Pre-Servıce Scıence Teachers’ Self-Assessments of Scıentıfıc Creatıvıty and Proposals for Scıentıfıc Creatıvıty Actıvıtıes

Abstract

This study was conducted with the participation of 21 pre-service science teachers attending the second year of a university in Turkey. Participating pre-service science teachers were asked a five-choice question on their self-assessments of scientific creativity, and an open-ended question on what they would do, as teachers, to improve the scientific creativity of their students. This study examines the pre-service science teachers’ self-assessments of scientific creativity and proposals for scientific creativity activities. The data collected shows that pre-service science teachers have a preference for using laboratory/conducting experiments, connecting with daily life, and ‘teaching by doing and living’ to improve their students’ scientific creativity skills, whereas activities such as having students prepare projects and conduct research are not very popular. A parallel finding was that most pre-service science teachers evaluate their scientific creativity skills as only partially satisfactory.

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