The Effect of Education with Philosophical Exploration Circles in Solving Creativity and Social Problems of Pre-School Children

The present research aims to investigate the effect of philosophy education on social problem solving and creativity of preschool children. The study is a quasi-experimental and conducted with pre- and post-test control group. The statistical population included preschool children of District 4 of Tehran. The sample consisted of 80 people who were selected in two-stage by random cluster sampling and were placed in two equal groups of experimental (40 subjects) and control (40 subjects). Torrance Diverted Thinking Test (1988) and Child Social Problem-Solving Test (2000) were administered as instruments. Both groups were evaluated in two stages of pre-test and post-test. Training sessions were conducted in 8 sessions, each with 45 minutes for the experimental group. Philosophy education was taught to children in all 8 sessions.  Data were analyzed using mean, standard deviation, and Multivariate Analysis of Variance by SPSS21. Results showed that Philosophy education had a significant effect on social problem solving of preschool children. The results also showed that Philosophy education had a significant effect on the creativity of preschool children (P≤0/05). According to ETA coefficient, the effect of education using the method of philosophical exploration circles on creativity (0.136) and on social problem-solving skills (0.079). Therefore, it is suggested that pre-school educators use this approach to develop social problem-solving abilities and enhance children's creativity.