THE LEVEL OF CREATIVE THINKING OF 6-YEAR-OLD CHILDREN AND THE TYPE OF THEIR MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES

Abstract

The article presents a research on the correlation between various types of Howard Gardner’s intelligences and the level of creative thinking and its three skills, i.e. fluency, flexibility, and originality. The analysis included three hundred and twenty 6-year-old children attending preschools located within the city of Warsaw (Ursus district), including 154 girls and 166 boys. The children who participated in the study attended preschools whose managing body had allowed it, and whose parents had consented to it. 

The method used in the study was a diagnostic survey, performed with the application of the following techniques: The Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences Test, which allowed the researcher to determine the type of dominant intelligence in a child, Kate Franck’s Drawing Completion Test, which measure the level of creative thinking, and the Test of Graphic Associations – the children version designed by Mariola Jąder, which assessed the fluency, flexibility and originality of thinking. 

The purpose of the research was to find out whether children’s types of multiple intelligences have an impact on their level of creative thinking with respect to the three abilities: fluency, flexibility, and origi-nality of thinking. The study included 320 six-year-old children. The research findings demonstrated that high level of creative thinking in terms of the three studied skills are attained by children whose dominant intelligence types were logical-mathematical and kinesthetic. The dominance of linguistic and interpersonal intelligence was typical of children showing an average level of fluency, flexibility, and originality of thinking; whereas children with dominating intrapersonal and spatial intelligence demonstrated its low levels. Therefore, the type of one’s multiple intelligences has an impact on the level of creative thinking. 

Without a doubt, the research has not exhausted the topic. The correlation between multiple intelligences and creative thinking necessitates further in-depth analyses.