Teachers’ creativity, playfulness, and style of interaction with children

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Teachers’ creativity, playfulness, and style ofinteraction with childrenBonnie C. Graham a , Janet K. Sawyers b & Karen B. DeBord aa Virginia Polytechnic and State University ,b Family and Child Development , Virginia Polytechnic and State University , Blacksburg,VA, 24061Published online: 02 Nov 2009.

To cite this article: Bonnie C. Graham , Janet K. Sawyers & Karen B. DeBord (1989) Teachers’ creativity, playfulness, andstyle of interaction with children, Creativity Research Journal, 2:1-2, 41-50, DOI: 10.1080/10400418909534299

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Copyright© 1989 • Creativity Research JournalVolume 2 (ISSN 1040-0419)

Teachers' Creativity, Playfulness,

and Style of Interaction with Children

Bonnie C. Graham, Janet K. Sawyers, and Karen B. DeBordVirginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

ABSTRACT: This investigation examinedthe relationships among a teacher's crea-tive thinking, playfulness, and degree ofsensitivity in their interactions with pre-school children during play. These vari-ables were operationally defined as scoreson measures of ideational fluency, playfuldisposition, and quality of self-reportedplay interaction. The MultidimensionalStimulus Fluency Measure, the AdultBehavior Inventory, and the Play Interac-tion Scale were administered to 46students and 37 teachers of three- andfour-year old children. The Play Inter-action Scale, developed for this study, wasbased on environmental componentsidentified in earlier research as facilitativeof play. Subjects indicated the frequencywith which they might respond in a struc-tured, elaborative, or unstructured mannerto 20 vignettes describing the play ofchildren. Results indicated that the ex-pected positive relationships among creat-ivity, playfulness, and an elaborative tea-ching style were found only for the stu-dents. The predicted negative relation-ships between creativity and a structuredinteraction style were found only for theexperienced teachers.

Playfulness or the predisposition toengage in symbolic play has been linkedto high levels of ideational fluency inchildren (Dansky, 1980; Dansky &Silverman, 1973, 1975; Li, 1978; Moran,Sawyers, Fu, & Milgram, 1984). Basedon studies of kindergartners, high schoolstudents, and adults, Lieberman (1977)speculated that playfulness becomespart of an individual's personality andis an essential ingredient in creativethought.

The adult's role in providing an en-vironment for play was recognized byGottfried (1985), Rubin, Fein, andVandenberg (1983), and Sutton-Smith(1979). Rubin et al. described thesupportive environment as:

(1) an array of familiar peers, toys,or other materials likely to engagechildren's interest;

Correspondence should be addressed toJanet Sawyers, Family and Child Devel-opment, Virginia Polytechnic and StateUniversity, Blacksburg, VA 24061

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(2) an agreement between adultsand children, expressed in word,gesture, or established by conven-tion, that the children are free tochoose from the array whatever theywish to do within whatever limits arerequired by the setting or the study;

(3) adult behavior that is minimallyintrusive or directive;

(4) a friendly atmosphere designedto make children feel comfortableand safe; and

(5) scheduling that reduces the like-lihood of the children being tired,hungry, ill or experiencing othertypes of bodily stress, (p. 701)

The research findings reported in theplay literature support the essential roleof the adult, and also highlight the in-fluence of individual differences in theability and willingness of adults toprovide the environment for play.

Caldwell (1985) described children'splay as fun, and something that you donot have to do well. Caldwell explainedthat play changes as children developinto adults. Adult play is not usuallyspontaneous or flexible; it is serious,and has many rules; it is very literal,with no fantasy; and it has to be donewell. It may not be fun. The differen-ces between the play of the childrenand adults can result in the play para-dox, with adults no longer playing butteaching children how to play (Cald-well, 1985). She suggested that becauseadults are so accustomed to playing bythe rules, they encourage play in a con-

vergent way and ignore the need fordivergent play or creativity.

Adults differ in their manner or styleof interaction with children. Fein (1979)identified three play styles through ob-servations of mother-child interactions.These styles varied in the degree ofsensitivity with which the mother inter-acted with the child. The mothers whowere elaborative took into account theaction-object relationship used by thechild. These mothers modified eitherthe child's action or object, but notboth. The imitative mothers simplyrepeated the child's action with theobject. The mothers with an unrelatedstyle were intrusive and imposed theiractions or a specific object on the child.Similarly, Levenstein (1985) reportedthat when mothers were demanding ofthe child's learning, the interactionswere not playful and tended to be un-successful. Although these studies in-vestigated play interaction betweenmothers and their children, it seemsreasonable that teacher-child play inter-actions would be similar.

Structure can be defined in the pre-school environment as the degree towhich the program involves adult-directed activities (Huston-Stein,Friedrich-Cofer, & Susman, 1977).Structured programs focus on conver-gent learning and encourage construc-tive, goal-directed, manipulative play.Unstructured programs seem to en-hance divergent thinking as well asdramatic and functional play (Huston-Stein, Friedrich-Cofer, & Susman, 1977).It appears that the adult plays a rolein fostering divergent thinking as wellas play behaviors. Cliatt, Shaw, andSherwood (1980) suggested that theability of young children to think diver-

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gently can be increased significantlythrough repeated exposure to teacherposed divergent thinking situations.Although it is often difficult to identifyand teach behaviors that lead to crea-tive performance, Amabile (1983) citedfindings from several studies that indi-cate that exposure to a creative mentorcan lead to creative performance by theobserver.

The relationship between ideationalfluency and playfulness in adults, andthe contribution of ideational fluencyand playfulness to individual differencesin teachers' play interaction styles areunknown. The purpose of this studywas to explore the relationships amongplayfulness, ideational fluency, and self-reported adult play interaction styles.

Method

Subjects

The sample consisted of 83 adults fromSouthwestern Virginia, with 20 three-and four-year teachers from child carecenters, and 17 Head Start teachers.The remainder of the sample consistedof 18 students enrolled in a child devel-opment program at a community collegeand 28 students enrolled in an under-graduate child development class at alarge university.

The teachers' ages ranged from 18 to52 years with a mean age of 29.8. Themean age of the students was 21.3years, with a range of 18 to 40 years.Subjects reported their years of ex-perience working with young children inone of the following categories: none,1-2 years, 3-6 years, 7-25 years, and 26+years. The average experience of the

teachers was 3-6 years, and the averagefor the students was 1-2 years.

Instruments

Ideational Fluency. Creativity wasmeasured with the MultidimensionalStimulus Fluency Measure (MSFM;Moran, Milgram, Sawyers, & Fu, 1983).It consisted of three tasks: AlternateUses, Instances, and Pattern Meanings.For all three tasks, subjects were re-quested to give as many responses asthey could. The responses were codedas popular or original. Popular respon-ses were those given by 5.0% or moreof the sample, and the original respon-ses were those given by less than 5.0%of the sample.

Playfulness. Playfulness was measur-ed by the Adult Behavior Inventory(ABI). This was adapted from theChild Behavior Inventory of Rogers andMoore (1985), which was in turn basedon the definitional criteria for play as adisposition outlined by Rubin et al.(1983). The Child Behavior Inventorycontains 31 statements, 20 of whichwere found to load on a playfulnessfactor (Rogers & Moore, 1985). Onthe ABI, subjects responded to 31 state-ments by rating themselves on a con-tinuum of 1 to 4, with 1 indicating thestatement was very uncharacteristic and4 indicating the statement was verycharacteristic. A play disposition scorewas calculated by adding together theresponses to the 20 playfulness state-ments.

Play Interaction Scale. The PlayInteraction Scale was modeled after theTest of Skill for Project Interact (Innes,1985) and the Preactive Decision Exer-cises (McNergney, Medley, Aylesworth,

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& Innes, 1983). It included four vignet-tes for each of the five components ofthe play environment identified byRubin et al. (1983). Each vignette wasfollowed by three possible courses ofaction which a teacher might take.These responses were designed torepresent three styles (structured, elabor-ative, unstructured) of interaction. Thestructured, intrusive, or convergentresponses were those in which the tea-cher was very demanding or imposedhis or her activity or idea upon thechild. The elaborative, minimally in-trusive, or divergent responses wereones in which the teacher interacted byintroducing an idea, making a sugges-tion, or presenting divergent questions.Finally, the unstructured, imitative, orpassive responses were those in whichthe teacher did exactly what the childwas doing, used nondirective statements,or did not respond at all.

An example of a vignette is:

You have put out some red and blueplaydough for the children. Jonathansqueezes some red and blue doughtogether.

The examinee is then asked about hisor her probable course of action. Ex-amples are:

You might:

Say, "Jonathan we need to keep thered playdough separate from theblue so we can keep it nice."(Structured)

Allow Jonathan to experiment, mak-ing no comment on the mixing of theplaydough. (Unstructured)

Say, "Jonathan look at the new colorof playdough that you got when youmixed the red with the blue." (Elab-orative)

The 20 vignettes were presented on35mm slides and simultaneously on acassette tape. Each vignette remainedvisible while the three possible coursesof action were presented at intervals offour seconds. The short response timewas used to simulate typical classroomsituations in which teachers must makedecisions and respond quickly. Thismethodology was also used to reducethe subject's ability to respond on thebasis of social desirability.

The subjects rated each response ona four option scale to indicate howfrequently they would respond in thatway, with (4) almost always, (3) freq-uently, (2) seldom, or (1) almost never.A separate score was determined forthe structured, elaborative, and unstruc-tured styles. The range of possiblescores for each style was 20 to 80.

Procedure

The instruments were administered ingroups in one session. The order oftasks was the same for all groups:Play Interraction Scale, MSFM, andABI. No time limits were imposed forthe MSFM or the ABI.

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Results

Cronbach's alpha was used to determinethe reliability of the three measures.Reliabilities were .86 for the MSFM, .87for the ABI, .77 for the Play InteractionScale and .60, .83, and .70 for the struc-tured, elaborative, and unstructuredsubscales, respectively.

Means, standard deviations, andranges for ideational fluency, playful-ness, and play interaction scores areshown by group (teachers or students)in Table 1. Comparisons revealed thatthe teachers gave significantly moretotal (/(81) = 2.09, p <.05) and popularresponses (f(81) = 2.94, p <.01 than thestudents.

The means for playfulness in Table 1indicate that the teachers (M = 61.73)and students (M = 62.83) tended torate themselves as playful people, scor-ing high on the ABI. Teachers andstudents tended to rate themselveshigher on elaborative responses than onstructured or unstructured responses onthe Play Interaction Scale. The rangesof scores on the Play Interaction Scaleindicated that subjects' responses weremore highly differentiated on the struc-tured than on the elaborative and un-structured responses.

Product-moment correlations werecalculated within each group to deter-mine the relationships among ideationalfluency scores, playfulness, and playinteraction style scores. The coefficientsare shown in Table 2.

It was expected that subjects whoscored high on the ABI would score

high on divergent thinking as measuredby the MSFM. Although the relation-ships between the MSFM scores andthe playfulness score were not sig-nificant for the teachers, the correlationbetween playfulness and original idea-tional fluency was significant for thestudent group (r = .29, p <.05). Thus,students who scored high on originalityalso scored high on playfulness as meas-ured by the ABI.

It was predicted that subjects whoscored high on the elaborative responsesof the Play Interaction Scale wouldscore high on the ABI. Again the ex-pected correlations were found only forstudents. Their elaborative scores weresignificantly related to playfulness (r =.30, p <.O5). It was also expected thatsubjects' elaborative responses on thePlay Interaction Scale would be relatedto their level of ideational fluency. Thepredicted relationships were not foundfor either group.

Significant negative correlations bet-ween structured responses on the PlayInteraction Scale and creativity andplayfulness were predicted. As shownin Table 2, the expected negative cor-relation between structured responsesand ideational fluency scores was foundonly for teachers. The expected nega-tive relationship between playfulnessand the structured style response scorewas not found for either group.

The relationships between unstruc-tured responses on the Play InteractionScale and creativity and playfulnessscores were also examined. Althoughthe correlations reported in Table 2were in the expected negative directionfor the students, they did not reachstatistical significance.

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Table 1

Means, Standard Deviations (in parentheses), and Ranges {or Ideational Fluency,Playfulness, and Play Interaction Scores

Ideational FluencyPopular

Ideational FluencyOriginal

Ideational FluencyTotal

Play Disposition

Structured

Elaborative

Unstructured

Teachers(n = 37)

65.38(24.34)

25.24(21.36)

90.62(44.24)

61.73(9.27)

61.73(8.85)

67.22(5.40)

40.00(4.54)

Range

32-125

3-93

37-211

39-80

29-69

52-77

30-47

Students(n = 46)

56.98(16.13)

22.24(13.02)

79.22(26.00)

62.83(8.04)

62.83(7.51)

66.28(5.06)

37.74(5.06)

Range

21-98

4-57

25-154

42-80

30-67

56-78

30-49

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Table 2

Correlations Among Ideational Fluency, Playfulness, and Play Interaction (Structured, Elaborative,and Unstructured) Styles

1. Fluency Popular

2. Fluency Original

3. Fluency Total

4. Play Disposition

5. Structured

6. Elaborative

7. Unstructured

XX

29***

08

-13

06

-08

87***

XX

29*

-09

22

-22

96***

XX

20

-13

15

-16

-01

-04

-03

XX

10

30*

-10

.47**

_44**

_47**

17

XX

03

35*

19

24

22

04

-11

XX

11

08

04

06

07

21

15

XX

Note: Decimals have been omitted. Coefficients for teachers are above the diagonal, andstudents below. *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

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Discussion

One of the purposes of this studywas to examine the relationship bet-ween creativity and playfulness inadults. Using an adaptation of theChild Behavior Inventory for adultsubjects, results of the present studyprovided partial support for an associa-tion between playfulness and creativity.Students who scored high on originalideational fluency rated themselves highon playfulness. This finding replicatesthe findings from earlier studies withyoung children (Dansky, 1980; Dansky& Silverman, 1973, 1975; Li, 1978;Moran et al., 1984) and extends them toan older age group. In a post hocexamination of individual subjects' scor-es, it was found that three teachersubjects scored 33 to 46 points higheron original ideational fluency than theother subjects. Further, two of thesethree subjects rated themselves low onplayfulness. These outlier subjects'scores might explain the lack of sig-nificant correlation between playfulnessand creativity for teachers. When theseextreme scores were eliminated thecorrelation between original ideationalfluency and playfulness changed to thepredicted positive direction but did notreach statistical significance (r = .27, p>.05). This finding may also reflect adevelopmental change in the relation-ship between ideational fluency andplayfulness.

A second purpose of this investiga-tion was to explore the relationshipbetween an elaborative play interactionstyle and creativity, and the relationshipbetween an elaborative play interactionplay style and playfulness. The PlayInteraction Scale was designed to tap

the style of teacher-child interaction inthe play environment. Cliatt et al.(1980) found that when teachers weretrained to promote divergent thinking intheir class, the students showed moregrowth in divergent thinking ability. Inthe present study, the elaborative respo-nses on the Play Interaction Scale werethought to be ones which would pro-mote divergent thinking, stimulate play,and to be minimally intrusive. As themeans in Table 1 reveal, both teachersand students tended to rate themselveshigh on elaboration. Out of a possiblerange from 20 to 80, the teachers' rangewas 52-77 and the students' range was56-78, indicating a restricted range forelaboration. This restricted range mayexplain the failure to find the expectedcorrelation between ideational fluencyand an elaborative interaction style.Also, responses to the Play InteractionScale within a given style varied. Forexample, not all of the elaborative styleresponses dealt with promotion of diver-gent thinking. Therefore it is possiblethat the failure to find a relationshipbetween an elaborative style and idea-tional fluency scores may have been dueto the contents of the Play InteractionScale. Further, the relatively low reliab-ilities obtained for the Play InteractionScale and subscales indicate the need tofurther refine the instrument.

Limited support was found for thepredicted relationship between playful-ness and an elaborative interactive style.The correlation between the play dis-position score and the elaborative stylescore was significant only for students.Students who rated themselves as play-ful also tended to respond that theyfrequently interacted in an elaborativemanner. No obvious explanation can be

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drawn from the data to explain why therelationship between play dispositionand an elaborative interaction teachingstyle was not found for the teachergroup. Possibly, the teachers and stu-dents differed in their interpretation ofplayfulness.

This study also examined the re-lationship between structured interac-tion style scores and creativity, and therelationship between structured interac-tion style scores and playfulness.Moran, Sawyers, and Moore (1988)found that a structured adult interactionstyle had a detrimental effect on creativ-ity. As predicted, the structured inter-action style scores of the present inves-tigation were negatively correlated withall three measures of ideational fluency(popular, original, and total) but onlyfor teachers. The correlations rangedfrom -.44 to -.47. Although the cor-relations for the student group were inthe predicted direction, they were notstatistically significant. Again no ob-vious explanation can be drawn fromthe data. The expected negativerelationship between a structured inter-action style and the play dispositionscore was not found for either group.

The unstructured style interactionscores were not significantly correlatedwith either ideational fluency or theplayfulness score for either group ofsubjects. For the students, the correla-tions were in the predicted negativedirection. The correlations for theteachers were positive. Examination ofthe ratings given for unstructured resp-onses revealed both students and teach-ers regarded ignoring as an unaccep-table reaction.

Conclusions

The findings of this study indicate thatstudents who were more playful werealso more creative and had an elabora-tive interaction style, but it was thestructured interaction style for teachersthat was related to low creativity scores.Perhaps experience with children altersthe relationship between interactionstyle, ideational fluency, and playfulness.To clarify this finding and other findingsof the study, further research with boththe Adult Behavior Inventory and thePlay Interaction Scale is planned. Bothscales are self-reports and need to bevalidated through classroon observa-tions. With further refinement, the PlayInteraction Scale has potential as avaluable research instrument in studiesof teacher interaction styles as well as atool for inservice teacher training and asa screening assessment for hiring teach-ers of young children.

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