This study intends to examine the effects of art activities using natural objects upon children’s creativity and eco-friendly attitude.
To accomplish the research goal, it establishes research questions and hypotheses as stated below.
Research quest...
This study intends to examine the effects of art activities using natural objects upon children’s creativity and eco-friendly attitude.
To accomplish the research goal, it establishes research questions and hypotheses as stated below.
Research question 1. How do art activities using natural objects influence children’s creativity?
Hypothesis 1. The creativity of children who have experienced art activities using natural objects will be more improved than that of those who have not experienced any.
Hypothesis 1-1. The fluency score of children who have experienced art activities using natural objects will be higher than that of those who have not experienced any.
Hypothesis 1-2. The flexibility score of children who have experienced art activities using natural objects will be higher than that of those who have not experienced any.
Hypothesis 1-3. The originality score of children who have experienced art activities using natural objects will be higher than that of those who have not experienced any.
Hypothesis 1-4. The imagination score of children who have experienced art activities using natural objects will be higher than that of those who have not experienced any.
Research question 2. How do art activities using natural objects influence children’s eco-friendly attitude?
Hypothesis 2. The eco-friendly attitude of children who have experienced art activities using natural objects will be changed more positively than that of those who have not experienced any.
Hypothesis 2-1. Children who have experienced art activities using natural objects will get a higher score in the area of interest in and fondness for plants and animals than those who have not experienced any do.
Hypothesis 2-2. Children who have experienced art activities using natural objects will gain a higher score in the area of pro-life inclination than those who have not experienced any do.
Hypothesis 2-3. Children who have experienced art activities using natural objects will receive a higher score in the area of preference for natural to artificial environment than those who have not experienced any do.
The subject of this research is 30 four-year-olds at the private kindergarten located in Seoul and another 30 four-year-olds at the private kindergarten located in Yongin of Gyeonggi-do.
As study tools, Gyeong-won Jeon’s K-CCTYC was used for examining creativity, and to investigate the eco-friendly attitude, this article reconstructed and utilized ‘the testing tool for children to examine the eco-friendly attitude’ which was originally developed by Musser and Diamond in 1999 and then translated and modified by Yun-jeong Heo in 2001 and partially complemented by Gyeong-hui So in 2007.
The data collected in this study were analyzed by using the SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Science) program.
As an analytic technique, the t-test was conducted in order to figure out the effects of art activities using natural objects upon children’s creativity and eco-friendly attitude development.
The results achieved from this research are as shown below.
First, children in the experimental group who had experienced art activities using natural objects received a significantly higher score in the creativity test than those in the control group who had not experienced any did. So to speak, it was proved that children who had experienced art activities using natural objects gained a significantly higher score than those who had not experienced any did in the areas of fluency, flexibility, originality, and imagination, the chief scales of creativity.
Second, it was shown that the experimental and control groups produced significantly different results in the eco-friendly attitude test.
As described above, art activities using natural objects affect children’s creativity and eco-friendly attitude positively; thus, they can be applied to the actual spots of early childhood education.