Thesis
To what extent is creativity embedded in Scottish Secondary school science teaching and learning?
- Creator
- Rights statement
- Awarding institution
- University of Strathclyde
- Date of award
- 2025
- Thesis identifier
- T17280
- Person Identifier (Local)
- 201854406
- Qualification Level
- Qualification Name
- Department, School or Faculty
- Abstract
- Creativity is commonly acknowledged to be a value and its implementation has proved to be beneficial in a variety of fields such as social science, economics, arts, and personal wellbeing. In the last century, scholars have been debating the characteristics of creativity while trying to define tools capable of enhancing it. This study aims to contribute to such a debate by exploring the idea of creativity and creative teaching in the context of the Scottish education system, which is ruled by the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE). Namely, CfE has its roots in the constructivist theory, which is commonly recognised to support a creative environment in schools, hence my interest in evaluating its role in promoting creativity among both teachers and students. The data gathering of this study involved the interviews of 21 secondary school teachers (Biology, Chemistry and Physics) spanning different geographical locations in Scotland, years of teaching experience, and the affluence of their school area. I used semi-structured interviews together with an analysis based on the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) approach to investigate their idea of creativity in schools. This was only possible after elaborating a working definition of creativity which was the result of a deep literature review on the topic. Such definition is based on four main characteristics that are novelty, originality, usefulness, and meaningfulness. My analysis showed that more than half of the interviewees (57.1%) recognised all these characteristics of creativity, whereas a large majority (85.7%) acknowledged its usefulness and meaningfulness. Drawing upon this exploration, I developed a definition of creative lesson, based on the key concepts of novelty and engagement, that was submitted to the evaluation of teachers, academics and peers who generally provided positive feedback. The role of CfE in promoting creativity in schools was considered limited by the interviewees and definitely limited to the Broad General Education (BGE) phase (lower secondary school) as compared to the Senior one when teachers experience a performativity effect. In fact, during the last three years of secondary school, teachers feel the pressure to prepare their students to sit for the National assessments and perceive a lack of time which prevents them from exploring and extending creative teaching approaches. In this regard, in-depth knowledge of the curriculum proved to have a positive impact as it allows teachers to improve their time management. Despite these difficulties, several of the interviewees claimed to make an effort in delivering a creative lesson by exploiting the resources the schools and departments provide them, differentiating the assessing methods, and understanding their pupils’ interests and social background. The analysis of the interviews together with the study of the most recent literature, allowed me to design a model that describes the main contributing factors of both “creative teaching”, that is the ability to deliver a creative lesson, and teaching for creativity that is the tools and actions necessary to enhance students’ creativity. In this model, creative teaching relies on the curriculum’s flexibility, resources, active learning, and student’s knowledge. Whereas teaching for creativity (a fundamental requirement of CfE) is the result of an expression of creativity and depends on both teachers’ and students’ self-confidence, and therefore on the support they receive from schools, departments, family and society in general. While my investigation mainly focuses on science teaching, its conclusions might apply to a wider range of disciplines, which represents a possible future development of this study.
- Advisor / supervisor
- Birnie, Ingeborg
- Essex, Jane
- Salehjee, Saima
- Resource Type
- DOI
Relations
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