Teacher's autonomy and students' creativity

Abstract

Teacher’s autonomy has become a popular research topic in the field of teacher education in the world; however, as a result of No Child Left Behind initiative, teacher autonomy has be marginalized in schools in the U.S. and, most research studies that advocate the importance of teacher’s autonomy were conducted outside the United States. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to understand the role of American teachers’ autonomy in predicting their students’ creativity. The simple linear regression model was significant in explaining the relationship between teaching autonomy and students’ creativity. Student characteristics made up the highest percentage of the variance, approximately 32%, and were, therefore, the most influential independent variable. Within student characteristics, Gender was the strongest indicators of influence. However, given the participants’ demographic information and the school characteristics, the findings of the study, therefore, should be generalized with caution.