A Situatıonal Study for the Identificatıon of Pre-Service Science Teachers’ Creatıve Thinking and Creatıve Scientıfıc Thinkıng Skills

Abstract

This study was conducted with the participation of 33 pre-service teachers attending the department science teaching of a Turkish university. Participants self-reported using the ‘Self-assessment of creativity scale’ and were asked to choose the most appropriate answer to the five-choice self-assessment question ‘Which category best describes your creative scientific thinking skills?’ The main problem of the study concerns pre-service science teachers’ self-assessments of their creative thinking and creative scientific thinking skills. The findings of the study showed that pre-service teachers were sometimes uncertain about their creative thinking skills, and saw their scientific creativity as only partially satisfactory.

Keywords: scientific creativity, pre-service teachers, science education, creativity