Primary Physical Education Perspective on Creativity: The Characteristics of the Creative Student and Their Creative Outcomes

The last two decades, researchers explored teachers’ implicit theories, perceptions or beliefs about creativity related issues, as they thought they are complimentary to researchers’ explicit theories. Although implicit theories’ studies recruited mostly K-12 participants, a research gap was noticed in literature concerning this kind of research in specific domains of knowledge or school subjects. Taking into account a trend in Europe for the promotion of creativity in primary physical education (PE), the present study is the first one that focused on physical educators’ (PEds) perceptions about creativity related issues. The PAC (Perceptions about Creativity) questionnaire was developed to explore PEds’ perceptions on four well-documented aspects of creativity: a) the characteristics of creative student, b) students’ creative outcomes, c) the nature of creativity and d) the creativity fostering and inhibiting classroom environment. The present paper discusses the findings from the two former aspects of creativity. Concerning the characteristics of the creative student, PEds were often held inconsistent perceptions, even conflicting ones with regard to researchers’ explicit theories and other teachers’ perceptions.