The relationship between openness to experiences and the potential for creativity among children in the Arab society in the Northern District (Published)
The recent study examined the relationship between openness to new experiences and creativity potential within Arab kindergarten children from the northern part of Israel, according to age, gender, parent’s education and family income. (51) kindergarten children were chosen for this research and their teachers fulfilled for them a demographic questionnaire by meeting children individually, and an openness-to-new-experiences questionnaire, along with a restraint EPoC- test.Findings show that there is a positive correlation between the level of openness to new experiences and the level of creativity potential among the children. This finding correlates with previous researches showing that a high level of openness leads to a high level of creativity. Secondly, no differences were found according to gender, except for the divergent thinking, which was in favor of boys. In addition, differences were found according to age, in favor of 6 years old children. These findings correlate with previous researches showing that there is an accumulation of experiences due to the “cognitive maturity theory.” Finally, no differences were found according to parent’s education and family income, apparently because of the small, heterogenic research population.It is recommended that experts in the ministry of education will establish workshops focusing on the development of openness to new experiences and creativity potential skills among kindergarten teachers, so that they will be able to measure creativity potential according to the restraint test, and will better evaluate kindergarten children’s creativity potential.
Keywords: Northern District, Openness to Experience, Potential for Creativity, children in the Arab community