Trajectories of Change in Mathematical Creative Self-efficacy under Student-centered and Teacher-centered Pedagogies

While general creative self-efficacy has been shown to be improvable through classroom instruction, it remains unclear which specific instructional approaches are effective in contributing to the development of mathematical creative self-efficacy. This study explores the trajectories of change in students’ mathematical creative self-efficacy under student-centered in comparison with teacher- centered pedagogies, as well as the effectiveness of student-centered pedagogies on students’ creative self-efficacy in mathematics. To achieve the goals, the mathematical creative self-efficacy of 444 students from two comparable schools (Grades 7-9), one of which used significantly more student- centered pedagogies than the other (p < 0.01), was assessed at four time points from the beginning of Grade 7 (mean age = 12.53, SD = 0.61) to the end of Grade 9 (mean age = 15.12, SD = 0.65). The mixed-effects modeling revealed that students from the two pedagogies differed significantly in their trajectories of change in mathematical creative self-efficacy (p < 0.05). Additionally, while we found that two weeks of student-centered pedagogies was associated with promising gains in mathematical creative self-efficacy, this advantage diminished over time, with no significant effects observed after three academic years of implementation. This study has potentially important implications for educators and researchers interested in creativity-enhancing pedagogies.