Beliefs About Scientific Creativity Held by Pre-Service Science Teachers in the State of Kuwait

Understanding teachers’ sentiments and views is a central goal of the educational research community; especially, understanding teachers’ beliefs which could be transferred to classroom practices. Teachers’ beliefs about creativity and how they can nurture it has been investigated in several studies, but there is a lack of studies exploring teachers’ beliefs about creativity in the science classroom. The current study aims to understand the beliefs of pre-service science teachers about scientific creativity, fostering creativity in the science classroom, the characteristics of creative students in science, and the encouraging and challenging factors. The research design has an exploratory nature based on a questionnaire consisting of 18 closed-ended questions and eight open-ended questions. 152 questionnaires were quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed. The results indicated that science is seen as a creative school subject. Participants view scientific creativity as original, useful, imaginative, and having empirical actions. Commitment, curiosity, enthusiasm, questioning, and experimenting are the characteristics of creative students in the science classroom. Other factors that encourage or hinder the process of nurturing scientific creativity were also identified. Implementations and suggestions for future study are also discussed.


Introduction
Creativity is one of the fundamental goals in education, pursued by many countries around the world, because creativity is one of the crucial aspects for developing advanced societies (Hennessey & Amabile, 2010). In the State of Kuwait, the current government has established a national program called New Kuwait 2035, aimed at developing new infrastructure for all national services including education. The new program prioritizes creative education in order to confront future challenges.
Although the existing literature on creativity identifies many aspects, elements, and implications, few studies investigate teachers' conceptions of creativity and how it can be nurtured. Andiliou and Murphy (2010) reviewed research on creativity published between 2000 and 2009; they found only nine studies focused on teachers' perspectives about creativity, and only one study out of the nine concerned teachers' perspectives on creativity in science education. The science education literature suffers from a lack of research about fostering scientific creativity and how teachers understand creativity in the science classroom (Liu & Lin, 2014). Thus, there is a need for further investigation about teachers' conceptions of creativity in the science classroom.
Pedagogical practices that nurture creativity in the science classroom could be based on what the science teacher believes about creativity. Alsahou (2015), for example, investigated eight case studies of science teachers and concluded that a teacher who believed that science is a static and non-creative subject usually built his/her practices on teacher-centered approaches. Meanwhile, science teachers who hold progressive beliefs about creativity were applying more student-centered approaches and encouraging imaginative thinking. Therefore, teachers' beliefs play a significant role, for their beliefs about creativity can facilitate or hinder the creative thinking of students inside the classroom (Beghetto, 2006).
Previous research has indicated that science teachers hold a general understanding of creativity and can identify some major components of creativity. However, they appeared to have naïve beliefs about deeper issues concerning creativity. For example, a study conducted by Liu and Lin (2014) investigated the beliefs of 16 experienced science teachers about creativity. The study found that the teachers were able to explain some pedagogies for teaching creativity in the science classroom as well as some characteristics of creative students. Nevertheless, Liu and Lin (2014) concluded that the experienced teachers missed out some other aspects of creativity and some pedagogies, such as problem-solving skills and convergent thinking skills. Lee and Kim (2005) also studied science teachers' beliefs about creativity among teachers in a program for gifted students in South Korea. They found that teachers limited the meaning of creativity to high cognitive and intellectual capacities; the teachers also neglected the role of environmental factors on creative behaviors. Hong and Kang (2010) found that science teachers hold restricted beliefs about creativity, concluding that the teachers believed that problem-based learning and inquiry-based learning can foster creativity in the science classroom. However, the researchers argued that the teachers could not elaborate on their general beliefs.
Other studies have aimed to explore the beliefs about creativity of pre-service student teachers who will become science teachers. For example, Newton and Newton (2011) explored the beliefs of 79 pre-service science teachers, and concluded that trainers hold simple and narrow beliefs about creativity in science. The participants focused on hands-on activities as a facilitator approach for nurturing creativity. Such understanding is simple because one approach does not address individual differences and needs. Newton (2010) also asked 12 pre-service science teachers to assess the creativeness of selected events; the results indicated that overall assessment criteria used by participants to evaluate the event were naïve. One year previously, Newton and Newton (2009) found that pre-service science teachers hold insufficient beliefs about creativity, and they missed out the role of imaginative thinking in constructing scientific knowledge. Similarly, Park, Lee, and Oliver (2006) concluded that student teachers have simple beliefs.
Overall, the reviewed studies found that teachers agreed that creativity can be nurtured in the science classroom; but that they hold simple and insufficient beliefs about some aspects of creativity, nurturing creative behaviors, and how to assess creativity in the science classroom.

Questions of the Study
The current study aimed to assess the beliefs of pre-service science teachers about creativity in the science classroom. Four questions were set in order to obtain the research aims: 1) Do pre-service teachers perceive science as a creative subject?
2) Do pre-service teachers view science as a creative subject when compared with other subjects?
3) What are the contextual elements that affect the process of fostering creativity in the science classroom? 4) What are the characteristics of creative students in the science classroom, according to pre-service teachers? ies.ccsenet.org International Education Studies Vol. 12, No. 10; 1.4 Significance of the Study Some significant conclusions can be drawn from this study. Firstly, the findings of the current study will contribute in understanding how science teachers perceive creativity in science within the Kuwaiti context. Secondly, the findings also can provide suggestions for developing the science teacher program at the College of Basic Education. Thirdly, it may inform the research community of science education about aspect, strategies, and factors that are associated with creativity in the science classroom, especially, when previous literature acknowledges the lack of studies in this area of study.

Data Collection
To elicit trainee-science teachers' understanding of creativity in science education, a questionnaire was used in order to collect data. The questionnaire, entitled "Teacher's views about creativity in science" was developed by the researchers. It comprises, sequentially, five demographic questions, nine closed-ended questions about creativity in education, nine closed-ended questions about creativity in science education specifically, and eight open-ended questions. The participants were asked to rate their perceptions using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 'strongly agree' to 'strongly disagree'.

Sample
The questionnaire was distributed by hand to 185 Kuwaiti pre-service student science teachers at the College of Basic Education in Kuwait. The return rate was almost 82%: 152 individuals responded to the questionnaire. This sample comprised 92 female (60.5%) and 60 male (39.5%) science teachers. The student teachers ranged from under 18 years old to over 30 years old. The questionnaire sample included all the students enrolled in the bachelor's degree in science education, including first year (12.5%), second year (28.9%), third year (32.9%) and fourth year (25.7%). In terms of the students' grade point average for the student major (GPA), respondents were divided up into five groupings: 3.5 or more (32.2%), 3-3.49 GPA (25.7%), 2.5-2.99 GPA (22.4%), 2-2.49 GPA (10.5%), and less than 2 GPA (10.5%).

Validity and Reliability
The study followed steps for ensuring the validity and reliability of the questionnaire. For example, the researchers reviewed similar instruments from related literature, such as Alsahou (2015), Hong and Kang (2010), Lee and Kim (2005), Liu and Lin (2014), Newton and Newton (2009, 2011), Park, Lee, and Oliver (2006, and Lederman, Abd-Elkhalick, and Schwartz (2002). Then, the initial questionnaire was examined and reviewed by three experts in creative and gifted education.
Regarding reliability, a pilot study was conducted in order to examine the internal reliability. The pilot questionnaire was completed by 27 participants. It originally consisted of 20 closed-ended items; two items were dropped in order to reach acceptable scores for the sub-scales. As shown in Table 1, a reliability analysis was carried out on the total views of creativity in science education scale, comprising 18 items. Cronbach's alpha showed the questionnaire to reach acceptable reliability, α = 0.822 (J. Gliem & R. Gliem, 2003). The sub-scale of views on creative education reaches acceptable reliability, α = 0.722; meanwhile, the sub-scale of creativity in science subject also reaches acceptable reliability, α = 0.706.

Data Analysis
The quantitative data collected from the questionnaires was analyzed using SPSS. Descriptive statistics were used including means, standard deviations, frequencies, and percentages. With respect to qualitative data, open-ended questions were analyzed using an iterative process. Qualitative data sources were coded to discern initial patterns and themes, which were continually refined and modified during the analysis to generate both descriptive and explanatory categories (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Codes were developed to identify relevant and recurring themes.

Quantitative Findings
Quantitative data analysis revealed some the teachers' beliefs about the nature of the science subject and how they view it. It also shows how they perceive creativity in education in general, and how they rank the science subject as creative when compared with other subjects. Thus, the quantitative results answer the first two research questions as follows.  Table 2 shows that the two sub-scales are close to the agreement level. The grand average for participants' views toward creative education is 4.03, with standard deviation .42. Meanwhile, pre-service teachers' views of creativity in science scored a lower mean (M = 3.76, SD = .39). Further details of the two sub-scale items are discussed below. From the table it can be deduced that the means of most of the items of this dimension are located in the agreement level: means ranged between 3.51 and 4.59. Only two items scored means below 4. Item 4 has the lowest score (M = 3.51, SD = 1.23) followed by item 2 (M = 3.80, SD = 1.05). Meanwhile, the means of the remaining items were above 4; and item 20 was the highest (M = 4.59, SD = 0.59). From the means of the items it can be concluded that the participants agreed that creativity is a fundamental ability that should be fostered in school subjects. Also, it indicates that all students can demonstrate creative endeavors by producing new ideas. Thus, participants agreed that teachers are responsible for developing the creative skills of students and creating encouraging classroom activities.
The other sub-scale of the questionnaire demonstrates pre-service teachers' views of creativity in the science subject. As shown in Table 4, most of the means reached the agreement level and ranged between 3.78 to 4.3, except items 8 and 12 which scored slightly low means (M = 2.74, SD = 1.13; and M = 2.84, SD = 1.11 respectively). The results in Table 4 indicate that participants agreed that creativity is important for constructing ies.ccsenet.org International Education Studies Vol. 12, No. 10; scientific knowledge and that it should be developed in science. They also agreed that the science subject is a creative one, and teaching and learning it should focus on developing the students' creative abilities. ** recoded data of negative items.
Moreover, participants' views about the science subject are revealed. The result indicated that the majority of participants believed that science is a creative subject. As shown in Table 5, 68.4% of the pre-service science teachers viewed science as a subject that can support creativity. In contrast, a few of the participants viewed science as not a subject which can promote creativity (N = 4, 2.6%). About a quarter of the participants believed that the science subject is sometimes creative (N = 39, 25.7%). The participants were asked to put school subjects in order, starting from the most creative to the least creative subject. The results indicated that science is one of the most creative subjects, as shown the table below.  Note. The subjects are gradually ordered. The lowest mean represents the first and the highest mean represents the last subject.
As shown in Table 6, pre-service science teachers considered subjects like Fine Arts and Science to be the most connected with creativity, with a sequential priority mean of 2.56 and 2.89 respectively. Music and Math took the middle position with priority means of 3.43 and 3.45. Arabic, History and English came last, with sequential priority means of 4.7, 5.45, and 5.5 respectively.

Qualitative Findings
Inductive coding analysis was applied to create themes from participants' responses to eight open-ended questions. Four major themes emerged from the analysis: 1) the meaning of scientific creativity,2) participants' views on the science subject, 3) creative students in the science subject, 4) reinforcements and challenges to creative students in the science subject.

Meaning of Scientific Creativity
Four categories appeared under the meaning of scientific creativity: originality, usefulness, imagination, and empiricism. The codes of these categories indicate that most of the participants viewed scientific creativity as imaginative thinking based on empirical actions to create something new, socially useful, and scientifically acceptable.
Firstly, almost all the participants believed that scientific creativity means being original, such as creating new things or solving scientific problems through new ways. Originality is seen as "the ability of creating, or … of solving something in a creative manner, that differs from the traditional way of solving" (participant1). Secondly, almost one third of the participants stated that the outcome should be useful. Creativity is "a new and useful production that is appreciated by the community and it solves a particular problem" (participant 8). "It should be not only new but also useful for others" (participant 33). Thirdly, creativity requires imaginative thinking about natural phenomena; as one said, scientific creativity is "scientific imagination that is based on theories, research, and experiments" (participant 21). Creativity is "imagination, and it's thinking of what's new, or developing something [from] traditional to new" (participant 96). Various participants stated that imagination is a fundamental ability of scientific creativity, because "the starting point of scientific creativity is imagination" (participant 28). Finally, scientific creativity is based on empirical actions and evidences. Creativity as domain-specific shall be compatible with the domain principles; therefore, scientific creativity relies on empirical activities, explanations, and evidences. One participant said, "All sciences were created by creative endeavors" (participant 58); another one said that creativity is "a new idea or production that can be proved scientifically through experimentations" (participant 73). One participant who referred to empiricism in their responses defined scientific creativity as "any creation that is based on valid empirical work and scientific evidence" (participant 139).

Pre-Service Teachers' Views on the Science Subject
The findings revealed that participants view science as a creative and contextual subject. It is creative because it Develops critical thinking skills 9 Develops problem-solving skills 35 Contextual subject Scientific knowledge develops students' daily life 120 The participants frequently asserted that "science activities encourage students' imagination" (participant 21), and "enable them to think creatively" (participant 9). Also, they perceived that "scientific research consists of imagination and experimentation." (participant 31) As shown in Table 7, the majority of pre-service teachers (120 out of 152) believed that science is a contextual subject, meaning that it is a subject that is rooted in daily life. Some said that science activities and information are strongly connected with the students' lives.
Science is everywhere in students' daily activities. When they go to the family doctor they talk about biological things, when they change light bulbs at home they actually practice the lessons of electricity, when they see their mothers cook they remember chemistry lessons, and so on. Thus, if creativity is fostered in the science classroom, [students] would possibly be able to generate new things in their daily lives. (participant 151) Pre-service teachers frequently stated the usefulness of science activities in the students' context. They believed that the activities of the science classroom "can be directly applied in after-school life." (participant 22)

Creative Students in the Science Classroom
The inductive analysis revealed categories related to creative students' behaviors in science activities, as illustrated in Table 8. Students' excitement to learn about scientific phenomena was mentioned by 64 participants. They indicated that creative students are enthusiastic when they learn something new. They also show great degrees of commitment and curiosity. Moreover, 35 participants indicated that questioning is one of the common behaviors of creative students; others indicated that creative students like to experiment with things and examine ideas.

Reinforcements and Challenges
As illustrated in Table 9, factors impacting the promotion of creativity in the science classroom were generated from the data analysis. The most common facilitator is focusing on empirical activities, where students are able to test their own hypothesis and ideas. Also, the student teachers frequently mentioned the role of CPD courses that would focus on creativity. Such courses would provide teachers with ideas, and ways to apply them in practice in the science class. Moreover, they believed that the classroom should be generously supplied with tools and materials to enable students to practice ideas and apply various activities. Some student teachers mentioned that students' autonomy should be encouraged by supporting free thinking and freedom to explore their hypotheses.

Views on Creative Education
The current findings show that the pre-service teachers hold advanced views regarding creative education (M = 4.03). The pre-service teachers agreed that creativity can be applied in all subjects including science. Also, they agreed that creativity is a potential which can be demonstrated by anyone. In other words, they disagreed with the view that holds creativity to be a distinctive ability of gifted people. Also, they agreed that creativity can be demonstrated in class when students show creative actions and ideas. Such a result is in line with the model of everyday creativity also known as the little c model (Boden, 1990;Craft, 2002).

Views on Creativity in Science Education
The findings also revealed that pre-service teachers realize the science subject is a creative one when compared with other subjects. They believe that science contributes in developing different thinking skills such as creative thinking, problem solving, and critical thinking; and that such skills are embedded in teaching and constructing scientific knowledge. Thus, the majority (68%) stated that science is a creative subject; while 25% said it is sometimes creative. Few teachers said that science is not creative (4 out of 152 participants). They ordered science as one of the most creative subjects; they view art as the most creative subject, followed by science. These findings are compatible with the result of some studies, (Alsahou, 2015;Hu & Adey, 2002;Johnston, 2009;Johnston & Ahtee, 2006). For example, Johnston (2009) concluded that teachers specializing in teaching scientific topics such as chemistry, physics, and geology believe that creative endeavors can be developed in their subjects. They see creativity as one of the fundamental elements of the nature of scientific knowledge (Alsahou, 2015;Hu & Adey, 2002;Johnston & Ahtee, 2006).
Nevertheless, this result contradicted the findings of other studies that concluded that teachers mainly relate creativity with art, such as the visual arts and music (Aljughaiman & Mowrer-Reynolds, 2005;Diakidoy & Kanari, ies.ccsenet.org International Education Studies Vol. 12, No. 10;Fryer, 1996;Kampylis, 2010;Mohammed, 2006). Such a contradiction could be explained by the differences between the sample of the current study and the samples of the contradicted studies; in which, current research focused on pre-service teachers specializing in science, whereas the contradicted ones focused on general teachers.

Meaning of Scientific Creativity
The findings revealed four aspects for conceptualizing something as creative: originality, usefulness, imagination, and empiricism. Originality as an example was mentioned by almost all participants. Usefulness was mentioned by 51 pre-service teachers, and imagination by 38. Such an understanding of creativity is in line with the descriptions stated by a number of creativity scholars, such as Feldman (1994), Amabile (1983), Sternberg and Lubart (1999), Lynch and Harries (2001), and Kampylis, Berki, and Saariluoma (2009). Further, almost all the participants added empiricism as fundamental for scientific creativity. Empiricism appeared to be an aspect that explains the scientific part of the definition of scientific creativity. This result illustrates that anything considered as scientifically creative should be empirically accepted.

Views on Creative Students
The results described creative students in science classes as curious, tolerant, and enthusiastic. This description is compatible with the literature of creativity that defines creative people (Burnard et al., 2006;Dacey, 1989;Feist, 1998;Starko, 1995Starko, , 2001Taylor, 1995;Torrance, 2004). Other characteristics mentioned inquiry: the findings indicated that creative students in science class usually pose unfamiliar questions and tend to test and experiment these questions. Questioning skills can foster students' creativity and enhance individuals' potential to be creative in science class. This finding is in line with other studies (Burnard et al., 2008;Chappell et al., 2008aChappell et al., , 2008bCraft et al., 2012aCraft et al., , 2012b. As Haigh (2007) stated, questioning skills must be nurtured for producing creative conclusions.
Therefore, pre-service teachers believe that creative students should not only question things but also examine them scientifically. They emphasized that experiments and practical lab activities stimulate creative students to find new possibilities for unfamiliar questions and ideas. This finding concurs with findings from other research (e.g., Cheng, 2006;Haigh, 2007; P. Kind & V. Kind, 2007;Newton & Newton, 2008Shayer & Adey, 2002).

Views on Impact Factors
Some factors appeared to be external ones, such as the availability of various tools and equipment in school labs. The participants believe that classroom activities are influenced by the Ministry of Education, which is responsible for equipping school labs with educational materials and tools. Also, they believe that their practices for fostering creativity will be affected by the CPD courses provided by the Ministry. These two external factors play a role in employing approaches to creativity.
Empirical and creative thinking depend on interactions within the science classroom. The results indicate some factors relating to the teachers' practices in class, such as focusing on effective activities that encourage creative thinking, including hand-on activities. This view is in line with some studies (e.g., Alsahou, 2015;Haigh, 2007; P. Kind & V. Kind, 2007). Related literature confirms that students will creatively involve themselves in the processes of conducting scientific research (Craft, 2000;Meador, 2003;Starko, 2010). The result also emphasized on developing students' autonomy because it helps students to think differently and creatively. The correlation between creativity and students' autonomy is supported by previous research (Alsahou, 2015;Ewing & Gibson, 2007;Haring-Smith, 2006;Jeffry & Wood, 1997;Mohammed, 2006).
The most common challenges that would constrain science teachers from applying practices for creativity is a lack of time and the hard work required for implementing creative interactions. They believe that aiming for creativity will require a lot of effort and time (Alsahou, 2015).

Conclusion
The pre-service teachers hold positive views about creativity in science. They agree that creativity should be fostered in the science class. They defined scientific creativity and identified the factors for facilitating the process of nurturing creativity in science activities. Thus, it can be concluded that they hold a general understanding of and positive attitude toward creativity in the science class.

Implications and Further Research
Some implications can be derived from the current study. For example, the Ministry of Education can improve teachers' practices for scientific creativity by offering CPDcourses on scientific creativity and creative ies.ccsenet.org International Education Studies Vol. 12, No. 10; pedagogies. Also, school labs could be reinforced with various tools and materials. The student teacher training college should offer courses about creative education and scientific creativity to pre-service science teachers.