Creative climate and engagement of students in school: How do they relate?

Abstract

Research has shown that creative climate has a constructive inluence on school engagement. The present study aims at understanding how creative climate relates to school engagement. A national sample of students responded to a questionnaire in class. The data collection instrument was the “Students’ engagement in school: A four-dimensional Scale” SES-4DS (Veiga, 2013). This scale revealed four dimensions: cognitive, affective, behavioural and agency. Measures of Perceived Creativity Climate (5 items) suggested by the literature were included. A total of 685 students participated in the study. We observed a higher proportion of girls (56.8%) than boys (43.2%). The creative climate-related items show a consistency of alpha 0.84 and a correlation of 0.38 with the total School Engagement Scale. The dimension more correlated with the creative climate is the cognitive one, suggesting that students who see school as a place that values their ideas process knowledge in a more intentional and motivated way. The variables age and number of school retentions contribute negatively to the engagement of students in the school. Some suggestions for the promotion of creative climate are presented in order to encourage the engagement of students in the school.