A Research Proposal First Draft
Abstract
While many researchers and practitioners alike are still finding that it is possible to help children develop creative thinking skills, we are also finding that this practice isn't being incorporated for all our kindergarten and pre-school children. The purpose of this paper will therefore be to investigate the ways in which children at the preschool/kindergarten level are being supported in the development of creative thinking skills, as well as the particular role this has played in helping kindergarten students. After initiating a review of the literature to guide the study, the methodology will involve data collection—interviews with teachers and journal writing—and data analysis, which will consist of coding for themes that inform the study and answer the following research question What is the role of play in developing creative thinking skills in kindergarten students? and sub-questions: 1) What practical applications/programs have proven successful in the use of play for the development of creative thinking skills in children? 2) How can the educator/teacher develop creative thinking skills within the classroom environment, or, what strategies can be implemented? 3) What is the value of teacher directed play versus children’s free play for developing creative thinking in children? and 4) Of dramatization, real-world role play, puzzles, games, and computer-assisted play, which best support(s) development of creative thinking in children?
Introduction/Research Purpose
Creativity is as natural and necessary for children as fresh air and sunshine! By exposing children to creative experiences, we give them the gift of a rich and memorable childhood while laying the foundation for a lifetime of creative expression – all topped off with a heaping helping of important learning skills. According to researchers, creative activity in childhood rewires children’s brains to think out-of-the-box. It therefore follows that play and creativity have been linked in numerous ways. In fact, research shows that several approaches have been tried to help children develop creative thinking skills, divergent thinking skills or executive functioning skills (Diamond & Lee, 2011; Baer, 1993; Torrance, 1980, 1972, 1966). These researchers commend the application of pedagogical models to influence childrens' creative skills during early education. Several models have been applied to influence creativity, including computers, Osborn Parnes and general semantics. The struggle among practitioners to foster creative thinking in children still precedes the fields of research psychology. Torrence (1972) argues that creative thinking in children is not only possible, but can also be enabled via various tactical approaches, as evidenced by his observation. While creative thinking dominates the prevailing practical studies in kindergarten and pre-school children, the cross examination of children’s creative thinking in research fields remains a controversial issue in literaary works, where researcher continue to develop very different arguments on supporting its development. Specific research studies conducted to assist in developing creativity in kindergarten are therefore few and far between, since most investigations pay attention to its development but fail to address the role of play. While (“Dolls and doll play,” 2004) determined that play has been found to be a function of imaginative play that generally supports development in all dimensions, the specifics are rarely outlined. Despite this, play has been found to facilitate exploratory behaviors (Dean& Cheetham, 2013). Yet only a few theorists, researchers, and practitioners have investigated play as specific to developing creative thinking skills (Chronopoulou & Riga, 2012; Leonidou, 2005).
This research therefore specifically seeks to target the ways in which creative thinking is fostered within pre-school/kindergarten. It proposes to investigate ways in which children at the preschool/kindergarten level are being supported in the development of their creative thinking skills in general; and, in particular, the specific role that play has in helping kindergarten students develop creative thinking skills.
Research question and Sub-questions
Main Question
The main question of my study is:
“What is the role of play in developing creative thinking skills in kindergarten students?”
Sub Questions
1- What practical applications/programs have proven successful in the use of play for the development of creative thinking skills in children?
2- How can the educator/teacher develop creative thinking skills within the classroom environment, or, what strategies can be implemented?
3- What is the value of teacher directed play versus children’s free play for developing creative thinking in children?
4- Of dramatization, real-world role play, puzzles, games, and computer-assisted play, which best support(s) development of creative thinking in children?
Theoretical Framework
The following literature review is guided by the research questions, in so far as it informs this proposed study of the role of Play in developing the creative thinking skills of kindergarten students. As it stands, creative thinking has been informed by two theories that will make up the framework for this study: that is, both the Associative Theory (Mednick, 1962) and the Connectionist Theory (McClelland & Cleeremans, 2009), as well as by the definitions of creative and divergent thinking (Torrance, 1972; Hudson, 1967).
Associative Theory
Mednick (1962) relates the concept of associative theory by citing the work of the French mathematician, Henri Poincaré, who defined creative thinking as comprised of the “‘making new combinations of associative elements which are useful’” (pp. 220-221). According to Mednick, the more mutually remote the elements of the new combination are, the more creative the process or solution will have to be. (1962). The author states that there are three ways in which associative thinking/creative thinking are achieved: by serendipity, by similarity and by mediation. By serendipity, the author believes the elements required for association are ultimately evoked by accident or chance - much in the same way that penicillin was discovered, for example. By similarity, Mednick insists that the elements needed for association appear as a result of their similarity to one another, as might occur in the study of rhymes in a poem. And lastly, when refering to mediation, he is refering to a process in which the elements needed for association appear as a result of interference or intervention. Solving problems through the use of symbols is one example of this last approach (Mednick, 1962).
Connectionism
Presenting an alternative to Associative Theory, researchers McClelland and Cleeremans (2009) explain that Connectionism is a theory based on the way the brain processes information. In their reasearch, they found that simple units (such as neurons) are organized into networks and then are activated repeatedly to transmit information of their own to other units, based solely on their connections to those units. These researchers maintain that it is the perpetual activation of these provesses that allows for the connection - occuring either in a linear or non-linear fashion - that ultimately results in representation, processing and learning.
Defining Creative or Divergent Thinking
The British psychologist Hudson was one of the first researchers to identify two very distinct types of thinking in students; convergent thinking, which he defined as the process of applying a variety of resources to the problem being worked out in order to arrive at a correct solution and divergent thinking, which he defined as the process of bringing alternatives and elaborations to bear upon the problem at hand, in order to arrive at many possible solutions (1967). Seeking to build on this groundbreaking development, Lieberman (1965) sought to further characterize divergent or creative thinking to include factors like physical, social and cognitive spontaneity, as well as a good sense of humor and even manifest joy.
Literature Review
Truth be told, it is difficult to find a vast amount of literature on the topic of creative thinking in preschool and kindergarten children, rendering the task of drawing similar comparisons to my proposed study challenging at best. Among the more pertinent studies whose findings will be examined, compared and contrasted here are those conducted by Diamond and Lee (2011); Baer (1993); Torrance, 1972 and Hudson (1967).
In the oldest of these studies, Hudson (1967) studied English schoolboys and determined that measuring intelligence must extend beyond simply testing convergent thinking. In order to do this, the researcher administered more divergent thinking tests, turning it into a type of game. One such test, which came to be known as his 'uses of an object' test, asked participating students to come up with as many possible uses as they could for a barrel, a paper clip, a tin of boot polish, a blanket, etc. What resulted from asking such questions was a diversity of outcomes, each depending on the kind of specialization required by the student, be it verbal reasoning testing or open-ended testing, as some boys were math-inclined while others were more art-inclined. While the convergent thinker (the mathematician) might ultimately come up with two ideas for using a barrel (keeping wine and playing football), the divergent thinker - the artist - came up with a whopping 24 uses for a barrel. And not only were the number of uses impressive. The variety of responses was particularly astounding, with possible uses ranging from storing old clothes and pickling onions to using it as a drain for rainwater, as a vase for goldenrod and michelmas daisies and even as "a casing for a home-made bomb" (Hudson, 1967, p. 90).
With a similar focus, Torrance (1972) conducted a long-range predictability study over twelve years and even reviewed 133 different studies designed to test approaches to teaching children to think creatively. Several of these approaches included designing training programs that modified the Osborn-Parnes creative problem-solving procedures; employing more creative arts, media and reading programs designed to both teach and encourage creative thinking and even implementing curricular and administrative arrangements designed to create favorable conditions through motivation, rewar and competition (p. 3). In the end, Torrance concluded that the most effective approaches to teaching children to think creatively either employed the Osborne-Parnes program, or other disciplined approaches such as the creative arts and media-oriented programs (1972).
When considering my own research question, these studies by Hudson (1967) and Torrance (1972) point to just how differently children think and imply how important it is that different approaches to critical thinking skill development be incorporated in the classroom. More contemporary approaches to helping children develop creative or divergent thinking skills, meanwhile, have included more task-specific approaches (Baer, 1993) as well as those recommended by Diamond and Lee (2011); approaches that researchers specifically note aid in the development of executive functioning: “including mentally playing with ideas, giving a considered rather than an impulsive response, and staying focused” (p. 959). These more modern approaches tend to include computer-assisted training programs; aerobic exercise and sports, including martial arts and other mindfulness practices. Classroom curricula have also become in vogue, such as Tools of the Mind (Tools), a Vygotsky-based curriculum for preschool and Kindergarten developed by Bodrova and Leong, as well as a Montessori curricula that emphasizes normalization: “a shift from disorder, impulsivity, and inattention to self-discipline, independence, orderliness, and peacefulness” (p.) Finally, included in this list are adjuncts to the classroom curriculum, such as Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (PATHS); the Chicago School Readiness Project (CSRP) and a hybrid of computer and non-computer games.
As the preceding examples demonstrate, the concept of using play to develop creative thinking skills, while originating with researchers in the 1960s, continues to gain traction in moder research. The evidence-based literature relevant to this study includes research on the specific strategies that educators and teachers can use to develop creative thinking skills within the classroom environment (Howard-Jones, Taylor & Sutton, 2002; Russ, Robins, & Christiano, 1999) as well as more practical applications and programs incorporating play that have proven successful in developing childhood creative thinking skills (Chronopoulou & Riga, 2012;).
Russ, Robins, and Christiano (1999) conducted a four-year longitudinal study on the effect of pretend play on both the fantasy of first and second graders, as well as the more divergent thinking on fifth and sixth graders. Using such measures as the Russ (1987,1993) Affect in Play Scale and the Wallach & Kogan (1965) Alternate Uses test (both of which simulate the Uses of Objects test first designed by Hudson in 967), the researchers found that the “quality of fantasy and imagination in early play predicted divergent thinking over time, independent of IQ” (p. 129). In other words, children who were subjected to play tended to be inclined to think more creatively as they got older.
Howard-Jones, Taylor and Sutton (2002), meanwhile, conducted a similar study, exploring the impact of unstructured play on more structured activities. In their study, 52 children aged six and seven were randomly assigned to two separate groups. Group 1 played with salt-dough for 25 minutes, while Group 2 followed a more structured exercise that consisted of copying text from the chalkboard. Two weeks later, both groups were asked to switch tasks. Researchers then further tested the children by having individuals from both groups conduct the follow-up task of creating a creature collage, in order to judge which group wuld conduct their tasks with more creativity. Criteria for judging such creative thinking included the range of colors used from the pre-set materials, as well as the total number of pieces of materials used in the resulting collage. The researchers concluded that those students subjected to the preceding free play lent more favorably to creative thinking than did those who had the preceding structured task; again leding credence to the idea that exposure to play early on tends to lend itself to enhanced creative skills (Howard-Jones, Taylor and Sutton, 2002).
Lastly, Chronopoulou and Riga (2012) conducted a study of a specific experimental three month educational program to investigate the extent to which music and movement activities lend themselves to creative thinking in five-year-old preschool children. Seeking to measure such creative thinking components s fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration of thought, the researchers discovered there was a significant impact from music and movement on each of these components of creative thinking. Perhaps just as importantly, they discovered that the absence of music and movement (in the control group) resulted in far fewer contributions to creative thinking. In the end, the researchers concluded that “the emergence of creative behaviours [sic], such as an increased freedom of expression, a tendency to explore and experiment, and a questioning of what is commonly accepted, were considered to be a consequence of the implementation of the specific educational programme [sic] ” (p. 196). As these and and other researchers’ findings suggest, there is a real validated and relevant need for those approaches, strategies and assessments that either tap into, support or promote creative thinking skill development through the notion of free and unbridled play.
Methodology
Since the focus of this study will be on developing creative thinking skills through play in kindergarten, the research design will employ a qualitative methodology of interviewing kindergarten teachers. This approach is designed to elicit the experiences and points of view of credible participants in the field (Turner, 2010).
Participants
The three kindergarten teachers making up the study participants will be interviewed in the United States. I will also use field research that has been conducted in Saudi Arabia.
Procedures
Data collection
Data collection will include both data derived from a review of the literature, a series of semi-structured interviews with kindergarten teachers and a written journal of this kindergarten teacher’s general experiences.
Literature review
The literature review is a way to review recent literature on my subject area and as such, are an important part of the process. Finding other researchers and scholars who support the same ideology is something to look forward to; specifically, I look forward to seeing what methods have worked and which ones need improvement. According to Michalopoulou (2014), creative expression leads to problem-solving for children. This will indeed become beneficial as they continue to grow as learners. There are other researchers who agree with Michalopoulou. Shawareb (2011) is a researcher who observed creative thinking among kindergarten classrooms in Jordan. The research used technology as a means to encourage creative thinking. The research further states, “Creative thinking is a novel way of seeing or doing things characterized by four thinking processes: fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration” (Shawareb, 2011, p. 14). I look to use these four thinking processes in expanding on my research.
Chronopoulou, & Riga (2012) believe that music and movement activities are important for stimulating creative thinking in young school-aged children as early as pre-school. Chronopoulou & Riga (2012) continue to insist that “as interest in creativity is rising, kindergarten teachers are looking for ways to strengthen the creative potential of young children (p. 196). These researchers are just a few who believe that creative thinking is important in leading children into higher levels of thinking. Overall, the literature review will introduce proven researchers that support my ideas.
Interview with teachers
The primary research instrument is a semi-structured interview using a self-administered questionnaire that is offered to participants. The questionnaire will be comprised of closed-ended yes/no questions asking teachers to self-report on their present practices using play and developing creative thinking skills, as well as a few open-ended questions that will ask for their perceptions/attitudes about using play to develop creative thinking skills. According to Turner (2010), “This open-mindedness allows the participants to contribute as much detailed information as they desire and it also allows the researcher to ask probing questions as a means of follow-up” (p. 756).
Writing Journal
As the researcher, I will also keep a written journal. The journal will include documentation of the research process and will also include generalizations of personal experience as a kindergarten teacher in Saudi Arabia. My experience as a kindergarten teacher in Saudi Arabia will add to my research data. Personal experience as a researcher is important because I can attest to some of the methods for encouraging creative learning. Moreover, keeping a journal is a form of qualitative research that is an efficient way of keeping documentation of research data and is helpful for recording reflections on the failures and successes of the research project.
Data Analysis
Data will be collected and coded for those themes around which kindergarten teachers practice, as well as perceptions of the general development of creative thinking and the specific role of play in developing creative thinking. What is being practiced in Saudi Arabia will be the central focus, but the importance of teacher attitudes and opinions for using/not using play will also be significant. This data will be able to tell me if they are in line with existing theories and practices found in the literature, whether or not they need further investigation, and how they can contribute to the current body of research.
Timeline
February
Literature review.
March
Interview
April
Write findings.
Conclusion
The research was intended to uncover the role of play in the kindergarten classroom in the development of creative and divergent critical thinking skills in children. As such, it was expected that the findings would point to play as an effective contributor to developing such skills. This research will hopefully contribute to forming clearer guides for teachers and administrators in the kindergarten classroom, who will either begin or continue to use play as an effective tool for developing creative thinking skills in children at the earliest stages. Ensuring that kindergarteners are using creative skills early on can allow for further growth in their academic skills throughout their academic career and can only enhance what is already a passion on the part of dedicated kindergarten teachers in their quest to develop the next generation of high-level learners.
References
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