Promoting The Creativity of Ninth Grade Students In Work And Technology With TRIZ: A Study With The Action Research Method

Aiming to promote the creativity level of 9th grade Iranian high school pupils, the present study was conducted by using the great potential of the action research method. For this purpose, three independent and related measures were utilized to investigate the effectiveness of designed interventions and the variability of pupils' creativity. Torrance's creativity questionnaire was used to collect data from a girls state high school in Qazvin city.
Moreover, the analysis of weekly notes and observations indicated that students' creativity has been improved in the studied components. In general, the results strongly suggested that the action research method can be used to change and improve educational environments and especially to improve the performance of human agents.
TRIZ, the theory of inventive problem-solving, is recognized as one of the most effective tools for envisioning engineering designs and solving difficult problems. The importance of triage has been confirmed in various fields where its applications induce excellent results (Sheu et al., 2020).
Work and technology courses have been included in the official education system of the country since 2013. According to the country's need for jobs and technological skills, education has adjusted the course of work and technology (Abolhasani and Safai Movahed, 2018). Cultivating creativity creates the confidence that the society can make better use of its human resources and talents in that society. Creative ideas are often found among the strange and unexpected emanations of our minds. The creative mind thinks differently and moves in inexperienced and unusual directions. As well as, a creative person can interpret to think from one dimension of the subject to other dimensions and, as a result, produce various and varied ideas. Technological training, work and skill training will lead to personal progress, increase in productivity, participation in social and economic life, reduction of poverty, increase in income and development. In today's era, with the increasing momentum of the job-seeking population, businesses will survive if their owners have enough creative ideas in producing and presenting their products to customers. According to this principle, fostering students' creativity will be effective in their future career success. Researchers have tried to improve the dimensions related to the problem by involving students and choosing to provide solutions and implementing them step by step in a 5-month process. For this purpose, the following questions were asked:
To what extent is the creativity of students in interpersonal interactions and doing group work in ninth grade students?
What changes have students' creativity undergone after the interventions made by researchers?
In this regard, 31 pupils relevant and interested in the research were selected after constellation by school's executive officers. Then three main and effective solutions, taken on the basis of TRIZ, the theory of inventive problem-solving, is recognized as one of the most effective tools for envisioning engineering designs and solving difficult problems, were considered to improve the level of creativity of pupils. The process of all three interventions in this action research is presented as independent but interrelated cycles. Each cycle includes 4 levels of planning, action, observation, and reflection. In the planning stage, an attempt was made to determine the field of study, and after the necessary coordination with the high school administration, the documents that helped to clarify the current situation were examined. In the following, an action research plan was formulated, and in this plan, three actions were taken.
Since action research requires the effective participation of relevant and interested people in the research, we tried to get the favorable opinion of the school's executive officers and students by stating the necessity of implementing this plan. For this purpose, a briefing session was held to provide the basis for the implementation of optimal measures at the level of each class.
In the following, the main aspect of the uncertain situation was selected for action research. Among the solutions that were proposed to improve the level of creativity of students, three main and effective solutions were considered. In the initial state, the pre-test was held. Then, according to the plan, 3 measures were taken according to the condition of the participants. After the end of the actions, the post-test was held. In this way, 2 sets of data were collected. Correlated t-test was used to analyze the data. This test is used to determine the difference between the dispersion of scores of correlated groups (Zare, Talebi and Saif, 2019, p. 132).
Initial introduction to motion graphics: The principles of Terez along with their examples were prepared by the researcher in the form of attractive motion graphics and were given to the students in the class to familiarize themselves with Terez in general.
Podcast of creative engineering stories: Creative engineering stories were prepared as a podcast, and a podcast was broadcast every session and the students were taught the basics.
Asking the students to do homework: After listening to the podcast, the students were careful in the surrounding environment and prepared examples for the principles. Then, for the next session, they would present the principles and examples they had found to their teacher in the form of flash cards that were also visually beautiful. Measurement in the initial state: by means of by Torrance's creativity intelligence questionnaire, a pre-test was performed in the initial state and in order to enter the data into the SPSS software, the questionnaires were saved. Measurement after successive actions: after the actions taken, the students completed Torrance's creativity questionnaire in the framework of the post-test. Questionnaire sheets of stage 2 were also collected and archived. Crediting Validation of the solution means carrying out an activity during which the researcher ensures the effectiveness of the solution he has chosen (Seif Elahi, 2017, p. 100). For this purpose, four validation methods were used in action research such as self-validation, validation by colleagues, academic validation and popular validation (Qasmi-Poya, 2011, pp. 122-123).
In the initial state, the pre-test was held. Then, according to the plan, three measures were administrated. After the end of the actions, the post-test was held. To analyze the data collected, a correlated t-test was used to determine the difference between dispersion of the scores of correlated groups. Because the calculated significance level of total creativity variables, flexibility, and expansion subscale is smaller than alpha 0.05, we may claim with a probability of 95% confidence that the level of total creativity and subscales of fluidity, flexibility, innovation, and expansion variable, there is a significant difference between trained and untrained pupils.