Motor Development and Painting Creativity of Primary School Children

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between psychomotor development and visual creativity. Thirty students ranging in age from 6 to 7.5 years had participated in the study. For the measurement of psychomotor development, the Degree of Kinetic Performance was used from the application of a Set of four kinetic tests of K.T.K. test (Schillinh & Kiphard, 1974). To measure artistic creativity, three tests were administered which were a combination of the Test Torrance of Creative Thinking (Torrance, 1998) and the Test for Creative Thinking Drawing Production (Urban & Jellen, 2010). Specifically, the Test Torrance of Creative Thinking used the element of completing the circle and in the (Urban & Jellen, 2010) test the element of humor was used, as one of the factors measuring creativity. The tests of creativity were evaluated by two different judges who were visual artists and professors at the School of Fine Arts of the University of Ioannina. The results showed that there was a statistically significant positive correlation between the Degree of Kinetic Performance and artistic creativity and in particular with aptitude, originality and processing. Psychomotor development reveals the inextricable link between mental and motor activities, addresses the whole of the human condition and it is a key area of pre-school and school education of kinetic development with artistic creativity. Future research could also look at an extended sample of the relationship between physical-motor performance and visual creativity in early and late childhood students possibly with a larger number of diagnostic tests.