Preservice Teachers’ Personality Traits and Creative Behaviors as Predictors of Their Support for Children’s Creativity

• In Event: Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: Issues in Early Education and Child Development

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine relationships among pre-service teachers’ personality traits, their own engagement in creative behaviors, and their beliefs about teaching practices to support children’s creativity. Findings indicate that pre-service teachers who had higher scores on the openness to experience personality trait had more engagement in creativity-related experiences; those who had higher scores on the openness trait and who had more creativity-related behaviors were more likely to espouse creativity-fostering teaching styles; and pre-service teachers’ own creativity-related behaviors fully/partially mediated the relationship between the openness trait and their beliefs about specific creativity-fostering teaching practices. Implications for teacher education are discussed, and suggestions are made for future research on the relationships between teacher attributes and creativity-fostering teaching practices.

Authors

• Il Rang Lee, Bowling Green State University

• Kristen Mary Kemple, University of Florida