Journal of Professional Nursing xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Professional Nursing

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jpnu

Predictors of self-perceived levels of creative teaching behaviors among

nursing school faculty in Taiwan: A preliminary study
⁎ ⁎⁎
Hsing-Yuan Liu (PhD) (Associate professor)a,b, , , Hsiu-Min Tsai (Distinguished Professor)a,
I-Teng Wang (Postdoctoral Researcher)a, Nai-Hung Chen (Lecturer)a
a
Department of Nursing, Chang Gung University of Science and Technology, Taoyuan, Taiwan, ROC
b
Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, No. 261, Wunhua 1st Rd., Gueishan Township, Taoyuan, Taiwan, ROC

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Background: Many nursing programs include a capstone project as part of the nursing curriculum. In Taiwan,
Capstone these courses involve development of healthcare products. A student's success can depend on faculty's ability to
Nursing faculty employ creative teaching behaviors.
Nursing students Purpose: To examine the relationship between demographic and teaching characteristics, personality traits, and
Creative teaching behaviors
self-perceived levels of creative teaching behaviors for capstone nursing faculty.
Methods: This study used a cross-sectional, descriptive, correlational study design. Faculty (N = 53) were re-
cruited from healthcare schools in Taiwan. Data from self-report questionnaires included variables for demo-
graphic and teaching characteristics, perceived levels of creative personality traits (imagination, curiosity, ad-
venture, challenge) and creative teaching behaviors (autonomous learning, creative thinking, characteristics/
motivations, environment/opportunity). Hierarchical multiple regression identified predictors of creative
teaching behaviors.
Results: Mean total scores for creative teaching behaviors were high for nursing faculty; characteristics/moti-
vations were the lowest subscale score. The creative personality trait of curiosity significantly and positively
influenced the perception of high levels creative teaching behaviors.
Conclusions: High scores for curiosity significantly predicted high scores for creative teaching behaviors for
nursing faculty. These findings suggest faculty who perceive themselves as having low levels of creative teaching
behaviors might benefit from training to increase levels of curiosity.

Introduction
Creativity is a key element of educational policies worldwide, in-
cluding Taiwan (Liu & Chang, 2017). In 2003, the Taiwanese govern-
ment mandated student creativity be fostered at all educational levels
(Liu et al., 2018), which also applies to nursing programs. Most re-
search in creativity for nursing education has focused on the students
(Huang, Peng, Chen, Tseng, & Hsu, 2017; Ku & Kuo, 2016; Ku, Lee,
Shen, & Kuo, 2014; Liu, Wang, Huang, Hsu, & Han, 2019). However, a
recent review of the literature demonstrated successful execution of
creativity in the classroom is determined by a teacher's beliefs about
creativity (Bereczki & Kárpáti, 2018). Therefore, nursing students'
creativity is dependent not only on the ability of teaching faculty to
foster nursing students' creativity, but also on the strength of the
faculty's beliefs in creativity (Bereczki & Kárpáti, 2018; Shahvand &
Rezvani, 2017; Soh, 2015).
Review of the literature
Creativity in nursing
The rapid changes occurring in global healthcare have been a strong
incentive for the Taiwanese government to enhance the creative capa-
city of nursing students. This creative capacity with regards to health-
care research refers to the ability to generate something new and useful,
which can be a tangible product, or an intangible idea or theory
(Mumford, 2003). Creative capacity can be influenced by personal in-
teractions, development of creative skills, and the environment (Liu &

⁎
Corresponding author at: Department of Nursing, Chang Gung University of Science and Technology, Taoyuan, Taiwan, ROC.
⁎⁎
Corresponding author at: Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Taoyuan, Taiwan, ROC.
E-mail addresses: hyliu@mail.cgust.edu.tw (H.-Y. Liu), hmtsai@mail.cgust.edu.tw (H.-M. Tsai), itwang@mail.cgust.edu.tw (I.-T. Wang),
nhchen@mail.cgust.edu.tw (N.-H. Chen).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.profnurs.2019.09.004
Received 26 April 2019; Received in revised form 22 September 2019; Accepted 25 September 2019
8755-7223/ © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY-NC-ND/4.0/).

Please cite this article as: Hsing-Yuan Liu, et al., Journal of Professional Nursing, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.profnurs.2019.09.004
H.-Y. Liu, et al.
Chang, 2017). Therefore, capstone projects have been incorporated into
nursing curricula, which are designed to stimulate creativity through
the development, production, and marketing of patentable healthcare
products (Ku et al., 2014).
This form of ‘design thinking’ for the development of healthcare
products is also encouraged by the American Association of Colleges of
Nurses (AACN), which requires creativity in order to solve real-world
problems (AACN, 2008; Beaird, Geist, & Lewis, 2018; Liu, Wang, Hang,
Hang, & Hsu, in press). For the purposes of this study, creativity in
nursing refers to behaviors that result in the generation of new paten-
table healthcare-related products that can be applied to clinical care.
Previous studies have indicated creativity not only plays a key role in
providing quality care, but also improves interactions between the
medical team with the patient (Chan, 2013).
Creative teaching behaviors
Creative teaching behaviors can be defined as those acts that foster
student creativity. These behaviors include those that stimulate in-
dependent learning, cooperation, and provide a solid base for divergent
thinking; encourage students to take time to formulate ideas and think
flexibly; promote self-evaluation, listening, and questioning; and help
students learn to cope with frustration and failure (Cropley, 1997).
Based on the model proposed by Cropley (1997), Soh (2000) identified
a nine-factor structure for creative teaching behaviors: independence,
integration, motivation, judgment, flexibility, evaluation, questions,
opportunities, and frustration.
The factors described by Soh (2000) were incorporated with com-
ponents of the conceptual framework of creativity proposed by Amabile
(1988) to create a four-factor structure for evaluating creative teaching
behaviors (Chang, Chen, & Hsu, 2010; Zheng, Jin, & Ma, 2009). These
four factors are (1) autonomous learning, which encourages in-
dependence; (2) creative thinking, which encourages creative ap-
proaches to problem solving, decision-making and flexibility; (3)
characteristics/motivation, which encourages students to master basic
requirements and approach conflict situations with a positive attitude;
and (4) environment/opportunity, which encourages student coopera-
tion and interpersonal interactions when participating in small groups.
Factors associated with creative teaching behaviors
Many factors can foster creativity, including teaching techniques, a
teacher's perception of their teaching abilities, and the academic en-
vironment (Beghetto & Kaufman, 2014; Chang et al., 2010; Davies
et al., 2013). Personality traits also influence creative teaching beha-
viors (Cropley & Cropley, 2000) and foster creativity (Liu et al., 2019;
Liu et al., in press). Many studies have demonstrated a correlation be-
tween personality traits and creativity (Dollinger, Burke, & Gump,
2007; Kaufman et al., 2016; Lee & Kemple, 2014; Williams, 1980).
Personality traits are considered to be relatively stable, which influence
lifelong patterns of thought, emotions and behaviors (Krumm, Lemos, &
Richaud, 2018). Williams (1980) demonstrated creativity was asso-
ciated with the personality traits of curiosity, imagination, adventure,
and challenge. Therefore, assessing which of these personality traits
predict high perceived levels of creative teaching behaviors could help
develop strategies to increase creativity of nursing faculty.
Although nursing students creativity can be enhanced through in-
terdisciplinary teaching (Liu et al., 2019), students' creativity is also
dependent upon creative teaching behaviors of the nursing faculty,
which are influenced by psychological characteristics, expertise, crea-
tivity-related skills and abilities, motivation, and personality traits
(Cropley & Cropley, 2000). Evaluating self-perceived levels of crea-
tivity-related skills, abilities, and motivations would be one measure of
a teacher's beliefs regarding creative teaching behaviors.
2
Journal of Professional Nursing xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
Purpose of the study
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between
demographic and teaching characteristics, personality traits, and self-
perceived levels of creative teaching behaviors for capstone nursing
faculty. We evaluated demographic variables, including gender, age
and educational backgrounds, as well as teaching variables, which in-
cluded years of teaching experience, teaching expertise, and interest in
teaching creativity courses. We chose to examine the relationship of
these variables and creative personality traits of curiosity, imagination,
adventure, and challenge because they have been shown to be pre-
dictors in previous studies (Alrefaei, 2015; Liu et al., 2019; Liu et al., in
press; Lo & Wei, 2013). Four research questions guided this study: (1)
What are the perceived levels of creative teaching behaviors for nursing
faculty?, (2) What are the perceived levels for personality traits of
nursing faculty?, (3) Does level of creative teaching behaviors differ for
specific constructs of creativity?, and (4) What factors are predictors of
high self-perceived levels of creative teaching behaviors?
Methods
This study used a cross-sectional quantitative design. A nationwide
search of all healthcare schools in Taiwan was conducted to identify
schools offering capstone courses in patentable healthcare products that
were taught by nursing faculty who had completed a teaching for
creativity module (TCM). The TCM program provides training in how to
foster nursing student creativity by motivating and stimulating creative
thinking related to the development of novel healthcare products (Liu
et al., 2019). Five schools were identified and the director of each
school was interviewed by phone. All five directors agreed to allow
interested faculty who taught a capstone course required for graduation
to participate in the study. We used G*Power to calculate the required
minimum sample size and set the confidence level as 95%, the power of
test as 0.8, and the number of predictor variables as 3. Subsequently,
the minimum sample size required was determined to be 52.
Eligible faculty members were notified by email of the opportunity
to participate in the study. A total of 64 teachers replied, expressing
interest in participating. Teachers who expressed interest in partici-
pating received a packet containing a description of the study design
and purpose, a consent form, and self-report questionnaires regarding
demographic and teaching characteristics, and scale instruments (de-
scribed below). Teachers were instructed to sign the enclosed consent
form, fill out the questionnaires, and return the packets by mail.
Anonymity of the data was maintained by assigning a coding number to
each packet. A total of 53 completed packets were returned for a re-
sponse rate of 82.9%.
Instruments
The 14-item Creative Teaching Behavior Scale (CTBS) developed by
Chang et al. (2010) measured participants' perceived levels of creative
teaching behaviors. The scale is based on the Creativity Fostering
Teacher Behaviour Index (CFTIndex) developed by Soh (2000), which
measures teachers behaviors necessary for fostering student creativity
in a classroom setting. The CFTIndex is used worldwide and has been
translated into several languages (Soh, 2015). The 14-item CTBS was
developed for use in Taiwan and incorporates the CFTIndex as well as
Amabile's conceptual framework of components of creativity (Amabile,
1988; Chang et al., 2010). Four subscales measure teaching behavior
that encourages student creativity: autonomous learning (AL, 4 items),
creative thinking (CT, 4 items), characteristics/motivation (CM, 4
items), and environment/opportunity (EO, 2 items). Items are scored
with a 5-point Likert scale: 1 = never to 5 = always. The subscale score
is the mean score for the items; total score is the mean across all four
subscales. Cronbach's alpha for the total score of the CTBS is 0.91; sa-
tisfactory validity was established through factor analysis (Zheng et al.,
H.-Y. Liu, et al. Journal of Professional Nursing xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Table 1
Examples of statements for the subscale measures of creativity.
Scale Example statement

CTBS subscales
Autonomous learning (AL) I provide instruction to students on methods to improve learning
Creative thinking (CT) I explain to students about obstacles and frustrations that are part of the process of creativity.
Characteristics/motivation (CM) I provide challenging and exciting materials to my students.
Environment/opportunity (EO) I encourage students to communicate with other group members using positive language.
ACCS
Imagination I like to guess things in my daily life, even if I guess wrong.
Curiosity I like to observe carefully to understand the details what I have not seen.
Adventure I am willing to try that are difficult to break through. It doesn't matter if I fail.
Challenge I hope to try different types of part-time jobs.

Abbreviations: CTBS = Creative Teaching Behavior Scale; ACCS = Affective Components of Creativity Scale.

2009). In this study, the Cronbach's alpha was 0.89. Examples of
statements for the four subscales of the CTBS are shown in Table 1.
Personality traits were measured with the Affective Components of
Creativity Scale (ACCS) developed by Lin & Wang (1994). The ACCS is
similar to the creativity assessment Packet (CAP) developed by
Williams (1980), which has gained increasing acceptance as a valid
measure of personality traits in Taiwan (Liu et al., 2019; Xia, 2009).
The ACCS has been used in Taiwan to examine perceived levels of
personality traits associated with creativity (Liu et al., 2019; Xia, 2009).
The ACCS contains statements describing classroom situations; re-
sponses are considered to reflect traits associated with creativity: ima-
gination, curiosity, adventure, and challenge. Statements are rated on a
4-point Likert scale; 1 = completely disagree to 4 = completely agree.
Scores for subscales range from 0 to 4. The total score for the ACCS is
the average of the sum all subscale scores; range = 0 to 4; higher scores
indicate higher perceived levels of creative personality traits. The re-
liability estimate for the ACCS is 0.92; factor analysis demonstrated
satisfactory construct validity. In this study, the Cronbach's alpha was
0.88. Table 1 contains example statements for the subscales of the
ACCS.
Data collection and analysis
Results
Participant demographics and teaching background
Coded packets with questionnaires were emailed to 64 capstone
faculty; however, only 53 packets were returned, for a response rate of
83%. All 53 packets contained signed informed consent forms. The five
schools differed in total student population, educational programs of-
fered (Associate degree program, 4-year BS program), and design of
curricula; however all faculty taught 49–52 students per class. There
was an unequal representation of faculty from the five schools; most
participants (n = 42) were from one university of science and tech-
nology with 5200 undergraduate nursing students; of the remaining
four schools, one was represented by eight participants and each of the
other three schools was represented by one faculty member. The mean
age was 49 years (SD = 4.73); most were female (96%), and had
1–19 years of teaching experience (62.3%); less than half (38%) had
taught for 19 years or more. Thirty-three participants (62%) had taught
a capstone course focused on fostering student creativity; 53% had
received at least 10 hours of creativity training; and most (78%) ex-
pressed interest in teaching creativity courses. Demographic and
teaching characteristics of the 53 participants are shown in Table 2.

Data were collected between October 2016 and January 2017. Data
were analyzed using SPSS version 20.0. Descriptive statistics (means
(M), standard deviations (SD), and frequency) described demographics
and teaching characteristics. Perceived creative teaching behaviors, and
creative personality traits of all nursing faculty were analyzed with
means and SD. Faculty were then grouped by high and low levels of
creative teaching behaviors. In this study, participants with a high level
of creative teaching behaviors were those with total scores for all 14
items of the CTBS above the median; participants with a low level of
creative teaching behaviors were those with total scores below the
median. Independent samples t-tests compared the mean subscale
scores for each of the creative teaching behaviors between the two
groups. Finally, five models were analyzed by hierarchical multiple
regression analysis to identify factors that influenced high levels of
creative teaching behaviors.
Ethical considerations
Approval was obtained from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of
the hospital ethics committees (Chang Gung Medical Foundation
Institutional Review Board) prior to data collection. The director of
each nursing school program received forms with a description of the
study purpose, assurance that participation was voluntary and with-
drawal could occur at any time and for any reason without con-
sequences, and that confidentiality would be maintained. Consent
forms were also provided. Interested faculty received informed consent
forms and a coded packet containing the questionnaires to be com-
pleted and returned by mail.
Creative teaching behaviors and creative personality traits
Mean scale scores on the CTBS for perceived creative teaching be-
haviors of participants are shown in Table 3. The mean total score was
4.35 (SD = 0.47), suggesting capstone nursing school faculty perceived
their level of creative teaching behaviors as high. The highest mean
subscale score was for autonomous learning (M = 4.56, SD = 0.47); the
lowest for characteristics/motivations (M = 4.11, SD = 0.67). The
median score for the total of all 14 items of the CTBS was 62. Faculty
with total scores above 62 were considered to have high levels of
creative teaching behaviors (n = 26); faculty with total scores below 62
were considered to have low levels of creative teaching behaviors
(n = 27). We then examined if there were differences between these
two groups in subscale scores and total scores on the CTBS. There were
significant differences between high and low groups for all scores
(p < .001). Self-assessment of personality traits, measured with the
ACCS, was highest for adventure; the mean score was 3.12 (SD = 0.35).
Mean scores for the three other creative personality traits were 3.02 for
challenge (SD = 0.36), 2.98 for imagination (SD = 0.29) and 2.86 for
curiosity (SD = 0.42).
Factors associated with creative teaching behaviors
Analysis of collinearity for independent variables was conducted
prior to hierarchical multiple regression analysis. Statistical analysis
showed the lowest value of tolerance for the independent variables was
0.20 and the variance inflation factor (VIF) was 4.955, suggesting a
moderate degree of correlation. The collinearity statistics were all

3
H.-Y. Liu, et al. Journal of Professional Nursing xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Table 2 Table 4
Demographic and teaching characteristics of capstone nursing faculty (N = 53). Hierarchical multiple regression models for predictors of high levels of creative
teaching behaviors for capstone nursing faculty.
Characteristic n (%) Mean (SD)
Predictor variable Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5
Age (years) 48.87 (4.73)
Gender Characteristics
Male 2 (3.8) Gender 0.322 −0.559 −0.601 −0.608 0.084
Female 51 (96.2) Age −0.093 0.023 0.026 0.026 −0.002
Educational background Teaching experience 0.317 −0.664 −0.741 −0.743 −0.557
Master's degree 20 (37.7) (years)
Doctoral degree 33 (62.3) Teaching expertise 0.990 0.989 1.004 1.005 0.930
Teaching expertise Interest in teaching 3.525 3.579 3.627 3.629 3.637
Nursinga 51 (96.2) creativity
Otherb 2 (3.8) Teaching creativity 0.387 −0.719 −0.559 −0.558 −0.618
Teaching experience (years) (hours)
1–18 33 (62.3) Personality traitsa
19+ 20 (37.7) Curiosity 0.827⁎⁎⁎ 0.873⁎⁎ 0.875⁎ 0.800⁎
Experience teaching Capstone courses (years) Imagination −0.106 −0.106 −0.071
1–3 20 (37.7) Challenge −0.003 −0.085
>3 33 (62.3) Adventure 0.224
Creativity training (hours)
R 0.353 0.571 0.573 0.573 0.575
0–9 24 (47.1)
R2 0.124 0.326 0.328 0.328 0.331
10–19 18 (35.3)
Change in R2 0.124 0.202 0.002 0.000 0.003
20+ 9 (17.6)
Change in F 1.042 12.883 0.100 0.000 0.162
Intellectual property rights training (hours)
Significant change in F 0.412 0.001 0.753 0.994 0.690
0–9 39 (76.5)
10+ 12 (23.5) ⁎⁎⁎
Interest in teaching creativity p < .001.
⁎⁎
Very interested 13 (25) p < .01.
⁎
Interested 28 (53.8) p < .05.
a
Neutral/not interested 11 (21.2) Personality traits determined by mean scores on the Affective Components
of Creativity Scale.
Abbreviations: SD = standard deviation.
a
Nursing expertise included general nursing, and subspecialties (medical, traits, the predictor variable for curiosity had a positive relationship
surgical, psychiatric, emergency, maternal-pediatric nursing, and gerontology).
b with creative teaching behaviors; however, the change in R2 was only
Other expertise included one social work or basic medical knowledge.
significant for Model 2 (F (1, 43) = 12.883, p < .001). These findings
indicate curiosity was the only factor that influenced creative teaching
Table 3
behaviors for capstone nursing faculty in Taiwan.
CTBS scores for all capstone nursing faculty, and comparisons between faculty
with high and low levels of creative teaching behaviors
Subscale All participants High levela Low levela t Discussion
N = 53 n = 26 n = 27
This study explored creative teaching behaviors and variables as-
Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD sociated with creativity among nursing school faculty teaching a re-
quired capstone course in Taiwan. The findings suggest capstone nur-
Autonomous 4.56 0.47 4.88 0.19 3.99 0.19 16.13⁎⁎⁎
sing school faculty perceived a high level of creative teaching behaviors
learning
Creative thinking 4.44 0.52 4.80 0.22 3.99 0.29 13.56⁎⁎⁎ overall, which is similar to previous studies (Bereczki & Kárpáti, 2018;
Characteristics/ 4.11 0.67 4.81 0.21 3.65 0.43 13.23⁎⁎⁎ Chang et al., 2010; Konstantinidou & Zisi, 2017). Our findings are also
motivations in agreement with those of Khany and Boghayeri (2014) for Iranian
Environment/ 4.25 0.70 4.81 0.25 3.65 0.49 10.92⁎⁎⁎ teachers; however, they found the teachers' perception of creative
opportunities
Total score 4.35 0.47 4.73 0.26 3.94 0.16 13.44⁎⁎⁎
teaching behaviors did not match their performance in the classroom.
Our study also did not determine objective measures of creative
Abbreviations: SD = standard deviation; CTBS = Creative Teaching Behavior teaching behaviors; future studies will be conducted to determine if
Scale. there is a relationship between the belief of capstone nursing faculty
⁎⁎⁎
p < .001 towards creative teaching behaviors and assessment of behaviors in the
a
Faculty were grouped according total scores for the 14 items of the CTBS classroom.
above and below the median of 62: high level = above the median; low The creative teaching behavior of autonomous learning involves
level = below the median. encouraging students to be independent learners (Amabile, 1988;
Chang et al., 2010; Soh, 2015). Autonomous learning was the highest
within acceptable limits (i.e. tolerance > 0.1 and variance inflation subscale score on the CTBS instrument. This finding is in agreement
factor < 10), indicating no collinearity between independent vari- with a previous study for teachers in Taiwan (Chang et al., 2010). Reeve
ables. (2006) reported teachers who promote autonomous learning help stu-
A five-stage hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted dents understand the value of internal rewards, provide emotional
for creative teaching behaviors using the following predictors: gender, support, and answer student questions without judgment, which creates
age, years of teaching experience, educational background, teaching an atmosphere in the classroom suitable for developing student crea-
expertise, interest in teaching creativity, hours of creativity training, tivity. Since 2003, there has been a slow, but gradual shift in Taiwan
and scores from the ACCS for curiosity, imagination, adventure, and towards encouraging students be more independent learners as a means
challenge (Table 4). Although Model 1 demonstrated a positive re- of improving their creativity (Wu & Albanese, 2013).
lationship between variables of demographic and teaching character- Characteristics and motivations, which involves helping students
istics and creative teaching behaviors (R = 0.353), none were sig- master basic requirements and approach conflict situations with a po-
nificant predictors. Among the four models that included personality sitive attitude (Amabile, 1988; Chang et al., 2010), was the lowest

4
H.-Y. Liu, et al.
subscale score for the capstone nursing faculty on the CTBS instrument.
Chang et al. (2010) also showed subscale scores for characteristics and
motivations for teachers in Taiwan to be the lowest measure on the
CTBS. This low score might be explained by the < 10 hours of training
in teaching creativity reported by 47% of the participants, which could
result in teachers having less confidence in their ability to motivate
students to be creative. A second explanation may be that teaching
creativity was not a considered a priority for all faculty. The focus of
teaching continues to be more on encouraging memorization in order to
pass exams than on teaching creativity, due to the relative newness of
the concept of creativity in education in Taiwan (Wu & Albanese,
2013). This difference in perspectives between teaching creativity and
merely passing exams might also explain our finding regarding faculty
grouped by high and low scores on the CTBS. The mean score for
characteristics and motivations was lower than the score for creative
thinking for faculty in the low level group. However, in the high level
group, scores were similar for all subscale scores, which might suggest
the high level group considered creativity to be equally important as
test scores.
The lowest mean score of the four personality traits measured with
the ACCS was curiosity. Curiosity was also the factor found to be a
predictor of high scores for creative teaching behaviors. Hierarchical
regression analysis demonstrated faculty with higher scores for the
creative personality trait of curiosity had higher perceived levels of
creative teaching behaviors. This finding is in agreement with those of
previous studies demonstrating curiosity to be a predictor of creative
behaviors (Dollinger et al., 2007; Kaufman et al., 2016).
Despite the strength of our findings, this study had some limitations.
First, although capstone teaching faculties were recruited from five
nursing programs, 80% of participants were from one university of
science and technology, which might limit generalization of our find-
ings. Second, we did not evaluate the nursing students' grades or as-
sessments of creativity who were taught by the capstone faculty,
therefore there is no objective data or outcome measure to support the
self-assessment scores on the CBTS. Finally, we did not obtain an ob-
jective evaluation of personality traits. Therefore, future studies should
be conducted that include both subjective and objective measures of
creative teaching behaviors and creative personality traits as well as an
evaluation of outcomes for the students taught by capstone nursing
faculty.
Implications for nursing education
Results from this study suggest healthcare educators should focus on
the development of programs that augment creative teaching behaviors
in order to improve student creativity. The personality trait of curiosity
was the one variable that influenced scores for creative teaching be-
haviors. Therefore, programs in creative thinking that stimulate and
increase curiosity should be implemented when training faculty re-
sponsible for teaching capstone courses for the development of
healthcare products. Training should also be provided to help faculty
understand how to encourage students to master basic requirements
and approach conflict situations with a positive attitude, which could
increase scores for characteristics and motivations for faculty with low
CTBS scores.
Conclusions
This study compared self-perceived measures of creative teaching
behaviors and creative personality traits among nursing school faculty
in Taiwan. Our findings regarding the personality trait of curiosity as a
predictor of high levels of creative teaching behaviors fills a gap in the
literature regarding creative teaching behaviors for nursing faculty in
Taiwan. Nursing schools should focus on becoming dynamic environ-
ments that encourage teachers to awaken their curiosity, and facilitate a
desire to learn and teach. Future studies should be conducted to
5
Journal of Professional Nursing xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
examine possible relationships between self-perceived levels of creative
teaching behaviors for nursing faculty teaching these capstone courses
and assessment of student creativity in the classroom.
Authors' contributions
HYL conducted the literature review, prepared data for analysis, and
wrote the manuscript. HMT wrote the revised manuscript. ITW also
contributed to literature review and analyzed the data. NHC conducted
the data collection. All authors participated in interpretation of data, as
well as writing, editing and approval of the final manuscript.
Ethics approval and consent to participate
This study has approved the hospital ethics committees (No.
1037492B, 104A010B, research ethics committee, Chang Gung Medical
Foundation Institutional Review Board). Study participants completed
an informed consent before beginning the survey. Confidentiality was
assured in the consent forms and the participants remained the right to
withdraw their participations at any phase of the research process.
Funding
This study was supported by both research grant from the Ministry
of Science and Technology, Taiwan R.O.C. (NMRPF3F0151 and
NMRPF3G0161).
Consent for publication
Not applicable
Availability of data and materials
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the present study avail-
able from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Declaration of competing interest
No competing interests are declared by the authors
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Ministry of Science and Technology
Taiwan R.O.C. for their funding support.
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