Creativity in Schools

This book is based on the research work carried out by the author for the award of Ph.D degree to the Institute of Education, University of London, U.K. The entire work is reorganized in the form of book for the benefit of readers rather than the formal writing of the thesis. The process of research is explained in the beginning and all the relevant material and necessary references are presented in the appendices. This book covered a wide range of definitions and theoretical approaches to creativity. It also covered the identification of creative children, the measurement of creativity, and its relationship to age, sex, SES, grade, and type of school. Both verbal and non-verbal tests of creative thinking scores in relations to the students’ background and organizational variables were analysed and discussed according to the aims and research questions posed. The students’ levels of Creativity and their Cognitive and Motivational Variables such as interest in the school subjects, occupational choices, experiences in the classroom are analyzed and discussed. The Teacher measure the degree of encouragement given by the teachers in their classrooms. These were mainly concerned with classroom questioning and teacher behaviuor. The freedom given to the students was also analysed in relation to the selected variables. The book provides the necessary concepts of how a school can provide a supportive and stinulating environment for fostering creativity among the children. An analysis was undertaken of the extra-curricular activities provided by schools and differences were found between schools to the extent in which these activities were provided. It highlights the role of the teacher as a mentor, facilitator, guide, the prompter, and the change-agent etc., and empirical studies on teachers’ views and attitudes towards creative teaching and learning has provided a background for understanding the present status of research in the field of creativity. The findings showed that teachers valued creativity, had established criteria for its definition and for identifying creative children. They believed that the development of creativity depended on good teacher-upil relationships, encouraging experimentation and building self-confidence among the students. Obstacles to the development of creativity included inadequate resources, lack of instructional materials, lack of funds, passive unmotivated students with a tendency to role learning, pressure to complete the syllabus, preparing students for examinations and teachers’ teaching load. Teachers felt that the curriculum was overloaded, inflexible and did not meet the needs of the diversity of learners. They preferred a child centred curriculum based on activities. The findings from the student data contributed to the development of an exploratory model linking parental factors, the medium of instruction and teacher encouragement. Path analysis showed that out-of-school activities, mother’s education, teacher encouragement and mother’s income had causal relationships with students’ creative thinking. On the basis of the findings practical recommendations have been made for the promotion of creativity among school students.