The purposes of this study were to develop an educational program for the invention of a safety material based on design thinking for sixth graders in elementary school and investigate its effects on the cultivation of their safety consciousness.
Th...
The purposes of this study were to develop an educational program for the invention of a safety material based on design thinking for sixth graders in elementary school and investigate its effects on the cultivation of their safety consciousness.
The investigator analyzed design thinking and extracted its content elements usable in invention education. Based on the content elements, a ten-lesson educational program was developed for the invention of a safety material. The effects of the developed program were tested on the formation of safety consciousness by applying it to subject lesson hours and creative experience activity hours in a sixth grade class in elementary school. The inventory in Shim Eun-sun(2003) was used to test the effects of the program on the cultivation of safety consciousness among elementary school students. The inventory consisted of total 41 items across five domains including school safety, traffic safety, fire safety, safety during plan and leisure, and safety at home and other places.
The findings were as follows:
First, the study analyzed the design thinking process and developed a ten-lesson educational program for the invention of a safety material based on design thinking. In the program, the students understood the basic meanings of an invention, searched a variety of inventions related to safety, recognized problems through interactions in various ways, and sympathized with their friends in a problematic situation. After defining a problem clearly and making an invention idea concrete with various ICT tools, they created their inventions themselves by visualizing their concrete ideas and introduced their inventions to their friends after a supplementation.
Secondly, the educational program for the invention of a safety material based on design thinking developed in the study had significant effects for improving the safety consciousness of students. The pre-test and post-test results on safety consciousness were put to statistical analysis, and the results show its significant effects across all the five domains.
In short, the educational program for the invention of a safety material based on design thinking had positive impacts on the cultivation of safety consciousness among elementary school students. The program encouraged the students to take active part in the lessons with a focus on various experience activities including role play, interviews, and ICT programs, thus providing them with effective invention education. There were studies on invention or maker education based on design thinking, but no studies were conducted on safety consciousness based on design thinking. The present study demonstrated the possibilities of safety education through invention education. The program developed in the study will hopefully serve as a basic material for it.
Keywords: Design thinking, Invention education, Safety consciousness
※ A thesis submitted to the Committee of Graduate School at Seoul National University of Education for a Master's Degree in Education in June 2019.