Original scientific paper

IMPLICIT THEORIES OF CREATIVITY IN EARLY EDUCATION

Tonća Jukić ; Department of Pedagogy, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Split

Abstract

The paper examined the educators' implicit theories of creativity from the point of view of creativity styles and Kirton's adaption-innovation theory of creativity. According to this theory, all people can be creative at different levels and can express their creativity in different ways, mostly through interest and preferred cognitive style. Since Kirton's theory of creativity is in harmony with contemporary pedagogical requirements of the educational system that encourages each individual’s maximum potential, the authors aim to determine how educators in early education comprehend creativity and whether they differ in implicit theories with respect to some socio-demographic characteristics. When assessing creativity of the child with the adaptive and the innovative style of creativity, the results showed educators' preference of innovative style of creativity. Furthermore, it was established that educators who work in public kindergartens and have more work experience estimated adaptor to be significantly more creative while educators who work in private nurseries found innovator significantly more creative. There were no differences in the assessment of creativity with regard to the assessment of educators' personal creativity. The results confirm the importance of understanding educators' implicit theories of creativity for their pedagogic practice as it was determined that the practical effect may largely depend on the theoretical view which a practitioner represents.

Keywords

adaption-innovation theory of creativity; early education; implicit theories of creativity; styles of creativity

Hrčak ID:

76345

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/76345

Publication date:

23.11.2011.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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