We Teach on an Undergraduate Primary Education Degree, Leading to Qualified Teacher Status (QTS)

Compton and Nahmad-Williams

Searching for Creativity in Initial Teacher Education Assessments

Ashley Compton and

Lindy Nahmad-Williams

BishopGrossetesteUniversityCollege Lincoln

Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, University of Manchester, 2-5 September 2009

Abstract

The authors have undertaken practitioner research to investigate the presence or absence of creativity in the assignments on their initial teacher education programme. Interviews with tutors, discussion groups and questionnaires with students and analysis of assignment briefs and marking grids demonstrated agreement about which assignments were most and least creative. The authors then collaborated on creating new assignments for the revalidated programme and explored the tensions involved in trying to increase the potential for creativity within them, notably the tension between freedom and support.Introduction

Creativity is currently a prominent issue in English education and one that we believe is important in Initial Teacher Education (ITE). We teach on an undergraduate primary education degree, leading to Qualified Teacher Status (QTS), where one of our programme outcomes is to produce creative teachers (BG, 2008a). As tutors we are responsible for providing a learning environment that facilitates achievement of the programme outcomes.

This includes the ethos we establish, the way we teach, the experiences we provide for the students, the assessments they undertake and the feedback we provide.

Many authors (Bloxham and Boyd, 2007; Bryan and Clegg, 2006; Boud and Falchikov, 2007) have noted that how and what students learn is greatly affected by the assessments they undertake, so modifying the assessments is likely to have a significant impact on the students’ learning. Assessment could result in encouraging and focusing creativity, or it could act as a dam, blocking creativity entirely. This potential contradiction raises many questions. What impact do assessments have on students? Are the impacts the same for all students? Is there a difference between more and less academic students? Are creativity and assessment compatible? Since we have to have assessment is it realistic to expect creativity? These questions led to the formulation of a research project. By investigating creativity and its relationship with assessment in ITE we hope to come to a better understanding of the interplay between creativity and assessment, with an ultimate view of modifying assessments to maximise the scope for creativity.

Research aim

To develop a better understanding of the relationships between creativity and assessment, in order to facilitate achievement of the aim of developing creative teachers

The specific questions that will be focused on in this paper and presentation are:

• What factors in assignments help promote creativity?
• Is creativity perceived as relevant to all grade bands?
• How is creativity represented in the marking criteria in different grade bands?
• What are the tensions involved in trying to produce assessments with increased scope for creativity?

The main focus of the presentation is the final question which was addressed through working collaboratively on writing new assignment briefs and marking criteria.

Defining Creativity

Creativity is an often used but ill-defined concept, with a wide range of definitions in education, let alone in the wider society. At different times and in different countries there has been an emphasis on the product, the person, the process and the interactions with society. The differing foci have resulted in different approaches to studying the concept, from quantitative tests for creativity to qualitative case studies. The definitions include big C Creativity (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997) and little c creativity (Craft 2001). Big C Creativity (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997) represents major innovations in society and that depends on the approval of the field of the creative product. Little c creativity (Craft 2001) does not depend on genius but is the creativity accessible to all people in all aspects of life, ultimately leading to self-actualisation and involves the choices made by ordinary people. These ideas of genius and democratic creativity are particularly relevant to the question of whether creativity can or should apply to all grade bands. When defining creativity, some aspects, such as originality and problem solving (Weisberg, 2006), are common to many definitions but none is universal. The All our Futures report included a concise definition: “imaginative activity fashioned so as to produce outcomes that are both original and of value” (NACCCE, 1999, p.30). The disadvantage of a concise definition for such a complex and controversial concept is that it is difficult to fully encapsulate it in one short phrase.

In their work with Advanced Skills Teachers, Anderson et al (2005) emphasised the importance of people establishing their own understanding of creativity. One of the authors has done this by creating a Creativity Pyramid (Compton in Johnston and Nahmad-Williams, 2009), which was developed from Beetlestone’s three tiers of creativity (1998) but augmented by aspects of other definitions and with an additional layer for creativity which bridges the gap between creative thinking and genius. An underpinning aspect of the pyramid is the belief that everybody, of any age, can be creative at some level and in some part of their life. Since creativity as a whole is problematic to assess, the Creativity Pyramid contains specific aspects, such as making connections, which can be identified. It was used as a conceptual framework to provide axial codes for content analysis of assessment documents. In particular the different grade bands in the marking grids were examined in relation to the different levels of the pyramid.

Creativity Pyramid

These levels can relate to different aspects of your life. You might be at level 3 for having written a play for your community theatre, at level 2 when cooking but not on the pyramid at all when working on the check-out at Tesco. Whereas another person is at level 3 for having devised a new and improved system for ensuring that customers get through the check out quickly and efficiently while not on the pyramid at all for cooking, just pulling a ready-meal at random from the fridge. Everybody would have their own profile but this would not be fixed. You might be very creative in your cooking one day and then not at all on another day. An important aspect of my pyramid is that anybody of any age can be creative at some level and in some part of their life.

Choice of approach

We are examining the relationships between creativity and assessment through practitioner research within an interpretivist paradigm. We are interested in people’s perceptions of creativity and assessment rather than believing that creativity is a specific, easily measured quantity, thus making an interpretivist paradigm more relevant than a positivist one (Creswelll 2003). One of the problematic aspects of researching a socially constructed concept is the limitation of generalisability. One way of addressing this was to undertake practitioner research where we are part of the community that is constructing the concept and part of the community that is applying it. In an article about assessing the quality of practice-based educational research, Furlong and Onacea (2005, p.8) said that “…research and practice are no longer conceived as isolated but as integrated activities that borrow from each other, inform each other and support each other.” A similar view was expressed by the more partisan Fox et al (2007, p.2) in their book about practitioner research, when they described “… a synergy between research and practice for the practitioner researcher in that practitioners engaged in research are more successful practitioners and researchers engaged in practice are more successful researchers.” We hope that through undertaking practitioner research we will improve our teaching and researching skills, as well as contributing to understanding of creativity and assessment in the ITE community. Holding the dual role of teacher and researcher does involve a range of ethical issues, which will be discussed below.

The research methods include:

• document analysis of existing assignment briefs, marking grids;
• interviews with tutors;
• a virtual focus group with students;
• questionnaires with students
• the collaborative creation of new assignment briefs and marking criteria.

Consideration of ethical issues has been informed by guidance on ethics from the British Educational Research Association (BERA, 2004), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC, 2005) and the Association of Internet Researchers (Ess and AOIR, 2002) with the whole project conforming to the Bishop Grosseteste University College Lincoln (BG, 2008b) Research Ethics Policy. The main ethical danger of this practitioner research relates to the power relationships resulting from the pre-existing teacher – student relationship. By using virtual focus groups and questionnaires we were able to provide the students with the option of anonymity. This should have made them feel freer to discuss the subject of assessment honestly without any fears of reprisals, although we are tutors who mark their work. In a pilot study only six students participated fully in the focus group by posting messages, although 100 students read at least some of the messages. Since this was from possible 240 students, one would have expected a greater number to participate if they had felt obligated. It appears that using the internet to collect data meant that the students did not feel the pressure to participate that a face to face method might have imposed.

Construction of trustworthiness and credibility

Factors that relate to trustworthiness in qualitative methodologies include “…fidelity to real life, context- and situation-specificity, authenticity, comprehensiveness, detail, honesty, depth of response and meaningfulness to the respondents” (Cohen et al, 2007, p.149). As practitioner research, it will be both real life and context specific. We are using triangulation of participants (researchers, colleagues and students), as well as triangulation of methods (document analysis, interviews, virtual focus group, questionnaires and collaboration). This triangulation should increase depth and comprehensiveness of the findings. Allowing the students to post anonymously in the virtual focus group and complete questionnaires anonymously will hopefully increase honesty because the students should feel freer to make criticisms.

Findings and Analysis

Types of Assignment

One of the aspects of the programme that has been commended by the validation panel and external examiners is the range of different types of assignments. There are very few exams or traditional essay style assignments with a given question to answer. Many assignments are rooted in practice and involve activities such as writing a sequence of work and evaluating it, planning investigations, writing learning journal entries, while others focus on oral rather than written work, in the form of presentations and performances.

The Year 1 and 2 students were given questionnaires, which asked whether the different assignments undertaken in the first year were very creative, creative, inhibited creativity or were not creative at all. The questionnaires were given to the second year students during the first semester, following a taught session on creativity so there is an increased likelihood, although it is not certain, that their understanding of the term creativity would relate to the definitions represented in the pyramid, since these were explored during the session. They were only asked about the year 1 assignments because they had not yet completed any assignments in year 2. The questionnaires were given out to the first year students at the end of the second semester so they had completed nearly all of their assignments but had not yet received feedback on some of them. They had not yet had a session on creativity so their interpretation of this term may be very different from the pyramid. Because the programme was recently revalidated the year 1 students had experienced different assignments in their first year than the second year students had. The group performance assignment was virtually identical but the others were modified considerably, even though they bear the same name.

Table 1 - Questionnaire Results, Rating assignments

Year 1, n=55 / Very Creative / Creative / Creativity Inhibited / Not Creative
Starting Point / 60% / 35% / 5% / 0%
Learning Journal / 2% / 44% / 33% / 20%
Exam – Core knowledge / 0% / 13% / 28% / 59%
Audit & Action Plan / 5% / 37% / 21% / 37%
Group Placement / 31% / 56% / 13% / 0%
Paired Placement / 47% / 49% / 2% / 2%
Solo Placement / 69% / 27% / 4% / 0%
Group Performance / 69% / 28% / 4% / 0%
PE Evaluation / 0% / 31% / 48% / 21%
SoW with Essay / 4% / 69% / 17% / 11%

Table 2 – Questionnaire Results, Rating assignments

Year 2, n=32 / Very Creative / Creative / Creativity Inhibited / Not Creative
Starting Point / 87% / 13% / 0% / 0%
Learning Journal / 16% / 50% / 31% / 3%
Exam – Core knowledge / 0% / 9% / 22% / 69%
Audit & Action Plan / 3% / 26% / 55% / 16%
Group Placement / 9% / 44% / 47% / 0%
Paired Placement / 53% / 47% / 0% / 0%
Group Performance / 68% / 26% / 3% / 3%
Portfolio of Tasks / 0% / 56% / 38% / 6%
Group Display / 52% / 48% / 0% / 0%
Story Sack / 71% / 26% / 3% / 0%
Exam – Assessing the Core / 0% / 10% / 23% / 68%
Art SoW / 13% / 63% / 20% / 3%

N.B. Totals might not add up to 100% due to rounding.

The Starting Point and the Group Performance assignments were both rated as very creative by both year groups. The Group Performance had nearly identical ratings both times but a greater proportion of year 2 students viewed the Starting Point as very creative (87% compared to 60%). The difference may relate to the changes that have been made in the revalidated programme. However, it may also be due to distance. The Starting Point assignment involves learning about learning by close study of a natural object. Students find this very intensive and difficult at the time but tend to appreciate the process more when reflecting on it later in the programme so the second year students may have begun to appreciate it more. Both of these assignments involve the arts. The Starting Point includes the students making observational drawings, paintings, clay models and prints of their objects and then reflecting on the learning processes involved. Some students will also include poems or songs composed about their object. The Group Performance is a performance of singing, dance or drama, accompanied by a short Sequence of Work for a primary class which features the performance. It may be that the artistic nature of these assignments has influenced the high creativity rating. However, both of these assignments give the students considerable freedom to make choices and decisions within the overall structure, including the subject explored. They are also about making connections between the artistic elements and the learning that comes from them.

The assignments which were viewed as least creative (>50% in Creativity Inhibited + Not Creative) were the exams, the Audit & Action Plan and the PE Evaluation. The subject knowledge exam is mostly multiple choice, with some short answer, and is primarily factual recall. The Audit and Action Plan has a very set format with students following a detailed set of instructions to complete it. Therefore, it is not perhaps surprising that are not viewed as creative. The PE Evaluation requires students to write an evaluation of a PE lesson that they have taught or observed, with several categories suggested for discussion. This does involve the students making some decisions and, hopefully, some connections between what they have experienced and what they have learned about good physical education. Nevertheless the students are constrained by what they actually observed or experienced.

Students in the two virtual focus groups conducted through Blackboard also commented on assignments they found particularly creative. One student stated that, “I think creativity in assignments is all about you choosing your focus and interpreting the briefs to create your own individual work.” The Starting Point assignment was mentioned in both groups as creative because it allowed choice.Other year 1 assignments that were considered creative were the Group Performance and the Story Sacks, with one student highlighting the Art SoW as the most creative because it offered the most opportunities for choice.

The tutor perspectives on creative and non-creative assignments were collected during individual interviews, demonstrating similar views to the students. The year 1 assignments most cited for creativity were the Starting Point, the group performances and the story sacks, mirroring the student results. The tutors also agreed with the students about the least creative assignments: the exams and the Audit and Action Plan. Only one tutor mentioned the PE Evaluation assignment but that was probably because this tutor had written the assignment and felt that it lacked creativity. At the point of the interviews the PE Evaluations had not yet been submitted so none of the tutors had marked any yet and therefore the rest had not yet formed a view.

Factors that affect creativity in assignments

Some of the factors that affect creativity in assignments have already been mentioned above, such as opportunities for choice. The questionnaires asked the students to rate several factors as enhancing or inhibiting creativity.

Table 3 – Questionnaire Results, Rating factors that affect creativity

Year 1, n=55 / Year 2, n=32 / Facilitates
Y1 / Y2 / Inhibits
Y1 / Y2 / Either
Y1 / Y2 / No effect
Y1 / Y2
Being confident in the subject / 80% / 91% / 4% / 0% / 16% / 9% / 0% / 0%
Being knowledgeable in the subject / 85% / 81% / 2% / 0% / 9% / 19% / 4% / 0%
Being passionate about the subject / 93% / 100% / 4% / 0% / 4% / 0% / 0% / 0%
Free choice of content / 55% / 72% / 15% / 16% / 29% / 13% / 2% / 0%
Free choice of format / 43% / 81% / 19% / 6% / 37% / 13% / 2% / 0%
Getting marks / 30% / 35% / 19% / 29% / 39% / 29% / 13% / 6%
Having a real purpose / 71% / 77% / 7% / 0% / 18% / 23% / 4% / 0%
Seen by tutor only / 23% / 22% / 13% / 28% / 36% / 31% / 28% / 19%
For an audience / 33% / 52% / 24% / 13% / 43% / 32% / 0% / 3%
Restricted content / 9% / 7% / 46% / 70% / 43% / 17% / 2% / 7%
Set format / 19% / 3% / 40% / 75% / 36% / 16% / 6% / 6%
Alone / 29% / 22% / 16% / 19% / 53% / 56% / 2% / 3%
In a group / 34% / 22% / 15% / 19% / 51% / 56% / 0% / 3%

Knowledge, confidence and passion were the clear leaders in facilitating creativity. The other factors which were seen to facilitate creativity were having a real purpose and elements of choice, although choice was seen as more important by the year 2 students, who strongly identified having restricted content and a set format as inhibiting creativity. The question as to whether the assignment was alone or in a group met with a range of views but with slightly more than half stating that both could enhance or inhibit creativity. The ideas of knowledge, confidence, passion and choice were also picked out by tutors as important to facilitating creativity.