Abstract:

The aim of the research is to examine the effect of education program based on Waldorf approach on creativity and cognitive skills of pre-school children. In the research, quasi-experimental design, one of the experimental research models, was used. The experimental group consisted of 32 children studying in a school where the Waldorf approach-based education program was implemented. 45 children studying in a public kindergarten where the Ministry of National Education Pre-School Education Program was implemented constituted the control1 group, and 48 children studying in a private kindergarten formed the control2 group. The dependent variables of the research were creativity skills and cognitive skills; The independent variable is the education program based on the Waldorf Approach. Hybrid Creativity Test developed by Lee and Lee (2002) and adapted into Turkish by Yuvacı (2017) was used as a data collection tools to measure creativity skills. Coloured Progressive Matrices Test developed by Reven, Raven and Court (1998) and validity and reliability study by Bildiren, Kargın, and Korkmaz (2017) was used to measure cognitive skills. Data was analyzed using SPSS program. As a result of the research, a significant result was found in favour of the group in which the Waldorf approach-based education program was applied in the sub-dimensions of creativity, flexibility, fluency, originality and total creativity post-test scores. No difference was observed between the groups in the cognitive skills post-test scores.

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