Investigation of secondary education teachers' behaviors to enrollcreativity

This study was conducted with the aim of examining and evaluating the creativity-encouraging behavior levels of secondary school teachers. Its universe consists of 274 teachers working in secondary education institutions affiliated to the Ministry of National Education in Nevşehir province in the 2022-2023 academic year. Survey model, one of the quantitative research methods, was used in the research. The Teacher Behavior Index Encouraging Creativity, developed by Soh (2000) and adapted into Turkish by Akar (2014), was used as a data collection tool. The scale items are in 6-point likert type as "Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Partially Disagree, Partially Agree, Agree and Strongly Agree". The scale has 9 sub-dimensions: independence, integration, motivation, judgment, flexibility, evaluation, questioning, opportunities, and frustration. It is seen that the reliability coefficients of the subscales take values ranging from 0.68 to 0.80. The reliability coefficient of the whole index was calculated as 0.95. One of the skills expected from individuals in the 21st century is creativity. Creativity is directly related to the development levels of societies. Developed societies attach great importance to creativity in education. Creative people are necessary to solve social, educational and many similar problems of societies. Creative individuals are needed everywhere in technology, business, politics, education, engineering. The discovery and development of an individual's creativity is possible through education. In this regard, teachers have a great role to play. Teachers have a great influence on the development or blunting of creativity. For this reason, in our study, the levels of teachers' creativity encouraging behavior levels were examined and evaluated. Thus, awareness about behaviors that encourage creativity will be created in teachers. Along with awareness, guidance on creative teaching will also be provided. In the research; the variables of gender, professional seniority, age, branch, school type, education level, undergraduate graduation and creativity-encouraging behaviors of teachers were examined. As a result of the research, it was concluded that there is no significant relationship between educational status, branch, undergraduate graduation and behaviors of encouraging creativity. When the behaviors of encouraging creativity with gender were examined, a significant difference was found in the motivation sub-dimension. It was determined that this difference was in favor of female teachers, but this behavior did not change according to gender in other subgroups. A statistically significant difference was found between the years of professional seniority and the behaviors of encouraging creativity. It has been determined that this significant difference in motivation sub-dimension is between teachers with 16-20 years of seniority and teachers with 6-10 years of seniority, 11-15 years, 21 and above. It has been determined that this difference is against the teachers whose professional seniority is 16-20 years. In other words, it is seen that teachers who are 6-10, 11-15 and 21 and above in their profession show a higher tendency towards creativity-encouraging behaviors in the motivation sub-dimension compared to teachers with 16-20 years of professional seniority. In our research, it has been determined that there is a significant difference between teachers with 16-20 years of professional seniority and teachers with 11-15, 21 and above professional seniority years in the sub-dimension of judgment. It has been determined that this difference is against the teachers whose professional seniority is 16-20 years. In other words, it is seen that the teachers who are 11-15 and 21 and above in their profession show a higher tendency towards creativity-encouraging behaviors in the judging sub-dimension compared to the teachers whose professional seniority is between 16-20 years. In addition, a significant difference was found between the frustration sub-dimension of encouraging creativity behaviors and the years of professional seniority. It has been observed that there is a significant difference between teachers with 16-20 years of professional seniority and teachers with 6-10, 11-15,21 or more years of professional seniority. It has been determined that this difference is against the teachers whose professional seniority is 16-20 years. It has been determined that teachers with a professional seniority of 16-20 years have low motivation for encouraging creativity and are more prone to judgmental behavior and disappointment. It is thought that in-service trainings can be given to teachers in this group, and motivation studies can be carried out regarding this problem.