In today’s world, social development can only be possible with the accumulation of novel and original knowledge. This fact conduces to appreciation of creative ideas which enables economic and social development of society and empowerment of the countries that hold creative ideas. The countries recognize the importance of nurturing creativity emphasize this ability in their curriculum. Turkey is one of these developing countries. According to revised National Science Education curriculum, creativity is recognized as an ability that should be fostered in school settings (Ministry of National Education, 2013).

Creativity has been defined in many different ways since ancient times. Runco (2004) investigated definitions of creativity and found that in many articles creativity was defined as the capacity to develop novel and useful ideas, behaviors or products, and tends to be seen as a complex capacity bearing on a mix of individual, situational and cultural variables (as cited in Martinsen, 2011). Creativity theories and definitions can be explained in two groups as implicit and explicit.

Theories that are directly expressed by researchers, psychologists and sociologists are explicit. Researchers and other specialists who use explicit theories bring out creativity testing, and compare creativity in different situations and environments to test their hypothesis about creativity (Seo, Lee and Kim, 2005; Maksić &Pavlović, 2011). Explicit theories of creativity were classified differently in the related literature according to their focused variables and views. These explicit theory categories are: Developmental and Humanist, Psychoanalytic, Behaviorist, Economic, Stage and Componential Process, Cognitive, Problem Solving and Expertise based, Problem finding, Evolutionary, Typological, Systems and Psychometric (Kozbelt, Beghetto and Runco, 2010; Starko, 2010). These theories can be seen at Table 1.

Table 1. Explicit Theories of Creativity

Category	Assumption	Category	Assumption
Developmental and Humanist	Creativity is a natural result of healthy development. Creativity develops over time as a result of interaction between place and person with other persons.	Typological	Creators vary along key individual differences which are related to both micro and macro level factors and can be classified via typologies.
Psychoanalytic	Creativity can be explained with conscious and unconscious processes.	Systems	Creativity is a result of a complex system of interacting and interrelated factors.
Behaviorist	Creativity can be explained with stimulus-response principle.	Psychometric	Creativity can be measured with reliable and valid tests; differentiating it from related constructs (IQ) and highlighting its domain- specific structure.
Economic	Creativity is influenced by market forces and cost-benefit analysis.	Problem solving & Expertise-Based	Creative solutions to problems are results from a rational process which relies on general cognitive processes and domain expertise.
Stage& Componential Process	Creativity proceeds through a series of stages or components. This process can have linear or recursive elements.	Problem Finding	Creative persons proactively engage in a subjective and exploratory process to identify problems to solve.
Cognitive	Creativity is based on ideational thought processes.	Evolutionary (Darwinian)	Eminent creativity results from the evolutionary-like processes of blind generation and selective retention.

*Adapted from Kozbelt, Beghetto and Runco (2010) and Starko (2010)

Implicit theories are our personal theories about any abstract ideational concept or behavior that we have not put into words before, albeit use it while interpreting, evaluating and forming our point of view in several situations (Sternberg, 1985; Runco & Bahleda, 1986; Wickes and Ward, 2006). Unlike explicit theories which were postulated by researchers, implicit theories somehow exist in our minds but they are yet to be revealed. Runco (1990) stated that because implicit theories are in individuals’ minds, they need to be explored. According to this revelation, every person may have an implicit theory about creativity and these implicit theories can be revealed through collecting their ideas about the subject.

Regarding implicit theories and beliefs of creativity, teachers are the most studied subjects because they are among environmental variables that influence students’ creativity (Kowalski, 1997; Runco &Johnson, 2002). Practitioner of curriculums and the key to the efficient use of students’ potential are teachers and their qualifications. One of these qualifications is teacher views about creativity. In constructivist approach teachers should guide and encourage students to find solutions to problems. As for students, it’s expected to construct knowledge by using their prior knowledge. Especially in radical constructivism students can only use their own knowledge to construct new information (Von Glasersfeld, 1991). Considering Turkey’s education program which is based on the constructivist approach and teacher and student roles, it is crucial to develop students’ creative ability.

Research related with creative education has focused on teacher perceptions and practices in order to nurture creativity (Westby and Dawson, 1995; Park, Oliver and Cramond, 2006). In a study Zhou, Shen, Wang, Neber and Johji (2013) compared teachers’ conceptualizations of creativity among China, Germany and Japan. Their results indicated that teachers perceived creative students as imaginative, original, curious and willing to try new things. Additionally, they found cultural differences in perceptions of creativity. As for differences among countries, Chinese teachers thought creativity was influenced by critical thinking and independence. German teachers perceived creativity fostering factors as encouragement and feedback, independence and initiatives. Japanese teachers considered creativity less likely to be developed. Chan and Yuen (2013) investigated teachers of gifted students’ perspectives regarding creativity in Hong Kong. They conducted in-depth interviews with 10 teachers and found that teachers used personality and cognitive characteristics to define creative students. They also defined creativity in terms of person, process, product, environment and value and in order to foster creativity they tended to use more open-ended questions. Alkuş and Olgan (2014) investigated views of pre-service and in-service preschool teachers. Their participants focused originality of a creative product while defining creativity. They indicated that although participants were aware of the value of creativity for young children’s development and the need to nurture creativity, they faced obstacles related with unsupportive school administration.

Most of these teacher perception studies used elementary or middle school teachers as their participants. Additionally, domain based (science, art etc.) investigations are relatively less. Especially in science in which creativity is an important variable (Lederman, Abd-el-Khalick, Bell and Schwartz, 2002), there’s a need to explore creativity related views because science as a human endeavor affects our world by changing the way we understand and interact with our environment. Major domains of science became more and more valuable since their development influence society. One of these major domains, chemistry as a school science is an essential domain in secondary curriculum. Gabel (1999) argued chemistry education researchers need to think of the future and move forward in the areas that will be of greatest importance in the 21st century. Creativity is one these areas of great importance on shaping future world. According to Kirchhoff (2011) chemists are molecular designers as they apply their skills and knowledge to create new products and processes therefore teaching chemistry as the creative science that it is, rather than as a collection of facts to be memorized, teachers should help students better appreciate the dynamic of chemistry discipline.

Teaching creativity is a new topic of interest in chemistry education research. Trivic, Tomasevic and Vukovic (2012) initiated a pedagogic experiment to investigate the effect of Stoichiometry elaboration by using different teaching/learning methods in divergent thinking and creativity. They chose Stoichiometry because of its convergent and discouraging nature. They presented a model to encourage students to apply their knowledge in a more creative way. They have found positive results regarding creativity development. In a further study Tomasevic and Trivic (2014) investigated Serbian chemistry teachers’ views about stimulating the creativity of students. Their findings indicated that majority of the teachers have positive attitudes towards promoting creativity through chemistry. In addition, they stated they used activities which are conducive for nurturing creativity and stressed the use of laboratory and appropriate evaluation criteria for students’ creative work. Meyer and Lederman (2013) explored teachers’ classroom practice to take a closer look at creativity in science classrooms and they identified pedagogical factors and teacher conceptions which influence creativity among science students. They emphasized science teachers and science teacher educators to consider learning experiences, behavioral expectations and social influences.

For excellence in chemistry lessons, teachers should encourage and identify the students who have potential to be creative and support them. There is a need for further research on teachers’ views and implicit theories of creativity and teacher role in nurturing students’ creativity. A very few the aforementioned studies regarding creativity have focused on secondary teachers and teachers from different cultural contexts. Additionally, Turkish secondary science teachers; namely chemistry, physics and biology teachers’ perceptions and their practices regarding creativity are yet to be investigated. Therefore the aim of this study is to explore chemistry teachers’ views about creativity and variables related with creativity. Chemistry teachers’ perceptions and beliefs regarding creativity and their practices will be revealed with this study and our findings will add to the existing literature on cultural differences in creativity.

Purpose of the study

The purpose of study is to first, determine chemistry teachers’ views about creativity and other variables related with creativity. Secondly we hope to reveal teachers’ beliefs and practices regarding creativity and potential the factors behind these beliefs and practices.

Research Problems

1. What are chemistry teachers’ views regarding creativity?
2. How do chemistry teachers define creativity?
3. According to chemistry teachers which variables are effective in developing creativity?
4. According to chemistry teachers what are the characteristics of creative people?
5. According to chemistry teachers what are the characteristics of creative products?