Motor Activity in the Development of the Individual’s Divergent Thinking and Self-esteem

Movement is a biological need which from early childhood plays a fundamental role in proper functional, physiological and mental development. It has been widely shown that independence at the level of action leads to individual's achievement and impacts upon cognitive and affective behaviour, enforcing autonomy and self-esteem. The aim of this paper is to verify the effect of motor activity on the development of children's divergent thinking and self-esteem by using an experimental study. This study was carried out within a project investigating creativity, fantasy and movement in nursery school children, and is based on a so-called ludic motor approach. The experiment was designed in the context of laboratory activities, helping to translate knowledge into skills, within the motif of the “Peter Pan adventures” film. Referring to educational research methodology, we observed 22 five-year-old children divided into a working group and a control group. Each experimental session was organized in four stages: contextualization, warm-up, middle stage and cool-down. The children’s skills were measured by extensively validated tests, whose results were analyzed by statistical analysis of variance, with a view to ascertaining whether mean scores differ under different conditions. We conclude that the experiment confirms our research hypothesis that motor activity has a positive effect upon divergent thinking and self-esteem.