Classroom Leadership and Creativity: A Study of Social Studies and Islamic Education Teachers in Jordan

Samih Al-Karasneh1, Ali Jubran2
1Faculty of Education, Yarmouk University, Irbid, Jordan
2Department of Administration and Foundations of Education, Faculty of Education, Yarmouk University, Irbid, Jordan
Email: عنوان البريد الإلكتروني هذا محمي من روبوتات السبام. يجب عليك تفعيل الجافاسكربت لرؤيته.
Received December 20th, 2012; revised January 18th, 2013; accepted January 25th, 2013

Copyright © 2013 Samih Al-Karasneh, Ali Jubran. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the leadership practices and creativity traits as perceived by social studies and Islamic education teachers in Jordan.

A sample of 289 social studies and Islamic educa-tion teachers were selected randomly. Data were collected using quantitative research method. Leadership practices were measured using the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI-Self) developed by Kouzes and Posner (2003) with self-developed items on the Islamic component by the researchers, and creativity traits were measured using the Creativity Self-Perception Questionnaire (CSPQ) developed by Goertz (1993). The validity and the reliability of two instruments are already developed and assessed. The data have been statistically analyzed (by using the SPSS). Findings of the study revealed that teachers perceived them-selves positively in all dimensions studied. They were also found to be creative, as they perceived them-selves to possess all the creativity traits. The study also showed that there was a significant correlation between the results of the ten leadership dimensions together and the eight creativity traits of teachers were positively significant. The results showed that there were no significant differences according to the dependent variables (gender, major of specialization, educational experience, and stage of schools) on most of the independent variables (eight creativity traits and ten leadership dimensions). The study also offered some recommendations to enhance the status of educational leadership, creativity of social studies and Islamic education teachers.
Keywords: Classroom; Leadership; Creativity; Social Studies; Islamic Education