Enhancing Creative Potential: A Dynamic Assessment Of Skill Transfer Across Graphic, Verbal, And Mathematical Domains In Primary School Children
Keywords:
Creativity, Dynamic Assessment, Transfer of LearningAbstract
Background: The debate over whether creativity is a domain-general trait or domain-specific ability has significant implications for educational practice. Existing research on the transfer of creative skills is often limited by traditional, static assessment methods that measure only a final product, failing to capture the underlying cognitive processes and potential for growth. Dynamic assessment (DA), rooted in Vygotsky’s theory, offers a promising alternative by actively mediating a learner's performance to reveal their potential for change and development. This study addresses a critical gap in the literature by using DA to investigate the transfer of creative skills across three distinct domains: graphic, verbal, and mathematical.
Methods: A quasi-experimental design was used with 120 primary school children. Participants were divided into an experimental group and a control group. Both groups underwent pre- and post-testing using standardized creativity assessments in the three domains. The experimental group received a structured, mediated intervention focused on developing domain-specific creative strategies within a single training domain. The effectiveness of the mediation was quantified by measuring learning gain, while transfer was assessed by the change in performance on the untrained domains.
Results: The experimental group showed a significant increase in creative performance in the trained domain compared to the control group, confirming the efficacy of the DA intervention. More importantly, statistical analyses revealed a significant degree of far transfer, where the cognitive strategies learned during mediation were effectively applied to enhance creative performance in the verbal and mathematical domains. The magnitude of transfer was found to be positively associated with the participant's engagement with and application of the mediated strategies.
Conclusion: This study provides robust evidence that creativity, while expressed in domain-specific ways, contains a trainable, domain-general component. Dynamic assessment proved to be a powerful tool for not only measuring but also actively fostering this latent creative potential. The findings have profound implications for educators, suggesting that teaching for transfer through mediated learning can unlock creative skills that might otherwise remain dormant, supporting a more dynamic and inclusive approach to creativity education.
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