The central issues that are underlined within the selected studies are: the definition of creative thinking skills at this level of education (student teachers in primary grades), the role and importance of such skills, as well as the factors involved in hindering or developing pre-service teachers’ creativity. Table 2.4 illustrates whether each study provided these dimensions or not.
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Table 2.4: Linking the studies with the main issues of the review
With regard to the preparation plan, almost all the researchers within these studies introduced specific activities personal and professional improvement that they believed should be incorporated into the student learning preparation stage, in order to develop especial skills in creative thinking. For example, spatial, physical, kinaesthetic, and musical activities (Al-Mushrif, 2003), fostering creativity through technology project Author(s)/ Date Preparations plan Definition The Importance Developing or inhabiting factors Al-Mushrif
(2003) YES YES YES No
Houtz et al.
(2003) NO NO YES NO
Perkins et
al. (2006) YES YES YES NO
Barnes and Shirley (2007)
YES YES YES NO
Kampylis et
al. (2008) YES YES YES NO
Antonenko and Thompson (2009) NO YES YES NO Bolden et al. (2009) NO NO YES NO Sungurteki n et al. (2009) NO NO YES NO Meintjes and Grosser (2010)
YES YES YES YES
Newton and Beverton
(2012)
NO YES YES NO
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(Perkins et al. 2006), outside experiences and generate creative thinking (Barnes and Shirley, 2007), creative drama (Sungurtekin et al. 2009).
One study considered the factors involved in hindering or developing pre-service teachers’ creativity (Meintjes and Grosser, 2010), whose quantitative pilot investigative study referred to how particular cultural and contextual factors (i.e. social environment, family, economic and physical conditions) could influence the creative behaviour and production of pre-service teachers. Furthermore, the researchers in the majority of the selected studies only considered the definition of creativity in accordance to the purpose behind their particular research (i.e. Perkins et al., 2006; Antonenko and Thompson, 2009; Bolden et al., 2009; Sungurtekin et al., 2009; Newton and Beverton, 2012). This may sometimes limit the meaning and the developing elements into specific frames, as they would only explore the concept of creative thinking from their own aims or identify it in terms of a particular subject.
For instance, Perkins et al. (2006) state that divergent thinking is the very substance of creativity and it can be stimulated in the student teachers by encouraging them to synthesize what they know to produce a unique product. Perkins et al. (2006) also restrict the meaning of creativity to one dimension, as they consider hypermedia programmes that connect teachers within the classroom with student teachers, with the educational institute to be a central component in developing this creativity. Han et al. (2003) also mention that divergent thinking may refer to individuals participating in some of the creative functions, but that it is not necessarily applicable or required in all domains. Other studies have tried to explore creativity from a different perspective,
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such as Houtz et al. (2003), who assert that adopting a creative style in the classroom is a relatively new subject within creativity research, as it explores the question of how people present their creativity as opposed of investigating how much creativity they can exhibit.
In addition, Meintjes and Grosser (2010) are concerned with the impact of specific factors upon creativity. By confining their research to South Africa, they state that within such a mixed and diverse society, it is important to consider how the culture and contextual factors can directly influence the creative behaviour among pre-service teachers. Oral (2010) also highlights the influence of the Turkish educational system on creativity, describing it as ‘highly centralised’, which in turn has a direct impact on educational institutes. For instance, one Turkish university emphasizes the necessity to consider four dimensions of creativity - ‘fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration’ – as a criterion for the entrance examination when selecting student teachers applicants. In contrast, some studies provide an experiment programme for kindergarten student teachers in creative thinking, such as Al-Mushrif (2003), who considered creative thinking to be theoretical, empirical conceptions and skills, which led to an adaptation of existing activities in order to develop potential creativity and creative production within the groups that participated in the study.
Kampylis et al. (2008, p.18) reviewed studies on the in-service and prospective teachers’ concept of creativity between 1991-2008, and identified creativity within the primary education framework to be, ‘the activity (both mental and physical) that occurs in a specific time-space, social and cultural framework and leads to a tangible or
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intangible outcome(s) that is original, useful, ethical and desirable, at least to the creator(s)’. Thus, the authors believe that pre-service and in-service teachers need to understand and identify the types and meanings of creativity from their own perspective, which will in turn, enable them to structure development activities and assess students’ creativity. The researcher in this current study concurs, believing student teachers need to absorb the meaning of this type of thinking, understand its role in their teaching and how they can develop it in their thinking, ultimately leading them to use it effectively in their teaching.
A gap in the investigation can be recognised from this review, as there were few studies that considered providing a comprehensive framework to explore the student teachers’ preparation to include creativity in their thinking and teaching. However, what these reviews do demonstrate is the crucial dimensions in terms of conducting productive interventions or investigations in this area. These elements should be acknowledged accordingly and linked together as main components of a devised framework, which can be summarized in the following section.
Definition of creativity and it components
Consider the participants’ understanding for the meaning of creativity and remove any confusion over what comprises creative thinking. Thus, certain questions need to be addressed, such as how does one recognize it in oneself and others? Or how can it be facilitated, encouraged and assessed?
67 Types of creativity
Once a clear definition of creativity has been provided, it is important to identify the various types of creativity. As Kampylis et al. (2008, p. 18) mention, many researchers view the main types of creativity as a ‘special talent and so forth’ or ‘self-actualising and so forth’. However, for a deeper insight, they refer to Tylor’s (1959) stages of five types of creativity, namely: ‘expressive creativity; technical creativity; inventive creativity; innovative creativity; and emergentive creativity’, which are ‘useful representation of its multiplicity and as a framework of reference to investigate teachers’ conceptions on creativity’.
The creative contextual and personal factors
The subsequent aim is to ascertain what the main factors are in influencing an individual’s creative behavior and production, whether positively or negatively. These can be categorised by contextual factors, such as ‘social environment, family, economic, and physical conditions’, and personal factors, such as ‘personality, intelligence, knowledge and experience’ (Meintjes and Grosser, 2010, p. 364). Moreover, the culture and ethos that are implemented within an educational institute may also be considered as an important category that might hinder or develop creative thinking skills.
Environmental aspects surrounding creative thinking
Within the educational domain, it is imperative to decide on how teaching materials (i.e. learning tools, whether documents or electronic devices) can be used to effectively
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develop creative thinking. To sum up, the purpose of this systematic review was to specify research studies that could address the question, ‘how do student teachers prepare and learn to use creativity/creative thinking skills in their thinking and teaching?’ The definition of creativity, its role and importance within student teachers’ training programmes, as well as highlighting aspects to enhance creative thinking skills were all explored in a systematic manner. This was done to specify the main dimensions within the area of pre-service teachers’ creativity for future research, particularly in terms of preparation domains. Additionally, the objective of this review was to initiate an investigative research that follows as a result of the systematic review. Consequently, the elements pertaining to this topic, more specifically, the definition of creative thinking, the types of creativity, personal and contextual factors and environmental aspects surrounding creativity, will all be used alongside other relevant literature (related to theories and concept) as the main components in devising the suggested model to enhance the creative thinking of student teachers.