“Meeting students’ needs matters”: Kazakhstani teachers’ beliefs about developing a creative environment

The significance of creativity in the educational sphere is widely recognized. However, this is a topic that has yet to receive much attention in the post-Soviet context and more specifically Kazakhstan. Currently, there is little international evidence of research on upper-secondary school teachers’ beliefs about creativity. Thus, the aim of the study was to explore how these teachers conceptualize a creative learning environment, including their beliefs about what constitutes such an environment, and how creativity can be developed in the classroom. The research was designed as a qualitative, multiple-case study comprising four different types of Kazakhstani secondary schools. Data collection included 15 in-depth semi-structured interviews. A modified conceptual framework for teachers’ beliefs about creativity (Bereczki & Kárpáti, 2018) was employed in this study. The findings revealed that teachers’ beliefs about developing a creative environment align with many empirical findings worldwide. However, a noteworthy finding of this study was that the creative environment construct of this study’s initial conceptual framework was expanded with an additional subconstruct: students’ needs. Unique to this study was that participants believe a creative environment cannot be fully effective if students’ needs (basic and psychological) are not met and if the physical environment is unsatisfactory.