The role of qualitative aspects of environmental elements on the development of children’s creative thinking from the preschool teachers’ viewpoints

The significance of creativity is undeniable for society. As a result, stimulation of creativity could be considered as indispensable goals of any education system. The present study has been done to investigate the role of qualitative aspect of environmental elements (color, form and texture) in educational settings on developing the 3 to 6 years old children’s creativity. The research was done using two methods, library research method and survey research method. The research population included all preschool teachers of Shiraz in 2011-2012. And the research sample consisted of 50 preschool teachers who were selected using cluster sampling and simple random sampling methods. The research tool was a researcher-made questionnaire and its content validity and construct validity was checked. Reliability of the questionnaire was calculated in two ways, internal parallelism and the split-half method. Both methods resulted in α = 0/85. In order to analyze the results of the questionnaire, descriptive statistics (including frequency, average, and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (including repeated measure statistics, t- test and unilateral variation analysis) have been used. The results indicated that there is a significant difference between the qualities of environmental elements (color, form and texture) and children’s creativity from preschool teachers’ viewpoints. There was a significant difference among the teachers’ viewpoints on the role of quality of environmental elements on children’s creativity. Teachers whose field of study was related to their job considered more significant role for the quality of environmental elements on developing children’s creativity. There was no significant difference among teachers’ viewpoints on the role of quality of environmental elements on children’s creativity in terms of their working experience and the level of education. The results of the present study showed that from the viewpoint of preschool teachers, the quality of environmental elements such as color, form and texture especially color is influential on developing the children’s creativity, especially in an educational setting.