Objectives This study aims to develop and apply a creative problem-solving problem using design thinking for young children in the field to verify its effect. Methods In order to achieve the purpose, an experiment was conducted on 52 young children between the ages of 4-5 in Gyeonggi-do (26 in experimental group, 26 in control group). Young children in the experimental group participated in the 14-session program that was developed in this study. To verify the effects of program, significant positive changes were observed with creative problem-solving ability, creativity, and scientific inquiry ability set as the dependent variable. Results The analysis of the effects of creative problem-solving program using design thinking displayed that the young children in experimental group who participated in the program displayed significant increases in the overall scores of creative problem-solving ability, creativity, and scientific inquiry ability and the scores of sub-variables compared to the control group that did not participate in the program. Conclusions The creative problem-solving program using design thinking that was developed in this study is applicable in the early childhood education field as an effective program for future core competencies, which are creative problem-solving ability, creativity, and scientific inquiry ability, of young children between the ages of 4-5. The program developed in this study may be utilized actively in the arly childhood education field in order to play a part in cultivating young children’s creative problem-solving ability to contribute to the fostering of human resources that can respond to the future society.
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