Determination of the Environmental Design Factors Contributing to Children’s Creativity Based on the Concepts of Shahnameh

Abstract

Research on creativity, especially the ways of increasing it in children, has grown exponentially. While most of these studies have focused on different aspects of how and why the external factors are influencing people's creativity level, including children; study on local concepts and elements can be considered as a new attempt in this framework. The present research is aimed at emphasizing on the local concepts and elements affecting growth and improvement of children's creativity level, recognizing the identity and mythological dimensions of the Shahnameh and the concepts and elements that can be inferred from it.The central question of the present research is that what aspects of environmental design can create meaningful links between the identity and mythological aspects of Shahnameh and the level of creativity of children? Theoretical studies show that the eight components of colour, painting, natural elements, geometry, signs and symbols, story, security and movements that have been used in Shahnameh can affect the factors that are influenced on the formation and growth of creativity, including motivation, imagination, personality and skills. Accordingly, after codifying the conceptual model, the theoretical findings were gathered in the form of a field-studied (questionnaire) in the statistical population of the research (parents and educators of Ramsar kindergartens) and analysed.This research is a correlation study and its field findings are analyzed through factor analysis in SPSS software. The results of this study show that the use of the environmental factors inferred from Shahnameh affect children's creativity development through their impact on different indicators of creativity such as imagination, motivation, personality and skills. In addition, from the eight elements used in Shahnameh, just movement, story, painting and geometric forms and signs and symbols have significant influence on children's creativity level.