The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of art activities using Bernstein''s 13 tools for thinking on the creativity and drawing representational ability of
preschoolers. The subjects in this study were
37 preschoolers in a kindergarten located in the city of Busan, who were at the
western age of five. An experimental group and a control group were respectively
made up of 19 and 18 young children. The experimental group engaged in art activities
using Bernstein''s tools for thinking in 22 sessions for 11 weeks, and the control group
engaged in routine art activities in accordance with the Nuri curriculum. The
instrument used to assess the creativity of the preschoolers was the figural form A
of Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, and the instrument used to evaluate their
drawing representational ability was Ji Seong-ae(2001)''s Drawing Representational Ability
Rating Scale. The collected data were analyzed by a statistical package SPSS 18.0, and ANCOVA was
utilized. The findings of the study were as follows: As for the test results of the
experimental group in overall creativity and each subfactor of it, there were
statistically significant differences in every subfactor of it except title abstractness,
which were fluency, originality, elaboration and resistance to premature
closure. Second, regarding the test results of the experimental group in overall drawing
representational ability and th subfactor of it, there were statistically significant
differences between the experimental group and the control group in every subfactor
of it except combination of basic figure and line and picture completion, which
were diverse colors, detailed description, harmonious composition, diverse forms,
theme-related representation, creativity of representation and articulation of
representation and language. The findings of the study suggest that Bernstein''s 13 tools for
thinking, which are observation, imagery, abstractness, pattern awareness, pattern
formation, inference, thinking through the body, empathy, directional thinking, model making,
play, transformation and integration, have positive effects on the improvement of the
creativity and drawing representational ability of the preschoolers by providing the kinds
of activities and environment that stimulated them to freely exert their
perception and thinking without any restrictions. Therefore Bernstein''s tools for
thinking could be utilized as one of effective teaching methods to boost the
creativity of preschoolers.