Teachers’ Creativity and Effectiveness in Higher Education: Perceptions of Students and Faculty
Teachers’ Creativity and Effectiveness in Higher Education: Perceptions of Students and Faculty

Summary/Abstract: Students’ and lecturers’ perceptions of own effectiveness and creativity as teachers are compared, using a survey question¬naire with a sample of 854 students and 245 lecturers of a higher education institution, together with interviews and class obser¬vations of lecturers who were selected as examples of creative teaching. Results indicate that students concentrate more than faculty on creativity when imagining how they would perform as teachers; when effectiveness is considered, the opposite ap¬plies. In addition, the lecturers selected as creative score similar to students, as to the perception of their own creativity, and to their peers, as to effectiveness. Teaching creatively is seen by its agents as the search for doing things better, and if the commu¬nication process is successful, that attempt is perceived by the students as creative. This research demonstrates that creativity lies not in the teacher, nor in the student, but in the interaction between the two.

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