Estonian Class Teachers’ Views on Creativity and Facilitating Creativity in Technology Education

Abstract

Innovation and creativity are viewed as key issues in today’s society. The surrounding world is changing rapidly, and creativity is an essential criterion for adjusting to the new circumstances and needs. At the same time, the economic value of knowledge and creativity has been acknowledged by numerous countries, enterprises and individuals and regarded as a “natural resource” that needs to be maintained and developed in order to ensure economic competitiveness. Therefore, it is necessary to provide pupils with an opportunity to participate in creative activities from the start of basic school. To find out about Estonian class teachers’ views on creativity, I used a questionnaire compiled by Finnish researchers that was translated into Estonian. The total number of questions was 55. In 2018, the questionnaire was completed by 90 class teachers who were teaching forms 1 to 6, including craft and technology education. The statistical data processing program SPSS, t-test and dispersion analysis were used to process the received data. The results revealed several statistically significant differences (p<0.05) between three age groups of teachers based on their work experience (work experience 0 to 10 years, 11 to 20 years, and more than 20 years). The analysis of the responses demonstrated that class teachers largely support the application of creative tasks in teaching.

Keywords: technology education, creativity, elementary school, improving school