Development of a creativity perception scale for pre-service primary school teachers

The aim of this study is to develop a perception scale in order to comprehensively reveal pre-service primary school teachers' perceptions of creativity and the effects of these perceptions on their educational practices. To this end, a literature review was first conducted and, based on the theoretical framework and existing instruments, an item pool was created. Expert opinions were then obtained for content validity and a 30-item draft scale form was constructed. The scale was designed to be capable of measuring the creativity perceptions of pre-service teachers from different branches, and therefore it was named the "Creativity Perception Scale for Pre-Service Teachers". The sample of the study consists of classroom teacher candidates studying in the Department of Classroom Teaching at the Faculty of Education of a state university in the 2025-2026 academic year. In the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) phase, data were collected from 224 students, and in the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) phase, from a different group of 130 students, making a total of 354 pre-service teachers included in the sample. The scale, which was revised in line with expert feedback, was prepared in a five-point Likert-type format and administered. EFA and CFA were conducted to determine the construct validity of the scale. As a result of the EFA, the scale was reduced to 13 items and two sub-dimensions. CFA indicated that the model met the acceptable fit indices and confirmed the factor structure obtained from the EFA. The sub-dimensions were named "Creativity Self-Efficacy" and "Creativity in Educational Practices." Together, the factors explain 55.10% of the total variance. The Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficients were found to be .85 for the "Creativity Self-Efficacy" sub-dimension, .81 for the "Creativity in Educational Practices" sub-dimension, and .90 for the overall scale. Consequently, a valid and reliable perception scale that is expected to contribute to the literature on pre-service teachers' creativity perceptions was obtained. It is recommended that the developed Teacher Candidates' Creativity Perception Scale be compared with different university/faculty and regional samples and that its contextual effects be tested.