Exploring Creativity Beliefs and Biases of University Education Students

Year 2025, Volume: 14 Issue: 3, 219 - 238, 31.12.2025

Todd Kettler , Beatrice Buentello , Kristen Lamb , Shan Jiang Anna Payne

Abstract

Teachers' beliefs about creativity are an important precursor to their intent to engage in creative pedagogy. The present study explored how education students' beliefs about teaching for creativity relate to potential misunderstandings about creativity (i.e. creativity bias). Two hundred and nine education students were recruited from a large state university. Participants were given a creativity bias scale and the Beliefs about Teaching for Creativity Scale (BATCS). We conducted four multiple regressions predicting overall creativity bias, arts bias, psychopathology bias, and big-C bias from the subscales of the BATCS. First, we found low rates of creativity bias endorsement indicated by only 4.8% of participants scoring rating biases above the midpoint. Second, we found that a fixed creative mindset predicted the Arts, Big-C, and psychopathology bias. Third, creative teaching self-efficacy negatively predicted the arts bias. These findings inform the instruction in creative pedagogy in teacher education programs to help educators develop accurate beliefs about creativity and creative pedagogy.

Keywords

creativty , creativity bias , teacher’s beliefs , mindsets , beliefs bias

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