| The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a Creative Movement Program on motor creativity and gross motor skills of preschool children. Sixty children between the ages of three to five were drawn from the population of a children's center in Taichung, Taiwan for this study. An experimental pretest-posttest control-group design was utilized. The children enrolled in the experimental group were divided into three subgroups, classified as 36–47, 48–59, and 60–71 months old, and participated in a Creative Movement Program twice a week for 30 minutes each time. The children enrolled in the control group were also divided into three subgroups classified as 36–47, 48–59, and 60–71 months old, and participated in unstructured free play.; Data were collected from the administration of a pretest and posttest to both the experimental and control groups to investigate the effects of a Creative Movement Program on the scores of Torrance's Thinking Creatively in Action and Movement (TCAM) and the Peabody Developmental Motor Scales-Second Edition (PDMS-2). The data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Analysis of covariance was utilized to test eight null hypotheses to investigate the effects of the Creative Movement Program on motor creativity and gross motor skills. A Pearson product-moment correlation was used to determine whether there was a significant relationship between the posttest scores of preschool children on the TCAM test and the PDMS-2 test in the experimental group.; Results of this study showed that students participating in the Creative Movement Program scored in motor creativity (p < .05) and gross motor skills (p < .05) significantly higher than those in the control group. There also was a higher significant difference in fluency (p < .05), originality (p < .05), and imagination (p < .05) scores on the TCAM test and locomotion score (p < .05) on the PDMS-2 test in the experimental group than those in the control group. In addition, there was no significant difference in object manipulation (p > .05) and stationary (p > .05) scores on the PDMS-2 test between the two groups. There also was no significant relationship between motor creativity and gross motor skills of preschool children (p > .05). |
