College teachers: Their effect on creativity of students.

This nationwide study concerned the relation of personality traits, classroom behavior, and student/teacher relationships to creativityin teadhing-at the college level. Creative teachers were identified through an evaluation of the research of those Ph.D. students who had studied under the teachers, and whd nominated them as having had the most facilitating effect on their creative development, or as having had a significant inhibiting effect. Normative groups matched on relevant variables also nominated teachers. The classroom behavior and student/teacher relations for a total of 671 teachers were described by nominating students. Four hundred ninety-two of these teacherS completed Factors A, C, E, C, and Q2 of the 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire, the Ghiselli Self-Description Inventory, the Barron-Welsh Art Scale, and several biographical items. Results indicated introversion, dominance, and self-sufficiency to be associated with creativity. Support was also provided for association of greater esthetic sensitivity and less adherance to social mores with creative teaching in psychology. Clear-cut behavio al patterns differentiated teachers who facilitated creative development from those who hindered it. Encouragement through individual contact was found to be the most important aspect of student/teacher relationships affecting creativity. The classroom was found to be of lesser importance.