-demic year, the study sample consisted of 153 teachers from the same regular schools. Table 1describes the distribution variation within the study sample for the two academic years.

Table 1. The distribution of the sample by the study variables.

Experience Gender

Academic years

No. %2009/2010 2015/2016

Less than 5 years Female 26 49 75 58Male 34 21 55 42Total 60 70 130

6–10 years Female 33 22 55 47Male 18 45 63 53Total 51 67 118

More than 10 years Female 13 12 25 51Male 20 4 24 49Total 33 16 49

Total Female 72 83 155 52Male 72 70 142 48Total 144 153 297

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Instrumentation

To build the study instrument, the existing literature was consulted (Alencar, 1999; Dababneh et al.,2009; Morais, Almeida, Azevedo, Alencar, & Fleith, 2014; Rubenstein et al., 2013). The instrument con-sisted of two sections: a demographics section which provides details of the study sample and thesecond section which addresses teachers’ perceptions concerning the availability of a creativeenvironment in the classroom for fostering children’s creativity. Section two consisted of a scaledesigned to measure four domains. The first domain measures teachers’ perceptions and attitudestowards creativity and consisted of six items which address teachers’ perceptions of the potentialfor children to became more creative and to assess their perceived value of creativity for societyas a whole (e.g. ‘Few students can think creatively’). The second domain measured teachers’ self-effi-cacy and consisted of 10 items, examining teachers’ beliefs that they have the capability to fostercreativity in their students (e.g. ‘I am capable of teaching my students to understand the relationshipbetween unrelated ideas’). The third domain assessed teaching for creativity and consisted of 18items, which examined how teachers perceive their actual practices and experiences in the classroomtowards fostering creativity among their students (e.g. ‘I teach my students the basics and leave themto find out more by themselves’). Finally, the fourth domain measured barriers to creativity and con-sisted of nine items, which examined how teachers’ perceive their current school’s atmosphere andthe classroom where he/she worked, and the availability of freedom and administrational support(e.g. ‘My school’s priorities do not include teaching students to think creatively’). From these 4domains 43 items were generated, and all items were placed on a 5-point Likert scale, with 5 repre-senting ‘Strongly agree’, 4 ‘Agree’, 3 ‘Undecided’, 2 ‘Disagree’, and 1 ‘Strongly disagree’ for the overallscale and the self-efficacy, perceptions and attitudes, and teaching for creativity domains. For nega-tive items, this was corrected by using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) programme to5 representing 1 ‘Strongly agree’, 2 ‘Agree’, 3 ‘Undecided’, 4 ‘Disagree’, and 5 ‘Strongly disagree’ forthe barriers to creativity domain.

The researchers administered the initial scale of the study on an exploratory sample consisting of25 teachers from various disciplines. This pilot study was designed to examine the clarity of items andthe suitability of the scale, in order to enhance the scale to ensure the respondents’ acceptance of it,and to review each item and its relevance according to its construction. After each respondentreceived the initial scale, they were asked to examine the scale items for clarity, and to suggestadditions or deletions, and make corrections for any error in wording or procedures. Most of therespondents’ suggestions related to unfamiliar concepts, or items considered irrelevant to the class-room environment. All the respondents’ suggestions from the pilot study were considered andnecessary changes were integrated into the scale. Most of the changes focused on reformulatingor rewording of some of scale items; one item was deleted in this stage.

Validity and reliability of the instrumentThe initial draft of the study instrument was written in English. It was then translated into Arabic, therespondents’ mother tongue. Then, a language specialist edited both the Arabic and English copies.The language specialist made some modifications to a number of items in the scale.

Further face and content validity evidence was obtained through review of the Arabic version by agroup of six independent reviewers who are experts in creativity, education, and/or special edu-cation. Their role was to confirm whether the content of the scale was accurate and adequate interms of language clarity, to check the relevance of each item to the main section of the scale,and to provide any additional comments. The changes recommended by the validation panel andthose identified as needed during the pilot test were used to modify the scale by omitting,adding, or rephrasing items. Three items were deleted and 13 items were reworded for clarity.

Given that analysis of the internal consistency of the items can provide evidence of construct vali-dation (Shultz, Whitney, & Zickar, 2014), the corrected item-total correlation for each item score withits domain score and with the total scale score were confirmed after pilot testing the questionnaire on

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the sample of 25 teachers outside the research sample. Based on suggestions by Nunnally and Bern-stein (1994), all items with negative or near zero corrected correlations were deleted from the scale.Therefore, 43 items were retained in the scale as shown in Table 2.

Table 2 shows that corrected item-total domain correlations ranged between 0.44 and 0.75 andbetween 0.38 and 0.63 for the corrected item-total scale correlations. These sufficient correlations(Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994) indicate positive item contributions to the subscales and to the totalscale.

To estimate the reliability of the 43-item scale, an internal consistency coefficient for the instru-ment was calculated using Cronbach’s alpha for each domain and for total scale. The internal consist-ency coefficient was found to range between 0.72 and 0.86, and indicates that the reliabilitycoefficients were satisfactory for the purpose of the study. Coefficient alpha for each domain andfor the whole scale exceeded the 0.70 minimum threshold suggested by Nunnally and Bernstein(1994), thereby demonstrating sufficient internal consistency for each domain and for the wholescale.

Data collection

The researchers conducted personal visits to schools and met with the teachers in order to acquaintthem with the aim of the study. The researchers hand-delivered the questionnaire to the classroomsduring the first semester of the academic year 2009/2010 and then in the first semester of the aca-demic year 2015/2016 the researchers re-visited the same schools and delivered the same question-naire. Teachers in both phases were encouraged to read the items carefully before selecting theappropriate choice; however, none of survey questions were discussed. Participants were reassuredof their confidentiality and anonymity, and after delivering the questionnaires to the teachers, theresearchers made appointments to collect them one week later.

Table 2. Corrected correlations between each item score and its domain total score and with total scale score.

Itemnumber

Corrected item-totaldomain correlation

Corrected item-totalscale correlation

Itemnumber

Corrected item-totaldomain correlation

Corrected item-totalscale correlation

Perceptions and attitudes Self-efficacy1 .69 .63 1 .53 .482 .70 .49 2 .58 .533 .56 .52 3 .58 .484 .63 .53 4 .64 .485 .66 .54 5 .64 .586 .75 .59 6 .56 .39Teaching for creativity 7 .62 .55

8 .45 .401 .57 .58 9 .54 .452 .43 .38 10 .47 .433 .55 .56 Barriers to creativity4 .51 .47 1 .57 .475 .46 .43 2 .55 .466 .49 .46 3 .51 .457 .48 .44 4 .55 .488 .49 .45 5 .57 .579 .55 .52 6 .54 .4110 .50 .50 7 .49 .4611 .53 .46 8 .53 .4512 .55 .52 9 .54 .5113 .44 .3814 .47 .4315 .54 .5016 .54 .5417 .62 .5618 .52 .47

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Data analysis

This study utilizes quantitative data analysis techniques using correlation coefficient analysis and T-tests to examine the responses to a survey questionnaire used for the purpose of conducting thisstudy. The alpha level was set at (0.05) a priori, and the analysis techniques are discussed for eachresearch questions below.

Question one aimed to examine school teachers’ perceptions concerning the availability of a crea-tive environment that fosters children’s creativity. Descriptive statistics, including means and stan-dard deviations (SD), for each domain, and the average of all the items were utilized to answerthis question. To answer the second question which aimed to investigate whether there is a corre-lation between the instrument’s domains a Pearson correlation coefficient analysis was performed.

To answer the third research question, a three-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA)was used as the main statistical technique to determine any statistically significant differences in tea-chers’ self-assessment for fostering children’s creativity based on the study variables among teacherswith regard to their level of teaching experience, gender, and academic year (2009/2010 or 2015/2016). This statistical technique was used due to the assumption that there is a relationshipbetween teachers’ degree for the four domains because all are concerned with teachers’ perceptionsabout the availability of a creative environment within classrooms that foster children’s creativity.

Results

The collected data were coded, entered into the SPSS spreadsheets, and analysed using the SPSSsoftware package (edition 22). Descriptive statistics for all the variables in this study were examinedusing SPSS frequencies. Missing subjects were not detected and the results of the study areaddressed according to the research questions.

Results pertaining to research question one

Research question one examined teachers’ perceptions concerning the availability of a creativeenvironment for fostering children’s creativity in their classroom. Descriptive statistics, includingthe mean and SD were used to analyse the data.

The findings are shown in Table 3. The mean score for all 4 domains of the questionnaire was 4.04(SD 0.38), where 5 represents strongly agree. This reveals a high average for teachers’ perceptions ofthe availability of creative environments for fostering creativity in classrooms. The means and SDs forthe scale domains show that teachers’ self-efficacy had a higher level with a mean score 4.09 (SD0.42), while teachers’ perceptions concerning the barriers to creativity ranked the lowest (M = 3.98,SD = 0.42).

Results pertaining to research question two

Research question two examined the significant statistical differences between teachers’ perceptionsconcerning the availability of creative environments for fostering children’s creativity in classrooms

Table 3. Means and SDs for the questionnaire domains, according to teachers’ perceptions ofavailability of a creative environmental in the regular schools.

Domain Mean SD Rank

Self-efficacy 4.087 .415 1Perceptions and attitudes 4.064 .545 2Teaching for creativity 4.036 .390 3Barriers to creativity 3.979 .418 4Total 4.042 .384

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and the following independent variables: academic year, teachers’ experience, and gender. In orderto answer this question, a MANOVA was utilized.

Table 4 shows that the results indicate that there were statistically significant differences betweenthe ratings of teachers’ perceptions concerning the availability of creative environments in class-rooms with respect to the four domains that can be attributed to their gender, teaching experience,and academic year, and there is an interaction between level of experience and academic year (2009/2010 or 2015/2016). However, there was no statistically significant difference in the effect of the inter-action between gender and experience, gender and academic year, and between gender, teachingexperience, and academic year.

An analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by a MANOVA was performed to test each individualdomain separately, and to determine if there were any statistically significant differences thatcould be attributed to level of teaching experience, gender, and academic year (2009/2010 or2015/2016), and the interaction between academic year and teaching experience.

As shown in Table 5, there were significant differences at the 0.05 alpha level between female tea-chers and male teachers regarding the perception of the creativity domain ( f = 6.399) in favour of thefemale teachers (M = 3.92, SD = 0.50) compared to male teachers (M = 3.72, SD = 0.55) (see Appendix).

The results of the one-way ANOVA showed that there were statistically significant differences(p < .05) among teachers’ perception as a result of their level of experience relating to their percep-tion of the creativity domain, as shown in Table 5. The result of the pairwise comparisons, shown inTable 6, indicates that there were statistically significant differences between the mean score for tea-chers with less than 5 years teaching experience (3.89) compared to teachers with more than 10 yearsold teaching experience (M = 4.12), in favour of teachers with less than 5 years teaching experience.

Table 5. ANOVA test results for the effect of teaching experience, teacher gender, academic years, and interaction between themon each domain and overall scale.

Source Domain Type III sum of squares Df Mean square F Sig.

Gender Perception and attitudes 1.339 1 1.339 6.399 .012*Experience Perception and attitudes 1.552 2 0.776 3.710 .026*Year academic Perception and attitudes 6.220 1 6.220 29.735 .000*

Self-efficacy 1.336 1 1.336 8.608 .004*Teaching for creativity effect 1.093 1 1.093 8.757 .003*Barriers to creativity 1.120 1 1.120 7.272 .007*Total 2.069 1 2.069 17.803 .000*

Experience * year Perceptions and attitudes 3.526 2 1.763 8.428 .000*Total 1.053 2 0.527 4.530 .012*

*Significant at the p < .05 level.

Table 6. Results of pairwise comparisons of teacher perceptions and attitudes towards creativity on the level of experiencesvariable.

Domain Level of experience/mean Mean difference Sig Std. error

Perceptions and attitudes Less than 5 years 4.13 More than 10 years 3.90 0.235 0.008* 0.088

* Significant at α = .05 level.

Table 4. The results of MANOVA: the effect of teaching experience, teacher gender, academic years, and interaction between them,according to teachers’ perceptions about the availability of creative environments within regular schools.

Source Wilks’ Lambda value F Hypothesis Df Sig.

Gender .944 4.166 4 .003*Experience .929 2.643 8 .008*Academic year .900 7.860 4 .000*Gender * experience .948 1.901 8 .057Gender * year .990 0.698 4 .594Experience* year .922 2.922 8 .003*Gender * experience * year .981 0.692 8 .698

*Significant at the p < .05 level.

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As shown in Table 5, there were statistically significant differences for the academic years for theoverall scale and the four individual domains in favour of the 2015/2016 academic year compared toteachers’ perceptions concerning the availability of creative environments in classrooms for the 2009/2010 academic year (see Appendix).

Table 5 also shows statistically significant differences for the interaction between level of teachingexperience and academic year for the overall scale ( f = 4.53, p < .05) and for the perception domain ( f= 8.42, p < .05). The results for different paired interactions are shown in Figures 1 and 2. The inter-action between the level of teaching experience and academic year for the overall scale, and tea-chers’ perception of creativity is shown in Figure 1, while Figure 2 confirms that teachers in the2009/2010 academic year with more than 10 years teaching experience have an increased perceptionconcerning the availability of creative environments for fostering creativity compared to teachers inthe same academic year who have less than 5 years teaching experience. However, teachers with lessthan five years teaching experience in the 2015/2016 academic year have a greater perception con-cerning the availability of creative environments in classrooms, indicating that the interaction

Figure 2. The results of interaction between teaching experiences and academic years on the perceptions and attitudes towardscreativity domain.

Figure 1. The results of interaction between teaching experiences and academic years on the overall scale.

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between academic year and teaching experience is significant for the overall scale, as shown in Figure1, and for the perception of creativity domain as shown in Figure 2.

Discussion

There is no doubt that teachers play a vital role in fostering children’s creativity. Therefore, assessingteachers’ perceptions concerning the availability of creative environments that foster children’s crea-tivity was the major aim of this study.

The availability of creative environments to foster children’s creativity

The findings reveal that there is a higher level of teachers’ perceptions concerning the availability ofcreative environments that foster children’s creativity in classrooms, and this represents teachers’self-efficacy. This means that teachers believe that they have the capability to foster children’s crea-tivity in their classrooms. Studies in literature report parallel results (Ozkal, 2014), noting that teachers’self-efficacy to foster children’s creativity is high, and this is consistent with a study by Abdel Rahman(2011) who found that teachers in the first three grades have the ability to develop children’s crea-tivity. This result can be explained by a number of reasons. This result could be associated with tea-chers’ self-evaluation of their capability; therefore this result could due to personal bias in teachers’assessing their ability to develop creativity. Belio and Urtuzuastegul (2013) emphasized this expla-nation when they found that students felt that their teachers were moderately creative in their teach-ing, while their teachers believed that they were highly creative. This result could also be due to theJordanian Government paying great attention to education and arranging training programmes forteachers to develop their abilities to foster students’ abilities and creativity, by implementing manyprojects in collaboration with NGOs and national institutions, such as Queen Rania Teacher Training.In addition, universities and the MoE have focused on providing specific programmes for preparingteachers to teach the lower basic education stage (MoE, 2017). In support of this interpretation is thefact that Jordan among all the Arab states is renowned for its teaching preparation pre-service pro-grammes, including programmes for preparing basic primary teachers. Consequently, many Arabcountries send students who are both the self-funded or have received scholarships to study atthe undergraduate and graduate level at Jordanian universities.

Teachers’ perceptions and attitudes towards creativity ranked second to teachers’ self-reportingabout the availability of creative environments for fostering creativity in children. This indicatesthat teachers’ believe that creativity is being enhanced among the majority of children and thevalue of creativity for society development. There are several possible explanations for this finding.The training programmes teachers receive both before entering the classroom and while teachingfocus on developing children’s abilities and creativity (MoE, 2017), and may lead to building a realisticperception about creativity and its value to the community. Rubenstein et al. (2013) support thisexplanation, as they reported that teachers’ value creativity and that professional developmentincreased participants’ perception of students’ creative potential, encouraged the belief that creativ-ity in their current environment was possible, and supported the idea that creativity could beenhanced in the classroom in meaningful ways. This also proves that these teachers did notbelieve that children are classified as creative or not creative, and that this is not considered amajor impediment to the development of creativity, as previous research has suggested (Plucker &Beghetto, 2003). Another explanation which could be considered as a limitation of this currentstudy is the suitability of the study sample. Teachers who volunteered their time to this researchmay be a self-selecting group who truly value creativity, whereas teachers who are uninterestedmay not have volunteered to complete the study survey. An additional possibility is that teachers’responded in a socially expected manner.

Many studies have concluded that realistic perceptions and attitudes towards creativity leadto increased teaching practices related to teaching children in ways which increase their

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creativity (Mariani & Ismail, 2015). This has also been found in this current study, as the teachingfor creativity domain ranked third in teachers’ perceptions concerning the availability of creativeenvironments that foster children’s creativity. This result means that teachers’ consider them-selves to have the capability to foster children’s creativity more than their actual practices,despite the high means that this domain displays. In fact, teachers’ beliefs about creativityand their ability to develop creativity (self-efficacy) may not always be reflected in actual prac-tice, due to the existence of obstacles in the classroom. For example, the financial situation inJordan and the low level of teachers’ incomes and overcrowded classrooms compared to theinternational standards as a result of the growing number of refugee students from Syria andIraq, who are enrolled in regular schools.

In support of this explanation is the finding that teachers’ ranked barriers to creativity as thelowest. This means that teacher believe that the school climate does not encourage the developmentand fostering of children’s creativity in the classroom, in terms of a lack of administrator and super-visor support, a scarcity of educational resources, a lack of diversity in teaching methods, and theavailability of educational facilities that support the development of creativity in children in termsof specialized laboratories, and the provision of theatres in school and other facilities. Edinger(2008) found that teachers’ ability to foster creativity in the classroom was improved by supportiveadministration and instructional peers but was constrained by a lack of time and a constricting stan-dardized testing environment. Thus, teachers’ perceptions about the availability of a creative environ-ment were influenced by both personal and environmental factors. This result could also be due to alack of financial support for schools as the result financial resources in all third world countries, includ-ing Jordan (MoE, 2017). The results of Cole et al. (1999) are consistent with those of the current studyand reported that school environments are not effective enough in developing children’s creativepotential.

Factors affecting teachers’ self-reporting of fostering children’s creativity

The study results indicated that there were statistically significant differences in the ratings of tea-chers’ perceptions concerning the availability of creative environments to foster creativity withinclassrooms with respect to the four domains that can be attributed to gender, teaching experience,academic year, and the interaction between teaching experience and academic year. In contrast,there were no statistically significant differences in the effect of the interaction between genderand experience, gender and academic year, and between gender, teaching experience, and aca-demic year.

With regard to gender, the results show significant differences between female teachers and maleteachers only with regard to perceptions and attitudes towards the creativity domain in favour offemale teachers. This result is similar to Abdel Rahman (2011), which found that female teachershave higher means for fostering creativity than male teachers. In contrast, many other studies, includ-ing Forrester and Hui (2007), Hondzel (2013), and Duman, Gocen, and Yakar (2014), are consistentwith this current study found, for the findings for the overall scale and the other three domain (tea-chers self-efficacy, teaching for creativity, and barriers of creativity) which showed no significantdifferences between teachers’ ability to foster creativity among children due to teacher gender.Therefore, it is difficult to make generalizations about the level of teachers’ ability to foster children’screativity based on gender. But this result may due to that teachers regardless of their gender receivethe same training before and during services; so they may have the same perception about the avail-ability of creative environment, including their self-efficacy, teaching for creativity, and barriers tocreativity, in contrast, and according to the researchers practical experiences in MoE as supervisorson Jordanian schools, the common observation that female prefer teaching career, and have moremotivation, commitment, and positive attitudes compare with male, this may affect their attitudetowards education and develop creativity among children. World Bank report (2017) on educationin Jordan ensures this explanation, which indicates that female schools are progressing more than

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male schools in Jordan in many fields, including children achievement, commitment, andmanagement.

The results of the one-way ANOVA showed that there were no statistically significant differencesamong teachers’ perception due to their level of teaching experience on the overall scale and thedomains, but there was a significant difference in the perceptions and attitudes towards the creativitydomain in favour of teachers with less than 5 years teaching experience compared to those withmore than 10 years. This result may be expanded according to the researchers practical experiencesin MoE during educational supervision on schools, they observe that the new teachers have theenthusiasm and motivation to teach, because they are exposed prior to their services in school tomany training programmes to qualify them to teach effectively in the classroom, which mayreflect on their attitude and enthusiasm towards developing creativity among children in the class-room. On the other hand, all the teachers feeling that they have the ability to foster children’s crea-tivity regardless of their teaching experience, this may due to that both teachers with experience forless than five years and teachers with more than five years are exposed to same content of the train-ing programmes regards to the delivery training, and they follow certain procedures in teachingbecause they are subjected to a similar assessment. This can explain the differences in favour ofless experienced teachers in their attitudes towards creativity, and the field of trends and theabsence of differences in the process, their awareness of practices and the sense of sufficiency orthe obstacles they face when they try to develop the creative environment. Forrester and Hui(2007) reported a similar result, noting no significant differences between teachers in fostering crea-tivity in children due to teaching experience. In contrast, the findings of Hondzel (2013) do not agreewith those of this study as they showed amoderate correlation between years of teaching experienceand with teachers’ ability to foster creativity among children as it shown that teachers with the great-est number of years of teaching experience demonstrated the highest level of creativity fosteringbehaviours.

There were statistically significant differences between the two academic years for the overallscale and also the four domains in favour of the 2015/2016 academic year, despite the highaverage for teachers’ perceptions of the availability of a creative environment for students inthe classroom for both academic years, for the overall scale and the four domains. This could bedue to the establishment of many qualitative programmes that focus on education developmentin Jordan, as part of the ERfKE project (phase 1 2003–2009, phase 2 2010–2015) (DevelopmentCoordination Unit [DCU], 2013; UNICEF, 2014). The main features of the first phase were develop-ments in curriculum, teacher training, education supervision, and classroom environment whichdirectly contributed to the development of students’ creative abilities. The second phase contin-ued from the first, expanding and deepening the features of the first phase with more focus ondeveloping a creative environment in schools, different kind of assessment strategies, the learningcycle, twenty-first-century skills, and fostering science, technology, engineering, and math (DCU,2013; NCHRD, 2012; UNICEF, 2014). This may explain the development of the creative environmentin schools in 2009/2010, and the increased development in 2015/2016 according to teacher per-ceptions. Other factors that may partially explain this result are the increase in teachers’ salariesover the last five years, and the establishment of the Teachers Association in Jordan, establishingmany rewards for teachers, such as the Queen Rania Prize for excellence in teaching, the teacherranking system, as well as more cooperation with international organizations such as UNICEF andUNESCO (MoE, 2017).

One limitation of this study is that the study instrument does not include all the factors that influ-ence teachers’ perceptions concerning the availability of creative environments. The study only uti-lized a questionnaire and no attempt was made to gather information using other research methods,such as semi-structured interviews or observations. The selection of the sample was limited to onegovernorate in Jordan (Zarqa), and data collected from other governorates could possibly have pro-duced different results. In addition, the significant differences between the academic years could bedue to a turnover in teachers and there was also variance in teachers’ educational backgrounds.

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Conclusions and recommendations

The results of this study are vital in understanding the current status of the availability of creativeenvironments in classrooms according to teachers’ perceptions. In light of the above discussion, itcan be concluded that teachers play a major role in creating creative environments which lead tofostering children’s creativity. Teachers who have high perceptions and attitudes towards creativityand who believe in their efficacy to foster children’s creativity tend to teach creativity if they have asupportive climate in school free of all obstacles. Teachers need to be provided with specific trainingprogrammes on the best strategies for fostering children’s creativity, as well as arranging training pro-grammes for administrators and supervisors to increase their awareness about children’s creativityand the importance of developing creative environments.

Qualitative studies need to be undertaken in order to obtain a complete picture of teachers andtheir development of creative environments. Finally, it is hoped that this study might provide valu-able insights for decision-makers in the MoE concerning creating creative environments withinschools which may lead to continuous improvement and development.

Practical implications

This study’s results are necessary for policy-makers in the MoE who are responsible for training tea-chers pre- and during service, to assist them in planning and enhancing training programmes thatprovide teachers with the capacity to develop a creative environment in their classrooms.

Identifying teachers’ perceptions about their ability to foster children’s creativity in the classroomis beneficial to understanding whether these behaviours are actually present in the classroom. Thecurrent study results provide decision-makers with a number of suggestions. Teachers need tofoster children’s creativity, and create environments that foster creativity, and creativity trainingshould be provided for both teachers and teaching students which will positively affect their creativ-ity fostering behaviours in the classroom. In this context, it would be useful to undertake research thatinvestigates teacher pre-services programmes for the development and support of teachers’ abilitiesto foster creativity among all children with a variety of abilities. This study has examined primary tea-chers’ abilities to develop an environment in the classroom that fosters children’s creativity, andassessed the role of gender, teaching experience, and academic year; therefore it would be beneficialto investigate teachers’ creativity fostering behaviour for different education levels with differentsamples and variables.

The need for the MoE to focus on male teachers and teachers who are most experienced in teach-ing by constantly exposing them to training courses that help in maintaining their enthusiasm foreducation and developing creativity among children. In addition to exposing all teachers from differ-ent experiences, male and female, to regular training sessions to help them develop their skills inteaching creativity and overcome the obstacles of the school environment to develop creativity inchildren.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Kholoud Adeeb Al-Dababneh is a faculty member in the Department of Special Education at Queen Rania Faculty forChildhood at Hashemite University, Jordan. She recieved her Ph.D. in Special Education from the University of Jordanin 2005. Previously she worked as vice dean of Queen Rania Faculty for Childhood, and head of the Childhood EducationDepartment. Her research interests include children with disabilities, parents of children with disabilities, inclusion, earlyintervention, specific learning disabilities, and gifted and creative children.

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Eman Khleif Al-Zboon is a faculty member in the Department of Special Education at Queen Rania Faculty for Childhoodat Hashemite University, Jordan. She recieved her Ph.D. in Special Education from the University of Jordan in 2012. Herresearch interests focus on children, women with disabilities, and current trends in special education.

Jamal Ahmad is a faculty member in the department of child education at the Hashemite University, Jordan. He earnedhis Ph.D. in Elementary and Early Childhood Education from the University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio, USA, in 2011. Hisresearch interests include school readiness, literacy development in the early years, the influence of immigration andculture on early childhood education, children’s rights and current issues in early childhood education.

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Appendix. Means and SDs of teachers’ perceptions of availability of a creativeenvironmental in the regular schools on the questionnaire domains, according tothe study variables

Domain Experience Gender

Academic years

Total2009/2010 2015/2016

M SD M SD M SDPerceptions and attitudes Less than 5 years Female 3.96 .51 4.36 .46 4.22 .51

Male 3.79 .52 4.38 .33 4.02 .54Total 3.86 .52 4.36 .43 4.13 .53

6–10 years Female 3.80 .48 4.27 .45 3.99 .52Male 3.60 .48 4.46 .27 4.21 .52Total 3.73 .48 4.40 .35 4.11 .55

More than 10 years Female 4.13 .46 4.07 .31 4.10 .39Male 3.72 .64 3.62 .71 3.70 .64Total 3.88 .61 3.96 .46 3.90 .56

Total Female 3.92 .50 4.29 .45 4.12 .50Male 3.72 .55 4.39 .37 4.05 .57Total 3.82 .53 4.33 .42 4.08 .54

Self-efficacy Less than 5 years Female 3.98 .44 4.20 .35 4.12 .39Male 4.02 .39 4.14 .47 4.07 .42Total 4.00 .41 4.18 .39 4.10 .41

6–10 years Female 3.94 .46 4.15 .35 4.02 .43Male 3.90 .52 4.20 .30 4.12 .394Total 3.93 .48 4.18 .31 4.07 .41

More than 10 years Female 4.08 .34 4.15 .36 4.12 .34Male 4.22 .41 4.30 .36 4.23 .39Total 4.17 .38 4.19 .35 4.17 .37

(Continued )

EARLY CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND CARE 17

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Continued.

Domain Experience Gender

Academic years

Total2009/2010 2015/2016

M SD M SD M SDTotal Female 3.98 .43 4.18 .35 4.09 .40

Male 4.04 .44 4.19 .35 4.12 .41Total 4.01 .44 4.18 .35 4.10 .40

Teaching for creativity Less than 5 years Female 3.96 .40 4.19 .30 4.11 .35Male 3.88 .34 4.12 .41 3.97 .38Total 3.91 .37 4.17 .33 4.05 .37

6–10 years Female 3.93 .40 4.07 .36 3.99 .39Male 3.85 .52 4.22 .19 4.11 .36Total 3.90 .44 4.17 .27 4.06 .37

More than 10 years Female 4.06 .366 4.02 .32 4.04 .33Male 4.08 .38 4.05 .47 4.08 .39Total 4.08 .37 4.03 .35 4.06 .36

Total Female 3.97 .39 4.13 .32 4.06 .36Male 3.93 .41 4.18 .29 4.05 .38Total 3.95 .40 4.15 .31 4.05 .37

Barriers to creativity Less than 5 years Female 3.88 .42 4.13 .32 4.04 .37Male 3.8 .40 3.96 .38 3.89 .39Total 3.86 .41 4.08 .34 3.98 .39

6–10 years Female 3.87 .48 4.12 .39 3.97 .46Male 3.70 .53 4.12 .25 4.00 .40Total 3.81 .50 4.12 .30 3.99 .43

More than 10 years Female 4.15 .40 4.00 .37 4.08 .39Male 4.03 .43 4.06 .64 4.03 .45Total 4.08 .42 4.01 .43 4.06 .42

Total Female 3.92 .45 4.11 .34 4.02 .41Male 3.86 .45 4.07 .33 3.97 .41Total 3.90 .45 4.09 .34 3.99 .41

Total Less than 5 years Female 3.94 .39 4.22 .29 4.12 .35Male 3.88 .36 4.15 .35 3.99 .37Total 3.91 .37 4.20 .31 4.06 .37

6–10 years Female 3.89 .40 4.15 .34 3.99 .40Male 3.76 .46 4.25 .16 4.11 .35Total 3.84 .42 4.22 .24 4.06 .38

More than 10 years Female 4.11 .36 4.06 .27 4.08 .32Male 4.01 .40 4.01 .52 4.01 .41Total 4.05 .38 4.05 .33 4.05 .36

Total Female 3.95 .39 4.18 .30 4.07 .37Male 3.89 .40 4.21 .26 4.05 .37Total 3.92 .40 4.19 .29 4.06 .37

18 K. A. AL-DABABNEH ET AL.

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