Creative Thinking Disposition among Pre-Service Visual Art Teachers

Creative thinking disposition is recognised as a significant educational outcome, yet there is a dearth of empirical studies investigating gender discrepancies among pre-service visual art teachers in African settings. This study is based on the interactionist model of creativity and social role theory, exploring the extent to which pre-service teachers of visual art in Ghana exhibit creative thinking dispositions and examining gender differences. A cross-sectional survey design was used, and data were collected from 258 pre-service visual art teachers with a validated creative thinking disposition scale. Welch’s t-test was used to analyse group differences due to unequal variances. The findings show that the disposition towards creative thinking is moderate to high and that there are statistically significant gender differences. The findings also indicate that the creative thinking disposition is shaped by the interplay between personal cognitive dispositions and socially constructed gender roles in the context of teacher education. By situating creativity research within African teacher education, this study builds on interactionist and sociocultural approaches. It offers an empirically informed understanding of gendered patterns in the development of creative disposition. The results can be extrapolated to the design of teacher education practices that facilitate the formation of an equitable creative disposition.