Creativity self-efficacy and creativity-encouraging behaviors of preschool teachers

Self-efficacy refers to an individual's perception of their ability to organize and execute actions to demonstrate certain skills. Creative self-efficacy is different from general self-efficacy because it focuses on an individual's beliefs about their skills and creative potential. Based on self-efficacy, creative self-efficacy is an individual's belief in their ability to produce new work or creative ideas. Creative performance requires time and effort. This study examines the relationship between preschool teachers' creative self-efficacy and behaviors that promote creativity and their demographic characteristics (gender, age, parental education level, years of seniority, frequency of participation in artistic activities, perceived socioeconomic status, areas of interest, and age group taught). The research is a relational survey study. The sample of the study consists of preschool teachers working in all districts of Antalya province during the 2022-2023 academic year. A total of 126 people (118 women and 8 men) participated in the sample. The ages of the participants range from 20 years old to over 50 years old. The seniority year of the participants is 0-25 years and above. Data were collected using the "Creativity Self-Efficacy Scale", "Teacher Behaviors Index that Encourages Creativity" and "Personal Information Form" prepared by the researcher. SPSS 19 program was used for the analysis of the data in this research. Kruskal Wallis H test was used to examine the differences in preschool teachers' creative self-efficacy according to parental education, seniority year, frequency of participation in artistic activities, age group taught, perceived socioeconomic status, and age levels. Mann Whitney U test was used to examine the differences between their areas of interest and gender. One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to examine the differences in preschool teachers' behaviors that encourage creativity according to parental education, seniority year, age group taught, frequency of participation in artistic activities, perceived socioeconomic status, and age group. T-test was used for areas of interest and Mann Whitney U test was used for gender. LSD tests were used to find the source of differences with ANOVA test and Kruskal Wallis H test. The data was analyzed according to factors such as gender, parental education level, seniority year, artistic activity status, age group of education, perceived socioeconomic status, age and interests. Creativity self-efficacy levels show a significant difference according to the frequency of participation in artistic activities and mother's education. Levels of behavior encouraging creativity show a significant difference in the sub-dimensions of independence and judgment according to age, integration and motivation according to seniority year, questioning according to mother's education status, integration and frustration according to general culture from interests. Keywords: Preschool education, self-efficacy, creative self-efficacy, encouragement of self-efficacy.