Creative self-beliefs : perspectives on an intervention study with pre-service teachers

Abstract

Creativity is considered a fundamental factor in the 21st century. Students must learn to handle the challenges of increasing uncertainty and ambiguity in this day and age. In this scenario, teachers are critical in facilitating students' engagement with a creative mindset and developing creative thinking skills. Therefore, the intervention study aims to explore if and how creative mindset intervention can be an effective tool to facilitate a cognitive shift in pre-service teachers' creative mindset perception. The study consists of three phases: (a) pre-test, (b) intervention, and (c) post-test. Ten pre-service teachers took part in the intervention study, which started with open-ended questions aimed at exploring their conceptualization of creativity, its relationship with definite psychological constructs and its interconnection with teaching. These pre-service teachers participated in a 4-hour classroom intervention with workshops and activities following which a reflective focus group was set up to collect feedback. The findings reflect how pre-service teachers conceive creativity as a psycho-cognitive process strictly interrelated with curiosity and intuition and essential for teaching. Furthermore, pre-service teachers testified to having experienced a cognitive shift in their creative beliefs such as creative self-awareness, self confidence, and creative mindset. Findings also provided insightful guidelines on the intervention's affordances and limitations. On the one hand, pre-service teachers found the intervention successful in terms of the tools provided, mindset fostered, and group dynamics whilst on the other, they would incorporate warm-up activities to prepare participants better, offer extensive materials to facilitate comprehension, allocate additional time for specific activities, and alternate between tasks during the idea generation tools activity. The practical implications are significant, as an intervention based on creative thinking and growth mindset principles can profoundly influence the creative self-perception of pre-service teachers. Teachers could take inspiration from the intervention presented in the study to build personalized activities based on idea generation tools, think and share as well as brainstorming techniques to shape their students' or pre-service teachers' creative mindsets.