On the role of gender, state of residence and ethnic background of teachers in their creativity styles

Abstract

Creativity as an important factor in education has long been the focus of attention and many studies were conducted on its impact on the effectiveness of education. Accordingly, the present study intended to investigate the relationship between gender, state of residence and ethnic background of high language teachers and their creativity styles. To this end 100 teachers from several cities of East and West Azerbaijan were randomly selected. The data gathered through Creativity Styles Questionnaire (Kumar & Holman, 1997) revealed that there is significant difference between male and female teachers in using creativity styles. Also, there were significant differences between teachers in two states of residence and ethnic backgrounds.

Full text

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On the role of gender, state of residence and ethnic background of teachers in their creativity
styles
Issa Mellati Heravi, MA student, Ilam University, Iran
issamellati@yahoo.com
Saleh Ashrafi, MA student, Azerbaijan Shahid Madani University, Iran
Saleh.ashrafi@live.com
Abstract
Creativity as an important factor in education has long been the focus of attention and many studies
were conducted on its impact on the effectiveness of education. Accordingly, the present study
intended to investigate the relationship between gender, state of residence and ethnic background of
high language teachers and their creativity styles. To this end 100 teachers from several cities of East
and West Azerbaijan were randomly selected. The data gathered through Creativity Styles
Questionnaire (Kumar & Holman, 1997) revealed that there is significant difference between male and
female teachers in using creativity styles. Also, there were significant differences between teachers in
two states of residence and ethnic backgrounds.
Keywords: creativity style, classroom, teacher, gender, ethnic background, state of residence
Introduction
Creativity is best described as the human capacity to regularly solve problems or to fashion
products in a domain, in a way that is initially novel but ultimately acceptable in culture (Gardner,
1993,p. 14). The creation of novel ideas and products is also described as creativity (Ryhammer &
Brolin, 1999). It is also defined as the time when “all our intelligences are put into work involving
seeing, thinking and innovating” (Craft, 2000, p.38). Craft (2001) adds that the process includes
original ideas, different points of view, recombining ideas or seeing new relationships among ideas. To
put these points into practice in classroom contexts, only knowing about the needs of students is not
enough for teachers. They must engage the whole class in a problem, helping students ask questions,
take risks, be imaginative and find different options ( Craft, 2001). In addition, teachers themselves
must also be able to find creative ways and novel solutions to the students’ needs and problems.
Therefore, the present study was intended to investigate the creativity styles of teachers to see to what
extent they consider themselves creative and able to solve students’ problems. Also, the study further

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intended to explore the relationship between teachers’ creativity styles and variables such as gender,
state of residence and ethnic background.
Literature review
According to Cole, Sugioka and Lynch (1999), “creativity, as one of the most important factors in
education, can have great effects on learning environments in classroom contexts” (as cited in
Aljughaiman & Mowrer-Reynolds, 2005). Creative classroom contexts first require creative teachers
and the other related amenities. A creative teacher must also have enough knowledge about creative
methods of teaching and then have the ability to employ those creative methods in the classrooms. The
employing of these methods makes students take reasonable risks and unpredictable situations.
In order to make students develop creativity, creative personality, understanding creative
production and the cognitive processes as important characteristics required by creativity and finally
creating an environment that increases students’ interest must be identified by the teacher (Hill, 1992).
Teachers’ beliefs about creativity can also foster students’ autonomy and self-confidence. They also
make students choose tasks or do their own self-corrections. They are also important factors for
identifying creative teachers (Cheung, Tse & Tsang, 2003; Fryer, 1996). “Teachers also believe that
some strict regulations of classrooms may become barriers to students’ creativity” (as cited in Morais
& Azevedo, 2011). In this respect, a study was conducted by Fryer (1996), the results of which
revealed that the 23% of teachers think that clear rules inhibits student creativity, while 31% of
teachers consider them helpful.
However, teachers may also develop negative attitudes toward creative students if they are not
according to their teachers’ expectations. In a study done in school environment, it was revealed that
teachers regarded nonconformists, easily distracted, experiencing obstacles in fulfilling their academic
obligations as creative students (Guncer and Oral, 1993). Personality of students is also another
determinant factor in teachers’ perceptions of creative students. Torrance (1963), Bachtold (1974),
Stone (1980) and Dawson (1997) believe that “many students of personalities against the teachers’
expectations were reported to be highly creative although their teachers didn’t regard them as such” (as
cited in Aljughaiman & Mowrer-Reynolds, 2005).
Teachers may also have wrong beliefs about the nature of creativity and what creativity exactly is.
Students were evaluated on standardized creativity tests in a study by Mayfield (1979). In his study,
the teacher was made to describe the creative abilities of those students. The results showed that
teachers were unable to give clear and definite descriptions of creativity. Torrance and Safter (1986),
Slabbert (1994), Reid and McGuire (1995) and Fleith (2000) also reported teachers’ lack of sufficient

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understanding of the nature of creativity. As Weisberg (1999) and Boden (2001) believe, “Knowledge
and understanding is essentials of creativity, but they are not enough” (as cited in Vasudevan, 2013).
In spite of the fact that the importance of developing strategies to help students increase their creative
behaviors is acknowledged by many teachers, there are still disagreements about whether teachers
have sufficient and relevant qualifications to perceive creative behaviors (Torrance & Safter, 1986;
Petersen, 1997; Isaksen, Dorval, & Treffinger, 2000; Lynch & Harris, 2001).
Statement of the problem
As discussed above, teachers’ perceptions of students’ creativity is one of the most important
factors in classroom contexts. They may develop positive or negative attitudes toward their students’
creativity. In order for teachers to foster their students’ creativity, teachers must consider themselves to
be creative and have definite creativity styles. However, given the number of studies in the related
literature, there are few if any studies done on the creativity styles of teachers and whether they believe
themselves to be creative. Therefore, this study was intended to explore the creativity styles of English
Language Teachers. It also investigated the relationship between creativity styles of teachers and
variables such as gender, state of residence and ethnic background.
Research question
1. Is there any relationship between perceived creativity styles of English language teachers and
their gender?
2. Is there any relationship between perceived creativity styles of English language teachers in
two states of residence (East and West Azerbaijan)?
3. Is there any relationship between perceived creativity styles of English language teachers and
their two ethnic backgrounds (Kurdish and Turkish)?
Methodology
Design
In order to seek answers for the research questions guiding this study, a quantitative research design
was developed. In this respect, a survey method was employed in which Creativity Styles
Questionnaire (Kumar & Holman, 1997) was used to see whether there was any significant
relationship between creativity styles of English Language Teachers and variables of this study
including gender, state of residence and ethnic background.

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Participants
The participants of this study were 100 English language teachers (50 male and 50 female) who
were randomly selected from several cities of East and West Azerbaijan. They were teaching English
at Tabriz, Shabestar from East Azerbaijan and Sardasht, Orumiye from west Azerbaijan. They were
from two ethnic groups including Turkish and Kurdish. Their ages ranged from 24 to 51.
Instrument
The data were gathered through administering Creativity Styles Questionnaire (Kumar & Holman,
1997). This questionnaire was developed in order to ask subject to self-report on their creative styles
and see whether they believe themselves to be creative. This questionnaire consists of 78 items is a 5
point Likert scale composed of 1, strongly disagree; 2, disagree; 3, neither agree nor disagree; 4, agree;
5, strongly agree. It was translated in to Persian by the researcher. After translation of the
questionnaire, it was distributed among 20 teachers. As for the reliability of this questionnaire the
Cronbach’s alpha was computed. It turned out to be 0.872. Then the questionnaire was modified. One
assistant professor, four PhD students and four MA students of English were asked about the clearness
and content relevance of the questionnaire to prove its validity. Then, the final version of the
questionnaire was distributed among the participants. The participants were asked to read the
statements carefully and circle the appropriate choice which appealed best to them.
Procedure
All the questionnaires were distributed among the students by the researchers. One researcher was
ready to answer any question about the items of questionnaire in case of misunderstanding. In response
to the statements on the Creativity Styles Questionnaire (CSQ) (Kumar & Holman, 1997), teachers
were asked to think about their beliefs about their creativity styles. Therefore, teachers’ CSQ scores
reflected their creativity styles. In order to encourage honest answers, teachers were ensured that they
were not required to provide their names and a coding system was utilized on their particular
questionnaires. In this way, data did not contain any identifiable names. The gathered data through
Creativity Styles Questionnaire (Kumar & Holman, 1997) were analyzed by the statistical package for
social sciences (SPSS). 21th version of this software was used in this respect. Independent sample T-
test was used to compare means between genders, states of residence and ethnic backgrounds.

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Results
An independent-samples t-test was conducted to compare means for creativity styles in males and
females. As can be seen in Tables 1 and 2 below, there was a significant difference in the scores for
males (M=180.8200, SD=8.50376) and females (M=301.3600, SD=6.59239) conditions; t (92.269) =
-79.216, p = .000.
Table 1: descriptive statistics for gender differences in creativity styles
.
Table 2: independent T-test for the equality of the means between genders
Creativity styles
Leven’s test for the
equality of the variances
t-test for equality of means
F
Sig.
t
df
Sig.
(2-tailed)
Mean
Difference
Std. Error
Difference
95% confidence
Interval of the difference
Lower
Upper
Equal variances
assumed
Equal variances
not Assumed
.412
.522
-79.216
-79.216
98
92.269
.000
.000
-120.54000
-120.54000
1.52167
1.52167
-123.55970
-123.56204
-117.52030
-117.51796
An independent-samples t-test was conducted to compare means for creativity styles in two states of
residence. As can be seen in tables 3 and 4 below, there was a significant difference in the scores for
East Azerbaijan (M=215.8000, SD=53.16896) and West Azerbaijan (M=266.3800, SD=58.28182)
conditions; t (97.185) = -4.534, p = .000.
Table 3: descriptive statistics for two states of residence in creativity styles
Group Statistics
state of residence
N
Mean
Std.
Deviation
Std. Error
Mean
Total creativity
styles
East Azerbaijan
50
215.8000
53.16896
7.51923
West Azerbaijan
50
266.3800
58.28182
8.24229
Group Statistics
gender of the
participants
N
Mean
Std.
Deviation
Std. Error
Mean
Total creativity
styles
male
50
180.8200
8.50376
1.20261
female
50
301.3600
6.59239
.93230

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Table 4: independent T-test for the equality of the means between two states of residence
Creativity styles
Leven’s test for the
equality of the variances
t-test for equality of means
F
Sig.
t
df
Sig.
(2-tailed)
Mean
Difference
Std. Error
Difference
95% confidence
Interval of the difference
Lower
Upper
Equal variances
assumed
Equal variances
not Assumed
1.290
.259
-4.534
-4.534
98
97.185
.000
.000
-50.58000
-50.58000
11.15680
11.15680
-72.72031
-72.72263
-28.43969
-25.43737
An independent-samples t-test was conducted to compare means for creativity styles in two ethnic
backgrounds. As can be seen in tables 5 and 6 below, there was a significant difference in the scores
for Kurdish teachers (M=195.7500, SD=49.11542) and Turkish teachers (M=255.500, SD=40.16054)
conditions; t (91.232) = -2.279, p = .000.
Table 5: descriptive statistics for two ethnic backgrounds in creativity styles
Group Statistics
Ethnic background
N
Mean
Std.
Deviation
Std. Error
Mean
Total creativity
styles
Kurdish
50
195.7500
49.11542
6.40812
Turkish
50
255.500
40.16054
4.13106
Table 6: independent T-test for the equality of the means between ethnic backgrounds
Creativity styles
Leven’s test for the
equality of the variances
t-test for equality of means
F
Sig.
t
df
Sig.
(2-tailed)
Mean
Difference
Std. Error
Difference
95% confidence
Interval of the difference
Lower
Upper
Equal variances
assumed
Equal variances
not Assumed
.359
.628
-2.279
-2.279
98
91.232
.000
.000
-45.49000
-45.49000
14.19258
14.19258
-63.72031
-63.51247
-26.34541
-20.32641

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Discussion
This study was done with the aim of exploring the relationship between genders, states of residence,
ethnic backgrounds and creativity styles of language teachers. The obtained results showed that there
are significant relationships between creativity styles of teachers and the variables of this study. As
shown in Tables in 1 and 2, there is significant relationship between gender and creativity styles of
teachers. This answers the first research question. Female teachers got higher grades (M= 301.3600) in
creativity styles than their male counterparts (M= 180.8200). This reveals that female teachers use
more creativity styles and believe themselves to be more creative. Also, this further reveals that female
teachers make more attempts to be creative, so this can be very important and have strong effects on
students’ and teachers’ own creativity styles because according to (Cheung, Tse & Tsang, 2003; Fryer,
1996), teachers’ own beliefs of creativity can foster students’ autonomy, self-confidence and also
provide them with opportunities to choose tasks or to do their own self-corrections. On the other hand,
male teachers that got low grades in creativity styles which reveals that they do not have clear and
definite understanding of creativity, thus can have serious effects on their ability to help students to be
creative. This is in consistence with Torrance and Safter (1986), Slabbert (1994), Reid and McGuire
(1995) and Fleith (200) who reported teachers’ lack of sufficient understanding of the nature of
creativity to have effect on their ability to help students to be creative.
The obtained results further revealed that there are significant relationships between creativity
styles of teachers in two states of residence and two ethnic backgrounds. There is significant difference
between teachers of states of residence (East Azerbaijan and West Azerbaijan) in using creativity
styles. As shown in Tables 3 and 4, teachers from West Azerbaijan got higher grades (M= 266.3800)
in using creativity styles than teachers from East Azerbaijan (M= 215.8000). This reveals that teachers
from West Azerbaijan use more creativity styles and have strong tendencies to be creative. This
answers the second research question. There is also significant difference between teachers of two
ethnic backgrounds in using creativity styles. As shown in tables 5 and 6, Turkish teachers got higher
grades (M= 255.500) than their Kurdish counterparts (M= 195.7500). This reveals that Turkish
teachers use more creativity styles and have strong desires and tendencies to be creative. This also
answers the third research question.
Conclusion and implication
This study puts forward that there are significant differences between creativity styles of teachers
and variables of this study such as gender, ethnic background and states of residence. It is worth
highlighting that female teachers outperformed their male counterparts in using creativity styles.

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Furthermore, Turkish teachers outperformed Kurdish teachers. Teachers from West Azerbaijan also
outperformed teachers from East Azerbaijan in using creativity styles. Therefore, teacher trainers and
those who are responsible in this respect must issue strong policies and devise proper teacher training
programs so that teachers can recognize subjects related to the concept of creativity and those that
cause more indecision or confusion. Moreover, teachers should be made familiar to those ways of
teaching that fosters the sense of creativity in both teachers and students. However, this kind of
training should be developed in a very practical way that takes into account the experiences of teachers
in schools and not just only in a theoretical basis.
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