The relationship between creative teaching and students' performance

Abstract

The curriculum Reform in Hong Kong aims to develop students’ creativity. However, the degree of creativity teachers incorporate into teaching is unknown. There is a lack of robust evidence regarding teachers’ creative teaching in the Hong Kong classrooms. This study aims to investigate the relationship between teachers’ creative teaching and primary students’ performance in creative thinking, mathematics and Chinese creative writing.

To address this issue, this study began with the development and validation of the Chinese Creative Teaching Framework, which was applied as an outcome measure for creative teaching performance. The Chinese Creative Teaching Framework was adapted from Schacter, Thum and Zifkin’s (2006) Creative Teaching Framework. A total of fifty-six Chinese lessons and fifty-six Mathematics lessons in Hong Kong classrooms were observed and rated at fixed periods throughout the school year by two independent raters. During each lesson, the frequency and quality of the teacher’s creative teaching behaviour in accordance to the Chinese Creative Teaching Framework were assessed by the raters. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were employed to examine the factor structures of the Chinese Creative Teaching Framework. The result showed that the Chinese Creative Teaching Framework was a four-factor model with fourteen items, and the solution accounted for 71.4% of the variance in the scores. With its good internal consistency, inter-rater reliability and construct validity, the Chinese Creative Teaching Framework can be used as a measure for assessing the degree of creativity in teaching Chinese and Mathematics. This framework can also be applied in Mainland China, Taiwan, and Chinese societies elsewhere in the world.

Teachers’ creative teaching performance was then compared with the results shown in the previous work done by Schacter, Thum and Zifkin (2006). The independent samples t-test was used and the differences between the two studies were discussed. Teachers’ creative teaching scores were also used as predictor variables to determine the magnitude of the relationship between creative teaching and students’ performance in Mathematics, creative thinking and Chinese creative writing. To evaluate the effectiveness of students’ performance, their mathematics performance was measured by TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study), their creative thinking was evaluated by the figural part of TTCT (the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking) and their Chinese creative writing was measured by CCWS (the Chinese Creative Writing Scale). Multiple regression analyses were conducted and the results showed that there was a positive and significant relationship between teacher’s creative writing behaviour and students’ performance in Mathematics, creative thinking and Chinese creative writing. Strong relationships were identified between the teaching factor ‘opportunities for discovery and imagination’ and students’ creative thinking, the teaching factor ‘environment conductive to creativity’ and students’ creative wiring, and the teaching factor ‘intrinsic motivation’ and students’ mathematical problem solving.

The significance of this study is that it provides solid support showing the teachers’ key role in structuring and maintaining creative learning environments. Evident from the Chinese Creative Teaching Framework, teachers’ creative teaching behaviour predicts the performance of students. Theoretical, pedagogical implications and further research were suggested.