Pakistani Secondary Science Teachers' Beliefs About Creativity And Their Practices Regarding Its Cultivation

In 1950's,regarding economic,social,environmental and,technological challenges there was a roar and laughter of creativity around the globe which affected the whole globe.Seeing this roar and laughter of creativity,as a result,the students' creativity in schools became a day of order to all educational institutions,investigators,instructors,and policymakers due to which the issue of creativity took its deep roots in the whole globe specifically and in educational institutions generally.Sensing the above sensible issue,the researcher embarked on a journey to study creativity from the inside of teachers' perspective because so far only few studies were conducted on such important issue in South Asian countries generally and in Pakistan especially.So,the overall aim of this thesis was to explore the secondary science teachers' beliefs regarding creativity and to examine those instructional practices that if the teachers adapt them in science classes would cultivate creativity among the students.In addition to it,regarding creativity the influencing factors were also examined in the thesis to see how these factors influence the creativity in the secondary science classes.This study possesses a qualitative nature which stands on the Charmaz's(2000)constructivist philosophical research paradigm through the Grounded Theory approach.The study was conducted among five local secondary schools,consisting of 16 secondary science teachers.Multiple research tools such as focus group discussions,preinterview non-participant observations,semi-structured face to face individual interviews and field notes were conducted to address the posed research questions of the study.The data analysis was based on the model of thematic analysis proposed by Miles and Hubberman(1994).All the thematic findings were drawn from the analysis of the data collected through the above mentioned research tools.Regarding RQ 1,it was categorized into two main categories i.e.,the meaning / definition of creativity and the nature of creativity.For the first category i.e.,the meaning / definition of creativity,the thematic findings indicated that secondary science teachers were able to define creativity according to their views.They defined the creativity in three themes which were “newness,usefulness and imagination”.For the second category i.e.,the nature of creativity,the thematic findings indicated that secondary science teachers believed in two themes which were creativity as implanted in science and little c creativity.Finally,laying the past literature as a base and in light of the present findings of the study,regarding RQ 1,this conceptualization of the Pakistani secondary science teachers' beliefs were counted as “balanced views to creativity”.This kind of conceptualization of the mentioned Pakistani secondary science teachers regarding the RQ 1 were compared with the past literature,and,finally by the qualifications of the grounded theory approach(GTA),the study grounded the following threefold theory in the data as:i.4P's theory of creativityii.Theory of little c creativityiii.Theory of creativity is implanted in scienceRegarding the RQ 2,the teachers' professed beliefs endorsed the four instructional practices,for which they perceived that these are the responsible practices for the cultivation of creativity among the secondary science students.These were pure Lecture Method,Lecture cum Practical Method,Teaching through Thinking Skills,and Cooperative Learning Method.The teachers believed that these four instructional practices could cultivate the students' creativity if the relevant factors could make the way for the facilitation of such instructional practices in their classrooms during the teaching learning process.Regarding the RQ 3,in their classrooms during the teaching learning process,the secondary science teachers came across with the various influencing factors that influenced the facilitation and / or inhibition of creativity.Various influencing factors acted as mediators when teachers wanted to put their professed beliefs according to their instructional practices due to which inconsistencies appeared.Consistencies and / or inconsistencies appeared when these professed beliefs were compared to the actual applied classroom practices.Consistencies and / or inconsistencies regarding the belief-practice relationship were explored through the final RQ 4.Some of the teachers were failed to justify their beliefs according to applied instructional practices.The particular influencing(mediating)factors prevented the secondary science teachers to apply the believed instructional practices into their classrooms.