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Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Thinking Skills and Creativity

journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/tsc

Developing 4- to 6-year-old childrens gural creativity using a doodle-book program

Dorota Dziedziewicz a , Dorota Oledzka b , Maciej Karwowski a,
a b

Creative Education Lab, Academy of Special Education, Poland The Montessori Elementary School (SMART), Poland

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
This study investigates the effects of a doodle-book program intervention on creative imagination and divergent thinking on gural material of 4- to 6-year-old children. A total of 67 children participated in the intervention, using a program entitled Creative Doodle: The Adventures of Dragony Grazka, and 61 children formed the control group. Figural creativity tests (Franck Drawing Completion Test and Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking) were used in pretest and posttest measurement. The intervention was found to be effective in developing participants imagination and their uency and originality of thinking. Results are discussed in the context of possibilities and limitations of the stimulation of creative abilities, especially in early childhood, as well as the advantages of doodle-books as creativity-enhancing methods among children. 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Article history: Received 1 November 2011 Received in revised form 30 August 2012 Accepted 18 September 2012 Available online xxx Keywords: Effectiveness of creativity development programs Divergent thinking Creative imagination Doodle-books

1. Introduction Analysis of childrens special abilities something that has been the focus of a long-standing research tradition (e.g., Feldman, 1986) has relatively recently been complemented by studies of their little-c creativity (Craft, 2001). As children have a smaller repertoire of knowledge and experience than adults, they are usually unable to fulll the criterion of Big-C creativity, i.e., creating products which are both original and useful. On the other hand, creative products may be perceived more widely, as not only those which revolutionize the domain and are socially valued (Csikszentmihalyi, 1999), but also as those which introduce an element of surprise and stimulate viewer interest (Glaveanu, 2011). The way children present the world their courage in breaking free from realism, and the ease with which they ignore social conventions make their activity a source of surprise for adults. Hence, creativity during childhood should mainly be considered developmentally (Runco & Charles, 1997), using the criterion of originality and value with regard to every individual child rather than the objective norms used in assessing adult creativity (Kaufman & Baer, 2006). Through this article, a childs creativity would be understood as both: an expression and a potential (Runco, 2003). Childs creativity may be seen as an activity which takes the form of creativity without creations (Craft, 2001), on the basis of which lies natural willingness to discover, learn, experiment, and play (Glaveanu, 2011). Creativity thus dened is an expression of a childs general development on the one hand, and a factor which stimulates this development on the other. Its level changes dynamically and it undergoes stimulating interactions, just like every other aspect of development. This understanding of creativity in early childhood is predominantly associated with artistic activity which engages a childs imagination and divergent thinking. The purpose of this paper is to attempt to assess whether, and to what extent, it is possible to stimulate creative potential by means of intervention based on artistic activity aimed at children aged 46.

Corresponding author at: Creative Education Lab, Academy of Special Education, Szczesliwicka St., 40, 02-353 Warsaw, Poland. Tel.: +48 600456102. E-mail addresses: maciek.karwowski@gmail.com, mackar@aps.edu.pl (M. Karwowski). 1871-1871/$ see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2012.09.004

Please cite this article in press as: Dziedziewicz, D., et al. Developing 4- to 6-year-old childrens gural creativity using a doodle-book program. Thinking Skills and Creativity (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2012.09.004

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1.1. Developing childrens creativity In child development, mimic and motive expressions appear rst, and verbal expression comes along with speech acquisition (Coates & Coates, 2006). More complex forms of expression appear in the pre-school period. These are artistic, musical, and constructive expressions. Drawing creativity is therefore an early and basic form of a childs artistic activity. During its development, the child perfects the techniques of drawing and with time, when the child begins to control hand movement, doodles turn into a scheme which is then enriched by additional elements (Kellogg, 1969). Childrens drawings begin to reveal affective conversions. In this way, through the use of size, position, or proportion, children express their emotional attitude to, and the subjectively sensed value and signicance of, what they present. Along with awareness, emotions and imagination are the main source of artistic activity (Coates & Coates, 2006). A child frequently presents individual objects in otherthan-typical uses and introduces unreal elements, creating his or her own vision of the theme, and so his or her drawing becomes the product of a creative process (Lowenfeld, 1957). This is why on the basis of analysis of childrens drawings, many researchers assess not just the perception level, but also the childs thinking, imagination, and knowledge of the world and of his or her self. While examining childrens creative artistic expression, Karmiloff-Smith (1990) demonstrated that representational exibility increases along with age, although it has also been suggested that a child might experience the rst artistic creativity crises around the age of ve (Kellogg, 1969). Bruner (1973) noted the special role of imagination in childrens artistic creativity, emphasizing that imagination enables a child to break through schematism in interpreting functions and meanings and renders it possible to make distant associations with and juxtapositions of colors, meanings, and symbols. Child creativity engages various processes and operations. This paper focuses on two of those: divergent thinking (Guilford, 1967) and imagination (Khatena & Khatena, 1990). Divergent thinking manifests itself in the ease of producing multiple ideas (uency), readiness to change thinking direction (exibility) and originality of thinking, but also in sensitivity to problems and elaboration. Many arguments have also been given in favor of the suggestion that divergent thinking abilities are domain-specic (Baer, 1993), although reports have appeared indicating that general creative dispositions also exist (Chen et al., 2006). Creative imagination is the ability to transform available and remembered data into new and original mental images (Linqvist, 2003). It is of both cognitive and affective character (Eckoff & Urbach, 2008). Reichling (1990) assumes the existence of a three-stage imagination development: from (1) fantasy or magical imagination, via (2) reproductive or literal imagination, to (3) metaphorical and paradoxical imagination. In the rst stage, products of imagination reect the world that a child discovers; they are imitations of what the child has experienced. Those representations are of a predominantly imitative character. Animistic thinking and personication (Piaget, 1998) are some of the earliest indications of creative imagination in this period. Moving on to the second stage is associated with the transformation of involuntary imagination into arbitrary imagination. Imagination separates itself to a greater extent from perceptive activities, yet it is still limited by concrete and imaginative thinking (Piaget, 1998). Creative representations which appear in the third stage are a result of perception, thinking, and emotions. This combination constitutes directed imagination, used with a particular purpose in mind. Divergent thinking and imaginativeness are characteristics of creative people (e.g., Montgomery, Bull, & Baloche, 1993). They correlate signicantly but not very strongly with each other (LeBoutillier & Marks, 2003). Although imagination and divergent thinking are key to a childs creativity, they engage partially different cognitive processes and refer to different material. This is why, when examining childrens creativity, it is worth accounting for both of these ability groups in further analyses.

1.2. Effectiveness of programs supporting child creativity Research into the effectiveness of programs and methods directed at developing creativity most frequently takes the form of interventions conducted on adults (Karakelle, 2009; Karwowski & Soszynski, 2008; Karwowski, Gralewski, Lebuda, & Wi sniewska, 2007; Robbins & Kegley, 2010). Programs stimulating child creativity are based on creative activity in language (Vass, 2007), music (Koutsoupidou & Hargreaves, 2009), movement (Cheung, 2010; Cleland & Gallahue, 1993), and drama (Hui & Lau, 2006; Karakelle, 2009). Some of these programs refer to polysensory stimulation, with a strong focus on creative artistic activity (e.g. Garaigordobil, 2006). Such activities mainly include group work and are less frequently realized individually (Robbins & Kegley, 2010) or in pairs (Vass, 2007). Metaanalyses of creativity enhancement methods (Ma, 2006; Scott, Leritz, & Mumford, 2004a, 2004b) have conrmed the effectiveness of various types of creativity training. In these metaanalyses, age is usually considered to be a moderator. Scott et al. (2004a) compared the effectiveness of training sessions among people aged 14 and above, as well as those aged 14 and below. The effectiveness was similar except in the training sessions based on performance, which were signicantly more effective among younger participants than among older participants ( s were at .56 and .18, respectively). This last nding is coherent with data showing that aerobic exercises improve childrens creative thinking (Tuckman & Hinkle, 1986) and that stimulating executive functions may form a step toward inspiring creative thinking (Diamond & Lee, 2011; Memmert, 2007). Please cite this article in press as: Dziedziewicz, D., et al. Developing 4- to 6-year-old childrens gural creativity using a doodle-book program. Thinking Skills and Creativity (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2012.09.004

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On the other hand metaanalysis carried out by Ma (2006) shows that the effectiveness of training sessions conducted among pre-school children (k = 17) was clearly lower than the effectiveness of those conducted among older children (MES = .49, for comparison: elementary school pupils: MES = .75, high school students: MES = .82, college: MES = .79, adults: MES = .91). However, metaanalyses are only partially able to demonstrate why some programs are successful, while others work less well or not at all. In order to respond to this, it is necessary to analyze program content as well as descriptions of the processes and operations being developed. This type of procedure was presented by Scott, Leritz, and Mumford (2004b), who conducted a cluster analysis on various types of training sessions and concluded that there are 11 different types of creativity trainings: analogy training, open idea production training, interactive idea production training, creative process training, imagery training, computer based production training, structured idea production training, analytical training, critical/creative thinking training, situated idea production training, and conceptual combination training. Those training sessions which focused on creative/critical processes ( = 1.88) and creative processes ( = 1.08) were characterized by the greatest effectiveness, and those focused on imagery training ( = .43) were considered least effective. It is very likely that their lower effectiveness was caused by a criterion measures used in post-test measurement mainly divergent thinking tasks, not developed for assessing creative imagery. However, even such analyses as these cannot replace descriptions of individual programs and initiatives in this regard, especially that the quality of new interventions was demonstrated also in case of small children (Garaigordobil & Berrueco, 2011).

1.3. Supporting development of creative imagination and divergent thinking with the use of the doodle-book type of program Doodle-books (e.g. Catlow, 2009; Gomi, 2010; Pinder, 2008a, 2008b; Ryan, 2009) are sets of artistic tasks aimed at stimulating imagination and creative thinking. These are directed at preschool and early elementary school children. The childs task is to complete a drawing in accordance with his or her own idea. All tasks are of open character and the instructions suggest a multitude of possible answers, hence encouraging creative activity. Thanks to their simplicity, doodle-books may form inspiration for creative play at preschool, at school, or at home. They complement classic coloring books which, among other things, develop visual-mobile coordination, exercise memory, and extend the hand and nger movement precision necessary for accurate writing. In the intervention described below, a program of the doodle-book-type called Creative Doodle: The Adventures of Dragony Grazka (Dziedziewicz, Gajda, Karwowska, & Szwajkowski, 2011a, 2011b) was used. The program is aimed at older preschool groups (4- to 5-year olds) and early elementary school children (6- to 7-year olds). In accordance with the authors assumptions, artistic and verbal expression is used in the program to stimulate the development of imagination and creative thinking. The program is composed of 75 cards, collected in two books. The cards are A4-sized and in a landscape arrangement in order to resemble the sort of drawing pad usually used by children. The cards are grouped in thematic compilations, such as emotions, celebrating-partying, and mysteries. There is a total of 10 such compilations. Clear cards for childrens original ideas are included in the program, in the so-called chest full of ideas. An additional rhyme encourages children to complete them. Each card in the program contains a short, but surprising instruction. The childs task is to, for example, create original hairstyles for animals, imagine who or what may be making noise in the dark or considering new uses for a hairdressers armchair (Fig. 1). Amusing rhymes are an innovation introduced in the program. They are thematically related to the artistic card and their task is to stimulate curiosity and encourage creative work. Here is an example: Bang! Its heavy, something fell, something heavy, please dont yell. What was that, just tell me, please. Is it cracked or in one piece? (Dziedziewicz et al., 2011b, p. 50) Its so heavy, but with crane Dragony will ease this pain and will move it where need be, cause hes stronger than a bee. (Dziedziewicz et al., 2011b, p. 80) The program was prepared in such a way that, while stimulating childrens curiosity and motivation, it would also develop their creative abilities primarily those associated with the representational sphere, but also those associated with such operations as associations, deduction, transforming, abstraction, analogies, and metaphors (Finke, Ward, & Smith, 1992). Table 1 includes a breakdown of intellectual operations developed by the program, along with abridged instructions for the child and a description of a number of tasks that develop particular operations. Due to the drawing-like character of the tasks, all were supposed to stimulate imagination, but they were not limited to drawing alone. A teacher or parent who offers a child the program should encourage the child to invent many diverse solutions to a single task, and leave idea assessment to the very end. In the rst stage of work, the role of the teacher (parent) should be as the moderator of the conversation a person who directs the childs thinking in various directions by means of asking proper questions. This stage is predominantly aimed at stimulating divergent thinking. The next step involves moving on to individual work and stimulation of the creative imagination. The child independently selects an idea which he or she deems Please cite this article in press as: Dziedziewicz, D., et al. Developing 4- to 6-year-old childrens gural creativity using a doodle-book program. Thinking Skills and Creativity (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2012.09.004

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Fig. 1. Example Work cards in the program, entitled Creative Doodle: The Adventures of Dragony Grazka (Author: Aleksandra Gajda). What is Dragony lifting with the crane? Grazka Reprinted with Permission from the Author and Publisher: Harmonia Publishing House. Table 1 Overview of mental processes/creative operation developed during the program with shortened instructions provided to the children and task character. Dominating operation/process Associations; imagination Deduction; imagination Abridged instructions Dragony Grazka wonders what smells so nice Dragony Grazka has returned from her vacation. She is showing pictures with fragments of buildings and landscapes Dragony Grazka celebrates her birthday. She began to decorate the birthday cake, but she is not happy with the effect Dragony Grazka has built an amusement machine Dragony Grazka is snorkeling. Unfortunately, she looks like bait Dragony Grazka has come up with an untypical thought which made her glad Task description The child draws something that smells nice The child infers where the program heroine was and draws her in interesting poses on the pictures The child changes the cakes decoration so that it makes the program heroine glad The child draws everything that is able to amuse and entertain The child completes the picture of the Dragony looking like bait The child draws what the program heroine could be thinking of Number of tasks 22 17

Transformations; imagination

12

Abstracting; imagination Analogy; imagination Metaphors; imagination

9 7 6

most interesting. The child then develops it, improves it, and draws it. Upon completion of the drawing process, the activity is again taken over by the teacher (parent), who should encourage the child to present his or her work. The presented program structure and the focus on emphasized operations leads to a hypothesis that the program is effective at stimulating not just creative imagination, but also components of divergent thinking: uency, exibility, and originality of thinking. Hence, it was hypothesized that at follow-up, the experimental group would demonstrate improvement in imagination skills when compared with controls. The study presented below was devoted to examining this hypothesis. 2. The present study Little is known about doodle-books effectiveness in developing creative thinking and imagination. Hence, checking the effectiveness of this type of program was the main goal of the present study. We hypothesized that such programs will effectively stimulate the development of 4- to 6-year olds creative imagination and divergent thinking. Children of this age were selected based on the conviction widely available in literature (Coates & Coates, 2006) that artistic creativity plays an exceptional role in pre-school education. 2.1. Method 2.1.1. Participants A total of 128 children aged between 4 and 6 (73 boys 57% and 55 girls 43%) from three educational institutions (two preschools and one elementary school) located in Warsaw, participated in the study. Complete results of pre- and post-test research were collected from 121 children, including 46 4-year olds, 33 5-year olds, and 42 6-year olds. The control and experimental groups in each age group contained 1528 children. In total, 67 (62) children completed the intervention Please cite this article in press as: Dziedziewicz, D., et al. Developing 4- to 6-year-old childrens gural creativity using a doodle-book program. Thinking Skills and Creativity (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2012.09.004

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D. Dziedziewicz et al. / Thinking Skills and Creativity xxx (2012) xxxxxx 5 Teachers role - A short, movement-related game - Presentation of the art card, introductory poem, and task instructions - Explanation of possible doubts resulting from problems with instructions comprehension - Moderation of group discussion - Encouragement to create many diverse solutions, improvements, developments and combination of ideas - Asking questions which change the direction of the childrens thinking - Summary of the group discussion - Watching over the course of drawing - Organization of an art exhibition Childrens activities - All children participate in a group movement game - Listening to the poem and task instructions - In case of issues with instructions comprehension, each child has a chance to ask a question in order to get their doubts claried - Each child volunteers ideas, as well as improving, combining, and developing other childrens ideas

Table 2 Stages of experimental activities, including the role of a teacher and childrens activities. Experimental activities stage 1. Creative warm-up 2. Introduction

3. Brainstorming

4. Creating artistic pieces 5. Presentation of art

- Each child draws a task solution in his or her book - Each child presents his or her work

(experimental group), and 61 (59) children constituted the control group (the number of children from whom complete data was obtained are provided in parentheses). Sizes, types, and territorial locations of the educational institutions were all similar. The experimental groups were selected randomly. The control groups were selected in such a way that they were as close as possible to the experimental groups in number, gender and age distribution. The selection of children for groups participating in the experiment could not be random because of the specicity of the preschool and elementary school structures (system of classes), so classes and groups were chosen rather than individual children. 2.1.2. Measures 2.1.2.1. Franck Drawing Completion Test (FDCT). FDCT is an instrument used to measure creative imagination (Berg, 1985; Harley, 1982). The test is composed of 12 gures, placed in separate windows. The participants task is to complete the initial gures in such a way that the end result takes the form of interesting drawings. There is no limit on the time taken to complete the task. The test is assessed on a three-point scale (012): no points are given for a conventional form, one point is given for a quite complex form which partially stands out in its originality and unconventional approach, and two points are given for drawings with a rich, free and unconventional form which are not strictly based on the initial symbol. The maximum score on the test is 24 points. The FDCT tests were independently rated by two judges. A high level of Pearsons r coefcient on both the pretest (r = .84) and the posttest (r = .97) levels indicates high reliability of the assessments. Because of this, the judges assessments were averaged. 2.1.2.2. Circles test from the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking. In order to measure divergent thinking, a gural circles test from the non-verbal part of TTCT (Thinking Creatively with Pictures) was used (Torrance, 1974). This test makes it possible to measure uency, exibility, and originality of thinking on gural material. The testing sheet is an A4-sized piece of paper displaying 20 identical circles. The task of the examined child is to add elements to the circles to end up with interesting drawings. The timing of the task is limited to 10 min (Torrance, 1974). The number of solutions which fulll the tasks criteria form an indicator of thinking uency. Fluency had a limited maximum value of 20 points. Flexibility was determined by the number of diverse categories of solutions. Assessment of originality was conducted by two judges using a ve-point scale with respect to each picture. Extra points were assigned for connecting the circles. A high correlation coefcient between judges (r = .99) indicated high measurement reliability and hence the results were averaged. 2.2. Procedure The study employed experimental methodology: specically, a pretestposttest repeated measures design with control group. Posttest measurement was conducted directly upon completion of the experiment. The experimental program was realized in the preschool/elementary school twice a week for a period of ve weeks. During 10 meetings, the tasks were realized in accordance with a specially elaborated plan. The same range of interactions was conducted in all experimental groups (4-year olds, 5-year olds, and 6-year olds). Each meeting lasted approximately 45 min. The same, previously trained teacher ran each of the three experimental groups. The program was realized in accordance with a determined structure, which was composed of: (1) creative warm-up, (2) teacher instructions, (3) verication of instruction comprehension, (4) individual performance of the same task by each child, and (5) exhibition of works. Table 2 provides an overview of these phases with highlighted activities of the participating children and the teacher (parent). The role of the adult during the childrens activity is mainly to support them throughout their creative process, showing many different solutions and possibilities, and encouraging exibility and originality of their mental processes. Throughout all of the sessions, the children were accompanied by a toy animal created especially for the needs of the experiment, which was Dragony Grazka the main hero of the program. Task ctionalization by means of introducing a Please cite this article in press as: Dziedziewicz, D., et al. Developing 4- to 6-year-old childrens gural creativity using a doodle-book program. Thinking Skills and Creativity (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2012.09.004

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single character was supposed to make it easier for the children to break free from their reality and transfer into an imaginary world based on visual imagination. This created an atmosphere of play and humor which was aimed at supporting the development of creative abilities. All participants were treated in accordance with ethical guidelines set forth by the American Psychological Association (2009). Prior to data collection, written consent was obtained from participants parents. Each child was informed that he or she could stop lling in the pretest and posttest tests at any time. 3. Results The results of the study are presented in three steps. First, we calculated descriptive statistics and correlations between variables in the experimental and control groups. Then we examined the validity of separating divergent thinking from creative imagination by correlation and regression analysis. In the third step, we analyzed intervention effectiveness using ANOVA with repeated measures based on the scheme of 2 (Group) 2 (Time) 3 (Age). Due to a lack of specic hypotheses with regards to program effectiveness in various age groups, age was included in the ANOVA to control the potentially diverse effects observed among children aged 46. 3.1. Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations Descriptive statistics and correlations between study variables (divided into experimental and control groups) are included in Table 3. In the control group, results in creative thinking scales were reliably correlated; there is no such relation in the experimental group. Such a result may come from the hypothesized increase in creative abilities within the experimental group. Moderate and strong correlations between the same aspects of creative thinking in pretest and posttest provide a good argument for test-retest reliability only in the case of uency is the correlation not statistically signicant (due to the ceiling effect), whereas in the remaining cases the associations are substantial (exibility: r = .70, originality: r = .43, creative imagination: r = .65). In order to examine the discriminant validity of divergent thinking and imagination, pretest data underwent correlation analysis (Table 4) and stepwise regression, where uency, exibility and originality of thinking predicted creative imagination. Creative imagination did not correlate with uency (r = -.09, ns), but it correlated with exibility (r = .32; p < .0001) and originality (r = .27; p < .0001). Regression analysis with the stepwise method showed that exibility was the only signicant predictor of creative imagination ( = .32, p < .0001), but the effect size was moderate (R2 = .096). The fact that divergent thinking explains only approximately 10% of creative imagination variance conrms the expected independence of these constructsthey do indeed correlate, but these relations are so weak that it is justiable to consider them separate.

Table 3 Descriptive statistics and correlations between study variables. Variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Fluency T1 Fluency T2 Flexibility T1 Flexibility T2 Originality T1 Originality T2 Creative Imagination T1 Creative Imagination T2 M 16.51 17.12 3.28 4.19 19.49 24.27 12.92 15.03 SD 4.99 5.17 2.32 2.96 8.68 12.25 3.62 2.99 1 1 .12 .25 .25 .16 .31* .08 .04 2 .09 1 .31* .25 .26 .63*** .13 .25 3 .01 .06 1 .70*** .73*** .66*** .38** .23 4 .09 .15 .25 1 .46*** .77*** .42*** .28* 5 .43*** .05 .64*** .24 1 .43** .41** .24 6 .06 .30** .27* .85*** .24 1 .49*** .36** 7 .11 .03 .20 .24* .02 .28* 1 .65*** 8 .07 .16 .20 .13 .03 .15 .20 1

Note: Correlations in experimental group (N = 62) are above the diagonal, correlations in control group (N = 59) are below the diagonal. * p < .05. ** p < .01. *** p < .001. Table 4 Correlations between creative abilities measures (pretest only; N = 121). Variables 1 2 3 4
** ***

1 1

2 .13 1

3 .29** .69*** 1

4 .09 .32*** .27** 1

Fluency Flexibility Originality Creative imagination p < .01. p < .001.

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Fig. 2. Effectiveness of intervention in developing creative imagination: pretest and posttest scores obtained by experimental and control group.

3.2. Overall intervention effectiveness To obtain the overall effectiveness measure of realized intervention, uency, exibility, originality and creative imagination scores were rstly divided by their maximums (to eliminate the effect of different scales) and then averaged separately in the pretest and posttest. Theoretical range of both indexes (for T1 and T2) ranged between 0 and 1, with M = .54 (SD = .14) in T1 and M = .55 (SD = .17) in T2. The variable hence created underwent ANOVA with repeated measures in the scheme of: 2 (Time: Pretest vs. Posttest) 2 (Group: Experimental vs. Control) 3 (Age: 4 vs. 5 vs. 6 years). As expected, only the interaction effect of Time Group (F[1,120] = 10.14; p = .002; 2 = .08) was statistically signicant. Experimental and control group did not differ in T1 (M = .54, SD = .13 and M = .54, SD = .15, respectively, t[126] = .08, p = .94), yet the difference in T2 was reliable (experimental group: M = .59, SD = .15, control group: M = .50, SD = .19, t[124] = 2.73, p = .007). The improvement between T1 and T2 in experimental group was statistically signicant (t[66] = 2.29, p = .025, and the difference between T1 and T2 in control group was not signicant (t[58] = 1.58, p = .12). Using Cohens (1988) recommendations, the obtained size value is moderate, and its value expressed in Glass units (which are simpler to interpret) amounts to = .43. The program was therefore moderately effective in stimulating participants creative abilities. 3.2.1. Developing creative imagination ANOVA with repeated measures did not reveal differences between the experimental and control groups in pretest (M = 12.78, SD = 2.62 and M = 13.07, SD = 4.47 respectively, t[124] = .46, p = .65). Statistically signicant interaction of Time Group (F[1,114] = 5.84; p = .02; 2 = .05) (Fig. 2) conrms program effectiveness. However, it is important to note that although statistically signicant increase was observed in the experimental group (p < .001), the results also increased in the control group (p < .002). Hence, program effectiveness in developing creative abilities was moderate ( = .35; Cohen, 1988). Interaction Time Group Age (F[2,114] = 3.14; p = .047; 2 = .05) was also reliable. Planned comparisons revealed an increase of creative imagination in all age groups, namely: 4-year (p < .001), 5-year (p < .001), and 6-year olds (p < .002). However, unexpectedly, statistically signicant increase of the results was also observed in the control group of 4-year olds (p < .001). Detailed comparisons revealed that 4-year olds signicantly improved their results by as much as close to one standard deviation ( = .96,1 pretest: M = 12.24, SD = 3.09, posttest: M = 15.22, SD = 2.10), yet a slightly weaker increase was noted among children from the control group ( = .85, pretest: M = 8.97, SD = 4.48, posttest: M = 12.78, SD = 3.60). Therefore, 4-year olds were responsible for the increase observed in the results within the frame of creative imagination in the control group. In the case of 5-year and 6-year olds, the results of children from the control group did not change between the rst and second measurement (ps were at .36 and .97 respectively). The increase of the results observed in the experimental group may be in part of an artifactual nature because of program construction.2 The FDCT closely resembles the tasks performed in the intervention: both were based on drawing and used gural elements. To avoid the interpretation that participating children were not necessarily more creative but perhaps simply more skilled in drawing after the intervention, two judges, who were blind to research questions, scored the participants drawing skills in all pretest and posttest FDCT works from both the experimental and the control groups.

1 In this and further cases, we used a different method of calculating Glass as a difference between mean posttest and pretest result in the experimental group, divided by standard deviation in the pretest in case of the experimental group (and similarly in the control group). The previous method was less benecial due to greater differences between the experimental and control groups in age groups pretests measurements. 2 We thank an anonymous reviewer for this remark.

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Fig. 3. Effectiveness of intervention in developing uency: pretest and posttest scores obtained by experimental and control group.

The inter-judge reliability was good (pretest: r(115) = .74, p < .001; posttest: r(118) = .73; p < .001), so the evaluations were averaged. As expected, the results reliably correlated with creative imagination (pretest: r(115) = .55; p < .001; posttest: r(117) = .34; p < .001). In the case of the control group, the correlation between esthetic value and creative imagination was statistically signicant both pretest and posttest (r[56] = .61; p < .001 and r[51] = .45; p < .001, respectively); in the case of the experimental group it amounted to (r[59] = .49; p < .001) in pretest, but in posttest it was at (r[66] = .24; p = .06). To test the possible artifactual effects of drawing skills observed in this study we realized two independent ANOVAs with repeated measures. In the rst, drawing skills served as a dependent variable, and time and group were factors. The effect of time was statistically signicant (F[1,107] = 6.41; p = .01, p 2 = .06), but the interaction of Time Group was not (F[1,107] = 2.27; p = .14). Comparison of planned contrast showed that there was a signicant increase in drawing skills, but only in the control group. Hence, it is unlikely that the increase of the creative imagination results in the experimental group was caused by technical skills only, because there was no reliable increase in drawing skills in this group. However, to test this in a more valid way we conducted repeated ANOVA measures, again with FDCT scores as dependent variables and time, group, and age as factors, and this time with drawing skills as a covariate. The pattern of results was the same as previously reported there was a signicant main effect of time factor (F[1,99] = 6.60; p = .01; p 2 = .06) with higher scores achieved in posttest than pretest, as well as a reliable interaction of Time Group (F[1,99] = 8.51; p = .004; p 2 = .08), with signicant increase of creative imagination scores in the experimental group, but not in the control group. This result conrms that the intervention was effective in developing creative imagination despite the participants drawing skills. 3.2.2. Developing divergent thinking In order to examine whether and to what extent the program develops uency, exibility, and originality of thinking, three independent analyses of variance (ANOVA) with repeated measurements were conducted. Each time, the results between groups and pretest/posttest were compared using the Bonferroni correction of multiple comparisons. 3.2.2.1. Fluency. Fluency measurement in the circles test seems most problematic due to the fact that the ceiling effect which makes most participants obtain high results was found. It was demonstrated earlier that pretest and posttest results in experimental and control groups did not correlate. This may reveal issues in attempting to measure uency with this scale. The experimental and control groups did not differ in pretest (M = 16.44, SD = 5.09 and M = 16.59, SD = 4.93, respectively, t[119] = .17, p = .86). Similarly, we did not notice differences between experimental and control groups on the level of age group. Statistically signicant differences occurred in the posttest. Interaction Time Group was reliable (F[1,110] = 6.11, p = .02, 2 = .05), with small-to-medium effect size. Comparison of differences between pretest and posttest within the experimental group showed a statistically signicant increase in the results (t[59] = 3.64, p = .01) (Fig. 3). Effect size expressed by Glass amounted to = .48, therefore the programs effectiveness in stimulating the participants uency of thinking was moderate. The interaction of Time Group Age was not statistically signicant (F[2,110] = 1.59; p = .21), revealing an identical effect across age groups. 3.2.2.2. Flexibility. The level of exibility thinking did not differ between experimental and control groups in pretest measurement (M = 3.34, SD = 1.95 and M = 3.22, SD = 2.67 respectively, t[119] = .28, p = .78). Posttest result analysis demonstrated a trend to increase in exibility of thinking on the level of tendency (p = .06), but the effect size is low ( = .16) (Fig. 4). The effect of Time x Group interaction was not reliable (F[1,112] = 1.92, p = .17). 3.2.2.3. Originality. As was found in the cases of uency and exibility of thinking, pretest result analysis did not reveal differences between control and experimental groups (M = 19.80, SD = 8.24 and M = 19.17, SD = 9.19 respectively, t[119] = .40, Please cite this article in press as: Dziedziewicz, D., et al. Developing 4- to 6-year-old childrens gural creativity using a doodle-book program. Thinking Skills and Creativity (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2012.09.004

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Fig. 4. Effectiveness of intervention in exibility: pretest and posttest scores obtained by experimental and control group.

Fig. 5. Effectiveness of intervention in developing originality: pretest and posttest scores obtained by experimental and control group.

p = .69), though differences between groups did appear in the posttest (Fig. 5). Statistically signicant increase in originality was only observed in the experimental group, though the effect size was between small and medium ( = .38). The Time x Group interaction effect was signicant (F[1,109] = 9.78, p = .002, 2 = .08) with a medium effect. Time Group Age interaction was not signicant (F[2,109] = 2.59; p = .08), showing a similar pattern of results across age groups. 4. Discussion This study showed the programs positive effects on the development of creative imagination and divergent thinking among 4- to 6-year-old children. Hence, similarly to previous studies (e.g., Garaigordobil & Berrueco, 2011; Torrance, 1972) it was demonstrated that it is possible to stimulate creative abilities from the youngest age. Doodle-books (e.g., Catlow, 2009; Gomi, 2010; Pinder, 2008a, 2008b; Ryan, 2009) serve as useful methods for developing creativity among children, available for use both at home and at school and facilitated by both parents and teachers. Activities with a problematic, uncertain, divergent, and curiosity-raising structure effectively stimulated the development of creative abilities. An increase in the results of the Franck Drawing Completion Test shows the programs positive effects in the areas of imaginative abilities and drawing skills. The result ts well into wider literature showing the possibilities for development of creative imagination in the preschool period (Hoff, 2005; Russ, Robins, & Christiano, 1999). Encouraging children to generate many diverse and original solutions also translated into an increase in the uency and originality of their solutions, as well as close-to-statistically signicant increase in thinking exibility. Although in each case effect strength was moderate, increase in the results was visible, and the observed effects did not differ among children from the three age groups. Even in the case of the youngest (4-year-old) intervention participants, we observed an increase in uency and originality of thinking on gural material. Although we treated participants ages in an exploratory way no specic hypotheses as to age differences were formulated it was both interesting and important to compare the effectiveness among the three age groups (4-year, 5-year, and 6-year olds). It could be argued that 4-year-old children still do not have a well-developed tendency to search for multiple solutions to a problematic situation and stick to their rst idea. In Piagets (1929), Feldmans (1994) and Vygotskis (2004) theories, development of creative abilities is related to the childs cognitive development. Intensied thinking Please cite this article in press as: Dziedziewicz, D., et al. Developing 4- to 6-year-old childrens gural creativity using a doodle-book program. Thinking Skills and Creativity (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2012.09.004

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egocentrism, characteristic to the pre-operative stage, forms a natural barrier to the development of thinking exibility. This barrier weakens only close to the end of this period. Vygotskis (1978, 2004) theory of cognitive development assumes that any intellectual ability appears rst in cooperation with a more competent person in the zone of proximal development; only then does the child adopt and internalize it. This is why in order to stimulate divergent thinking in this age group, it is important to plan directed activities where the teacher attempts to direct the childs thinking, instead of arranging for spontaneous activity. However, in our study the intervention was effective also among the youngest participants. It was interesting to note the increase in creative imagination observed in the control group of 4-year-old children. In fact, the creative imagination increased there in both the experimental and the control groups (yet it was signicantly higher in experimental than control group in posttest: M = 15.22, SD = 2.10 and M = 12.78, SD = 3.60, respectively, t[43] = 2.88; p = .006). This somewhat puzzling effect needs further research and theoretical explanation. It may be a developmental effect which is less likely due to the short period of intervention and/or the effect of other activities which the children from the control group took part in. As drawing is a frequently applied method in kindergarten, it is possible that the increase of imagination in the control group was caused by other activities the children participated in. 4.1. Limitations and future research The posttest study was conducted directly upon completion of activities. Additional, delayed measurement would make it possible to examine whether the hot results obtained during the posttest are stable over time. Independently of age group, experimental activities were conducted over the course of ve weeks (10 meetings). This is a relatively short time, which may inuence the moderate effect size obtained. Creativity training is largely dependent on length (Pyryt, 1999). The longer the intervention lasts, the greater the effects may be. Moreover, in each of the examined groups, activity time was the same (45 min). It was assumed that all age groups require the same amount of time for stimulation and that the youngest age group would be able to actively participate in the tasks over the same period of time. Manipulating the time of the activity would make it possible to verify the correctness of this assumption. In further research it would be necessary to examine whether the amount of time devoted to the activities should be diversied per age of the children participating in them. We should highlight the character of realized intervention as one of the possible limitations of the study. Many variables could not be controlled in a eld experiment. Although we veried whether or not the children from the control group participated in other creativity-developing tasks at school at the time (they did not), we cannot control their home or extracurricular experiences. 4.2. Conclusion and implication for practice Although obtained effects of the intervention are moderate, they are nonetheless signicant. Hence, it may be concluded that even if doodle-books are not the most effective way to develop creativity in early childhood, they are nonetheless useful and quite easy to administer in preschool, in school and at home. This makes them especially recommended in parentchild play and child-free activities. The conclusion from presented results may be formulated in a sentence that doodle books (at least in the assessed way) are attractive, simple, useful and effective in developing childrens creativity, hence their more active usage should probably be recommended. References
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Please cite this article in press as: Dziedziewicz, D., et al. Developing 4- to 6-year-old childrens gural creativity using a doodle-book program. Thinking Skills and Creativity (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2012.09.004