English abstract
The study sought investigate the effectiveness of a program proposed to teach Art Education in order to develop creative thinking skills (fluency, flexibility and originality) among grade five basic students in Oman.
The sample of the study consisted of (123) grade five basic students with an age mean of (10,938) years and an age range between 9-1 1years. Four schools were selected randomly from Batinah North. The experimental group consisted of 56 students (28 males and 28 females) while the control group consisted of 67 students (33 males and 34 females).
Torrance Test for creative thinking form (A) was used as a pre test and a post-test along with Raven standard progressive Matrices to ascertain the equality of the two groups on general intelligence level. T-Test for independent sample was also used to ascertain the equality of the two groups on the following variables; (intelligence, creative thinking and art performance level). In addition Two-way
ANOVA was used to examine the effectiveness of the proposed program and the impact of its interaction with the group (control, experimental) as well as gender on creative thinking skills (fluency, flexibility and originality).
The results revealed significant differences between the two groups in their creative thinking skills and in their overall creative thinking ability in favor of the experimental group. The interaction between the groups and gender (boys/ girls) has a significant impact on developing fluency and originality skills along with the overall performance on the test in favor of girls.
In the light of the results of the study, Some recommendations were suggested:
1- Encouraging teachers to employ some teaching techniques to foster creative thinking skills. Such techniques are effective enough to provide a social – learning environment based on tolerance, freedom of expression as well as breaking fear and shyness barriers.
2- Training teachers to apply creative thinking tests to discover learners creative thinking skills.
3- Directing teachers attention to discover talented creative students abilities through the regular application of creative thinking tests along with designing special programs to develop their creative thinking skills.
