Enhancing Elementary Students Creative Problem Solving through Project-based Education

This paper reports on one dimension of a longitudinal study that researched the impact on student creativity of a unique intervention program for elementary students. The intervention was based on the National Profile and Statement (Curriculum Corporation, 1994a, 1994b) for the curriculum area of Technology. The intervention program comprised project-based, collaborative and thematically-integrated curriculum units of work that incorporated all eight Australian Key Learning Areas (KLAs). A pre-test/post-test control group design investigation (Campbell & Stanley, 1963) was undertaken with 520 students from seven schools and 24 class groups that were randomly divided into three treatment groups. One group (10 classes) formed the control group. Another seven classes received the year-long intervention program, while the remaining seven classes received the intervention, but with the added seamless integration of information and communication technologies (ICTs). The effect of the intervention on the personal dimension of student creativity was assessed using the Creativity Checklist, an instrument that was developed during the study. The results suggest that the purposeful integration of computer technology with the intervention program positively affects the personal creativity characteristics of students.