On Creativity Development of the Students in Arithmetic Education : For the Students of Elementary School (Grade 3, 4, 5, 6)

Abstract

In this paper, we describe the degree of creativity development of elementary school students by using "the quadrilateral" that is a basic figure as the teaching materials in arithmetic education. The experiment involved 428 participants from students grade 3, 4, 5 and 6. The degree of creativity development is evaluated from both side: the creativity ability and creativity attitude. For the creativity ability measurement, a new creativity ability test problem was created. Furthermore, we examined the degrees of creativity ability development and the relationships among the scores of each evaluation viewpoint by using the test score. For the creativity attitude measurement, we used a Creativity Attitude Scale (CAS) that was developed by Saito, N. We examined the degrees of creativity attitude development and the relationships among the scores of the creativity attitude factors by using the scale score. Moreover, we examined the correlation coefficient and the causality relation between the creativity ability test score and the creativity attitude scale score. The results are as follows: - The higher grade students (grade 5 and 6) achieve higher score compare with students grade 3 and 4 in the creativity ability test. However, the scores of the flexibility and the originality are very low in any grade. - The difference of the creativity ability development is seen between students of grade 4 and grade 5. The creativity attitude is the same characteristic, too. - The lower grade students (grade 3 and 4) achieve higher score in the creativity attitude scale compared with the higher grade students (grade 5 and 6). - The students that get higher creativity attitude scale score achieve higher creativity ability test score. However it doesn't occur conversely.