Mind Maps
These are the visual mind maps I’ve designed at the beginning of writing each chapter of my thesis research. Illustrating the maps helped me to organize, analyze, and make sense of my study. This first map represents my early investigations of creative confidence and journey to this topic. I was inspired as a previous middle school art teacher by early conversations about growth mindset and through experiencing multidisciplinary instruction in my own grad courses, as well as teaching at Discovery World, a museum of science and technology. My research and further understanding of creativity inspired me to gain understanding about the preconceived notions and beliefs of generalist teachers and what is most helpful in their preservice training.
My second chapter which focuses on the literature review is illustrated in the visual map below, and highlights three major categories: intersections of fear, art, and teacher preparation, investigations into creativity including historical views, connections to contemporary practice, and intersections of creativity and multicultural education, as well as possible interventions and ways to nurture creativity with preservice teachers.
The map below describes my methodology in chapter 3. This study uses a mixed-methods approach to research. Quantitative and qualitative research enables two different perspective from both close-ended (quantitative) and open-ended (qualitative) data. According to Jennifer Greene, a mixed methods way of thinking values multiple ways of seeing and hearing, multiple ways of making sense of the social world, and multiple standpoints on what is important and to be valued (2007). These multiple perspectives provided a more comprehensive view of my inquiry and allowed me to obtain a more holistic view to the problem of creative confidence in preservice generalist teachers.
Chapter 4 presents my research and analysis of the quantitative data collected from pre- and post-surveys, and two sets of qualitative data: one collected from semi-structured interviews with research participants, and the other coursework from the class participants were enrolled in, Art Ed 130. This map below illustrates my organization of analysis, and the first layer of emergent themes from the three datasets.
