Creativity in teaching chemistry: how much support does the curriculum provide?

Abstract

In this study, the views of Serbian chemistry teachers (N = 334) on the ways in which contemporary chemistry curricula stimulate the creativity of students were surveyed. The majority of the teachers have a positive attitude towards promoting creativity through teaching chemistry. Most of them also stated that their teaching practice contained activities that are conducive to stimulating creativity (85.7%). Some of the teachers stated that the potential for stimulating creativity is to be found in laboratory work (34.1%). Among the activities that they believe could be organised based on the curricula, the solution of mathematical problems by divergent approaches (78.8%) and the presentation of specific topics by students (68.2%) were particularly emphasised. To stimulate creativity among students, most teachers indicated that examples of laboratory tasks and criteria to evaluate students' work would be helpful. In order to stimulate creativity, the teachers require additional information related to the set up of laboratory work and criteria for the evaluation of students' activities and products. The contribution of the present study is that it could guide future curriculum development to make it more usable for teachers and to enable creative thinking among students.