Features of imagination in 5–6-year-old children

Abstract

Background. The relevance of the study is due to understanding of important role of imagination in the cognitive and emotional development of children as well as the contradictory results of modern research on imagination development in older pre- school age.

Objective. The study had its purpose to assess the level of productive imagination of the present-day preschoolers educated in the senior groups of kindergarten and to identify types of imagination being based on statistical data processing.

Methods. The study implemented the technique “Complete the drawing” (a modified Torrens’ Test) and the typology of productive imagination by O.M. Dyachenko (2007). Drawings of preschoolers were analyzed in terms of elaboration, flexibility, and originality of images. Processing the obtained data included calculation of the mean and median values, standard deviations; the cluster analysis method; the non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis’s criterion and Kolmogorov-Smirnov’s, Mann-Whitney’s criteria were used.

Sample. The study involved 768 preschoolers of older groups of kindergartens in four regions of Russia (Moscow, the Republics of Sakha and Tatarstan, Perm Territory) aged 58 to 72 months (of which 47.9% were boys).

Results. Modern methods of statistical data processing have made it possible to identify and compare significantly different types of productive imagination in preschoolers. According to the results of the assessment of imagination development of the of older preschool children in different regions of Russia, a similar distribution was obtained for 6 types of productive imagination. The study revealed the low level of imagination development in about half of older preschoolers: children either do not accept the task at all (type 0), or draw individual objects that are not detailed (type 1). Productive imagination at the age of 5–6 years develops heterochronously: children with different types of imagination have relatively high scores for various parameters (types 2, 3, 4). Less than 5% of older preschoolers are characterized by a high level of imagination development when children use “inclusions” (type 5).

Conclusion. The results of the study expand the understanding of productive imagination in today’s preschool children and contribute to studying its development in the changed conditions of educational environment. The typology of productive imagination built on the basis of quantitative methods can be useful for both researchers and practicing psychologists, preschool educators.

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