CREATIVE AND CRITICAL THINKING OF BECOMING A TEACHER

Abstract

The education world stresses developing teachers with creative and critical thinking since student learning at every level requires good and effective teaching provided by teachers. This is important since the phenomenon of teachers losing their creativity in delivering their teaching has become increasingly prevalent. Based on this issue, this paper presents an insight into the creative and critical thinking styles of pre-service teachers in the institute of teacher education before they start their teaching profession. Using proportional stratified random sampling, 331 samples from three different institutes of teacher education have been chosen to gather information in this study. A quantitative approach using the YCreative-Critical Styles test is deployed to indicate the thinking styles among respondents. All data was analysed descriptively to review the creative and critical thinking styles among pre-service teachers based on gender, age group classification, and their educational level. The dispersion of thinking styles according to gender, age, and education levels reveals that the weightage is inclined from creative to balanced and ends at critical thinking. The results indicated that the majority of pre-service teachers (n = 161) possess critical thinking styles compared to balanced and critical thinking styles. Interestingly, critical thinking styles are higher (f = 91) when pre-service teachers are newly enrolled in the programme, and this number declines (f = 70) when compared to those already in programme. Based on these results, it is suggested that the capability of creative and critical thinking should be developed among pre-service teachers since they are in training. It is hoped that helping pre-service teachers become future teachers with the ability to be creative and critical thinkers will contribute to better learning experiences for their students in the future.