PEDAGOGIES, cilt.17, sa.1, ss.1-17, 2022 (ESCI)
The main purpose of this study is to investigate pre-school teachers' creativity perceptions through metaphors. This study is a pheno-menological study that is qualitative in nature. The participants were 250 pre-school teachers who worked in the central towns of Adana/Turkey. Data were collected through the Metaphor Questionnaire about the concept of creativity. The data were analyzed using qualitative analysis methods. Results showed that the teachers produced 78 metaphors about creativity. An analysis of the findings in terms of creativity concepts showed that the teachers tried to explain creativity through metaphors about freedom and imagination, which are necessary for creativity. The metaphors produced by the teachers about creativity perceptions were collected under 7 conceptual categories. An analysis of the metaphors used by the teachers, as well as the explanations they provided, indicated that the pre-school teachers did not perceive creativity necessarily including originality.