Understanding how teachers’ implicit beliefs promote and inhibit students’ creativity has important implications for fostering creativity in the classroom. This study investigated whether the effect of teachers’ fixed creative mindset on their self‐efficacy for teaching creativity was mediated by their perceptions of students’ potential and the degree to which this indirect effect varied by level of growth creative mindset. A sample of educators (N = 119) completed an online survey containing questions regarding creative mindsets, perceptions of students’ potential, self‐efficacy for teaching creativity, and a set of relevant covariates. A moderated mediation analysis indicated that the more teachers believed creativity to be innate, the less teachers tended to perceive every student to possess creative potential. Consequently, teachers’ confidence in their ability to teach for creativity was diminished. Results from the corresponding tests of simple indirect effects indicated that this negative indirect effect of a fixed creative mindset was lessened by teachers’ growth creative mindset. Taken together, the findings suggest the likely significant role of teachers’ fixed and growth creative mindsets for fostering creativity in classroom.

After more than six decades of systematic study of creativity, there is still no agreement regarding components essential to define creativity. Prior studies of implicit and explicit theories have suggested adding criteria to the standard definition of what creativity is; however, an alternative approach is to explore what creativity is not. The current investigation aimed to study both perspectives. The social validation method was employed in Study 1 (an open-ended questionnaire) to identify laypeople’s notions of creativity using content analysis of participant responses (n = 92). Results from Study 1 were used to build a quantitative questionnaire employed in Study 2 (n = 306). Descriptive statistics and Spearman Rank Correlations were used to analyze participant ratings in Study 2, showing consistent agreement that creativity is highly related to and overlapped with Imagination, Artistic Expression, Innovation, Originality, and Invention, while Knowledge, Ability, Unconventional Behavior, Morality, and Insanity were less related to and overlapped with creativity. Both implicit and explicit theories agreed on Originality and Innovation and disagreed on Artistic Expression, Imagination, and Invention. Usefulness received low ratings, although it is considered in all creativity definitions. Morality was not rated to be closely associated with creativity. Detailed findings are discussed with suggestions for future studies.

This paper explores elements in the creative process of the development of a new television format from both practice and research-based perspectives. We compare and integrate findings from an unpublished case study of the popular Finnish lifestyle television program, Strömsö, with the broad research literature on creativity. Through this lens, fourteen elements, which were identified through this case study to be present in the creation of Strömsö, are explored and contextualized with examples from the show’s creation. These elements were: 1) idea, 2) analyze, 3) brainstorm, 4) research, 5) benchmark, 6) toss ideas, 7) temporary input, 8) inspiration from an unexpected source, 9) rest, 10) formulate, 11) concretize, 12) pilot, 13) make mistakes, and 14) chaos. Research on multiple subtopics related to creativity is utilized to illustrate how knowledge gained through the academic literature can be integrated with these findings to provide possible guidance for practice. In doing so, we show how diverse epistemological and methodological approaches to examining the same phenomena can bolster insight and understanding for researchers and practitioners alike. Researchers will be able to note how topics that they are familiar with manifested in a practical setting, and non-academic professionals involved in creating content for television and new media will be introduced to theory and research that may aid in their creative endeavors. We intend this manuscript to provide useful information to such professionals and inspire additional research in the academic community.

Teachers’ beliefs about characteristics of creative children do not always align with how creative children actually behave. Understanding these misaligned beliefs—defined as misconceptions—is important because teachers’ misconceptions can undermine efforts to foster children's creative development. This study aimed to identify teachers’ beliefs about the characteristics of creative children with an emphasis on their misconceptions about characteristics as either indicative or contraindicative of creative children. We analyzed responses of 136 teachers to 29 characteristics, indicating or contraindicating creative children, on Gough's (1979). Creative Personality Scale using the Rating Scale Model. Results revealed that teachers tended to have more misconceptions about characteristics contraindicative of creative children than characteristics indicative of creative children while teachers were able to accurately recognize certain characteristics when compared with explicit theories of creativity. In both the indicative and contraindicative characteristics, misconceptions appeared to increase if characteristics were desirable in the classroom. Teachers’ misconceptions may conceal creative potential in children who do not manage their undesirable characteristics in constructive ways. Findings provide practical implications to aid teachers and teacher educators in correcting misconceptions about the characteristics of creative children.

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