Effects of a Design Thinking-Based Invention Education Program on the Emotional Intelligence of Elementary School Students

Vollständiger Abstract

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The purpose of this study was to develop a design thinking-based invention education program and to investigate its influence on the emotional intelligence of sixth-grade elementary school students. The study was conducted in four stages: preparation, development, implementation, and evaluation. In the preparation stage, semi-structured interviews were conducted with three elementary school teachers (5-10 years of teaching experience) to identify the needs of teachers in the field. In addition, the 2015 and 2022 revised Practical Arts curricula and nine textbooks based on the 2022 curriculum were analyzed. All nine textbooks were centered on technical problem-solving processes. In the development stage, a 10-session invention education program integrating Practical Arts, Social Studies, and Fine Arts was developed based on the five-stage design thinking model of the Stanford d.school. The program was validated and refined by six elementary school teachers (CVI=1.00). And K-WLEIS, adapted for elementary students, was used along with a newly developed open-ended questionnaire. In the implementation stage, the program was applied to two sixth-grade classes at an elementary school in Busan Metropolitan City (experimental group: 15 students; control group: 13 students). In the evaluation stage, the program’s influence on emotional intelligence was examined through pre- and post-tests and the open-ended questionnaire. The experimental group’s emotional intelligence scores improved significantly (t=-3.004, p=.009), with significant improvements in others’ emotion appraisal (t=-2.161, p=.049) and regulation of emotion (t=-2.751, p=.016). ANCOVA also showed the experimental group’s post-test scores were significantly higher than the control group’s after controlling for pre-test scores (F(1,25)=6.797, p=.015). Qualitative analysis showed that students positively perceived emotional changes during collaborative activities and reported positive changes in idea generation. This study suggests that design thinking-based invention education may serve as a teaching and learning approach for enhancing elementary school students’ emotional intelligence.