Tan, Ai-Girl

An exploratory study was conducted which aimed to find out Singapore’s early childhood educators’ views on creative teaching and educator roles. Two research questions were posed: What are early childhood educators’ views on creative teaching? What are their views on educator roles? A total of 35 early childhood educators participated in the study. They filled out a questionnaire, which comprised two measures: Perceived competencies of creative teaching and perceived educator roles. The perceived competencies of creative teaching scale comprised 49 items and the perceived educator roles scale comprised 54 items. For the two measures, a 9-Likert scale was used with indicators: 1 being “extremely not competent” or “extremely not important”, 9 being “extremely competent” or “extremely important”. Using SPSS, reliability, factor, correlational, and cluster analyses were performed on data collected from the questionnaire. The findings suggested that early childhood educators in the study perceived relatively highly their competencies in creative teaching and they highly rated their multiple teacher roles for creative teaching.

One may easily associate bilingualism with biculturalism. Is bilingualism the same as biculturalism? Definitions of culture show that language is an essential component, but not the only one. If a person is proficient in two languages, he/she is a bilingual. However, he/she may not be a bicultural. Positive attitudes towards another culture are indispensable for a person who does not come from a bicultural family background to appreciate values and practices of a second culture. Factors that facilitate biculturalism are more complex than those governing in learning two languages. This article attempts to identify these factors through a few cases. Parents' and educators' attitudes, in a heterogeneous or a homogenous society are discussed, in how they guide pupils to learn a second language and to appreciate a second culture.

Theories are constructed to give an explanation of phenomena (Stam, 2000). According to Denzin (1970), there are three functions of a theory: Permitting organization of descriptions, leading to explanation, and furnishing the basis for prediction of future events. In a preliminary study, 350 student teachers were requested to fill-out a questionnaire. They rated the importance of acquiring knowledge and skills using a 7-point scale (1: extremely not important, and 7: extremely important). The findings show that the participants regarded knowing "how to do" as more important than knowing "what they are doing" and "why they are doing it". In other words, they regarded learning skills to do something as more important than knowing the theory behind the practice. For instance, "Knowing theories on why students enjoy or not enjoy learning" (theory, M: 5.51, SD: 1.35) was scored significantly lower (t= 13.96, p < 0.0001) than "Making learning an enjoyable process for their students" (practice, M: 6.47, SD: 0.90). Implications of the study for teacher education are discussed in light of three functions of a theory. Teacher education should promote a balanced curriculum that narrows the gap between teachers’ perceptions of theory and practice.

A total of 416 high school students rated their perceptions of creativity self-efficacy, emotions and achievement goal orientation. Three subscales of creativity self-efficacy were developed - abilities to generate novel ideas, tolerate uncertainty and focus. Affect was assessed using three scales: the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, The Satisfaction with Life Scale and the Subjective Happiness Scale. An achievement goal-orientation scale was used to assess four possible achievement goal-orientations. Acceptable Cronbach's Alphas demonstrated the reliability of the scales and hence the appropriateness of using them with the international students. Creativity self-efficacy was positively correlated with positive affect and a mastery-approach orientation that was consistent with current theory and research findings. The relationships between the other three achievement goal-orientations (performance-approach, performance-avoidance, and mastery-avoidance) and creative self-efficacy were less clearly established. Each goal-orientation was positively correlated with some, but not all, aspects of creativity efficacy. The performance approach orientation was negatively correlated with the uncertainty subscale of creativity self-efficacy.

A term that has high social desirability and attractiveness when used to describe a person is "creativity". A term that can be said to have low social desirability is "disability". These two terms can be said to represent bipolar opposites when used in association with or describing a person. The social perceptions of and meanings associated with creativity and disability imply that these two concepts are rarely linked. The purpose of our research was to investigate the social perceptions and connotations of the terms "creativity" and "disability" from the perspectives of two groups of teachers/instructors: those who work with individuals with disabilities and those who do not work with and are not exposed on a regular basis to individuals with disabilities. Our study specifically focuses on how both these groups of teachers perceive and evaluate the appearance of individuals who are creative and have disabilities. Implications of the study for education are presented.

This paper intends to shed a new light on the scientific as well as application-oriented discussion about technical creativity by presenting and interrelating the results of a number of comparative studies about the relevance, perception, and practice of technical creativity in Japan and Germany. As an example, it will be explained why German engineers may be said to be more creative in the mechanical field, and their Japanese counterparts more successful in designing electrical devices. But it will also be shown that a more complex and distinctive understanding of technical creativity is necessary in order to avoid the constant reproduction of ethnocentric self-fulfilling prophecies in this field, and to become able to propose "culture-sensitive" measures to increase creativity in students and engineers alike.

This paper wishes to invite local educators, researchers, and psychologists to share their insights into the roles of psychology and psychologists for teachers. It is not intended to provide standardised answers. The paper raises several questions: Should psychology be perceived as a core subject, a supplementary discipline, or a part of the curriculum of teacher educational programs? What are teachers’ and educators’ concerns? How can psychological models and theories be applicable to education? Are there Singaporean psychological models of teacher educators? How can local psychologists design socio-culturally appropriate models and theories? The first section of this paper elaborates briefly on field psychology. Several questions and doubts related to this field are presented. The second section defines educational psychology, and poses some questions related to this sub-discipline. The third section evaluates the contents and directions of psychological courses for Singaporean teachers. Lastly, reflections on the role of psychology for teachers for the next century are presented.