How Does Comprehensive Art Education Facilitate Children's Creativity? A Mixed-Methods Study in China

Research Findings: Comprehensive art education (CAE) can be an effective way to develop children's creativity development. However, little is known about how CAE is implemented in kindergarten classrooms in China. The purpose of this study was to explore the effectiveness of CAE activity implementation. To assess the effectiveness of CAE in terms of early childhood creativity, 64 children in a Chinese kindergarten were assigned to experimental (n=32; 15 boys and 17 girls) and control (n=32; 15 boys and 17 girls) groups. The complete CAE intervention program, including teacher training and CAE activities, lasted for 11 months. Both groups of children took the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT) pretest and posttest to assess their creativity. The findings showed that the experimental group had significantly higher TTCT scores than the control group. In addition, interviews with five teachers echoed the test results and raised the need for related teacher training. Practice or Policy: Results indicated a clear connection between the CAE activities and the enhancement of the children's creative thinking abilities. These findings suggest that CAE nurtures children's creativity and should form an essential component of early childhood and teacher education curricula.