A Comparison of open and Directed Teaching Styles on Creativity and Achievement in Mathematical Concepts of Nursery School Children
Myoung Cho Lee
Abstract
This study compared the effects of open and directed teaching styles on creativity and mathematical achievement. The subjects were 32 three- and four-year-old children enrolled in the Home Economics Laboratory Nursery School at the University of Arkansas during the fall semester of 1987. In this study, the open teaching style was a child-oriented method of teaching with the help or guidance rather than the actual instruction of teacher, while the directed teaching style was a teacher-oriented method of teaching with actual instruction of the teacher. Forty-eight activities and materials relevant to mathematical concepts appropriately designed for the subjects were used. The nursery school children were divided into morning and afternoon groups. Utilizing a Latin square design, the children in the morning group were taught by the directed teaching style for four weeks followed by a three week period of no planned mathematical activities, then taught by the open teaching style for four weeks. The children in the afternoon group followed the same schedule except the open teaching style was first. At the end of the two four-week sessions of mathematics experiences Thinking Creatively in Action and Movement and selected items of Tests of Basic Experiences 2: Mathematics were administered. The scores of each of the two tests were analyzed using a t-test of dependent measures for the two teaching styles, the sex, and the age of the children. Children taught using the directed teaching style showed a significantly higher originality and mathematical achievement scores than those taught using the open teaching style. Differences for sex and age revealed that the directed teaching style was a significantly better method of instruction to foster the originality for boys and the mathematical achievement for four-year-old children.
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