Examining the Predictive Role of Teachers Educational Beliefs in Creative Thinking Tendencies

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between teachers’ educational beliefs and their creative thinking tendencies, and to determine the extent to which educational beliefs predict creative thinking. The study was designed using a correlational survey model and conducted with data collected from 404 teachers working at different school levels and subject areas during the 2023–2024 academic year. During the data collection process, the Educational Beliefs Scale and the Marmara Creative Thinking Dispositions Scale were used; descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, and multiple linear regression techniques were applied in the analyses. The findings revealed that teachers highly adopted contemporary educational approaches such as progressivism, existentialism, and reconstructionism, and that their creative thinking tendencies were generally high. Moderate positive relationships were found between educational beliefs and creative thinking, and the level at which teachers worked was identified as a significant differentiating variable. Regression analysis showed that educational beliefs explained approximately 35% of the variance in creative thinking tendencies. Overall, the results suggest that teachers’ student-centered and contemporary philosophical orientations function as a cognitive–pedagogical framework that supports creative thinking, highlighting the theoretical importance of educational beliefs in understanding creativity in teaching and offering implications for teacher training and instructional practice.