The Effects of a Constructivist Approach to Cooking Activities on Young Children`s Scientific Attitudes and Creativity
Go Woon Park , Sun Young Kim
Abstract
This research centers around an experiment conducted to determine the relative effectiveness of constructivist cooking activities as compared to traditional cooking activities for young children. Forty-six children, aged five years in two kindergarten classes were assigned to a experimental and comparative group. The experimental and comparative group participated in 12 units. The experimental group participated in the constructivist cooking activities, while the comparative group participated in the traditional cooking activities. Analysis of covariance revealed significant differences between the mean scores of the two groups on the posttests for scientific attitudes and creativity, indicating that the children in the experimental group performed significantly better on the tests than the children in the comparative group. The results of this study suggest that such constructivist cooking activities are able to improve the scientific attitudes and creativity of young children.