Giving Ideas Some Legs or Legs Some Ideas? Children’s Motor Creativity Is Enhanced by Physical Activity Enrichment: Direct and Mediated Paths

Abstract

Approaches to foster motor creativity differ according to whether creative movements are assumed to be enacted creative ideas, or solutions to emerging motor problems that arise from task and environmental constraints. The twofold aim of the current study was to investigate whether (1) an enriched physical education (PE) intervention delivered with a joint constraints-led and cognitive stimulation approach fosters motor creativity, and the responsiveness to the intervention is moderated by baseline motor and cognitive skills and sex; (2) the intervention may benefit motor creativity through gains in motor coordination, executive function, and creative thinking. Ninety-five children, aged 6–9 years, participated in a 6-month group randomized trial with specialist-led enriched PE vs. generalist-led conventional PE. Before and after the intervention, Bertsch’s Test of Motor Creativity, Movement Assessment Battery for Children, Random Number Generation task and Torrance Test of Creative Thinking were administered. Linear mixed models were run accounting for the random effects of data clusters. Multiple mediation analysis was performed to assess whether motor coordination, executive function and creative thinking mediated any improvement of motor creativity. Results showed that (1) specialist-led enriched PE, compared to generalist-led conventional practice, elicited a more pronounced improvement in all motor creativity dimensions (fluency, flexibility, and originality) independently of baseline levels of motor and cognitive skills and sex; and (2) improved motor creativity was partially mediated by improved motor coordination and, as regards motor flexibility, also by improved inhibitory ability. In conclusion, enriching PE with tailored manipulations of constraints and variability may enhance the ability to create multiple and original task-pertinent movements both directly and through indirect paths. The results are discussed extending to motor creativity a theoretical framework that distinguishes different creativity modes. The intervention may have fostered the generation of creative movements directly through the exposure to variation in constraints, activating the sensorimotor ‘flow’ mode of creativity that bypasses higher-order cognition, but also indirectly through a systematic and conscious convergence on solutions, activating the ‘deliberate’ mode of creativity that relies on inhibition to reject common or task-inappropriate movement categories.

Promoting Children’s Psychomotor Development with Multi-Teaching Didactics

“…They are involved in multi-teaching styles, where the interaction of productive and reproductive styles stimulates inhibition and memory updating, which are required to excel in RNG tasks [ 25 ]. The results of motor creativity and executive functions presented mostly medium effect sizes, likely to the literature that in similar studies reported medium to large effect sizes [ 26 , 69 , 70 ]. Moreover, the results align with those by Pesce, Masci, Marchetti, Vazou, Saakslahti, and Tomporowski [ 51 ], highlighting that integrating motor and cognitive tasks is essential for improving children’s creative motor skills.…”

“…The improved motor creativity and executive functions in the two multi-teaching enriched groups, measured by DMA and RNG tasks, represent this study’s most notable outcomes ( Table 1 , Figure 3 and Figure 4 ). RNG tasks have been shown to reflect children’s executive functions, a measure of motor creativity task and a feature of divergent and critical thinking [ 26 ]. Executive functions are demonstrated to be essential for mental and physical health [ 68 ].…”

“…The two weekly hours of curricular ML and MNL physical activity across the 12-week intervention were principally designed to promote motor creativity [ 58 ], the highest level of the psychomotor domain, assuming that motor proficiency and effective learning of fundamental motor and play skills were prerequisite [ 26 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 ]. Additionally, enriched physical activity further promoted executive functions, self-efficacy, and enjoyment.…”

“…The different pedagogical approaches, considering different modalities to balance repetition and changes, stability, and flexibility, can also impact differently on motor and executive functions development [ 25 , 26 ]. For example, both nonlinear and linear approaches positively affect children’s inhibitory control and working memory [ 20 ].…”

Motor Creativity and Self-Efficacy in Young Gymnasts: Expertise Differences

“…As consequence, according to an ecological-dynamic approach (Davids, Handford, & Williams 1994;Chow et al, 2020), recent studies suggest relevance of using enriched movement activities to realize an individual's creative potential (Scibinetti, 2019;Richard, Holder, & Cairney, 2021;Tocci et al, 2022). Particularly in early childhood education, movement-based creativity programs have been employed to foster not so much motor creativity per se, but creative behavior in the embodied and kinesthetic way that characterizes discovery learning and cognitive development in children (Grammatikopoulos, Gregoriadis, & Zachopoulou, 2012).…”