Pretest and Posttest Data on Creativity Skills Development Using Plickers Cards Among Female Elementary School Learners
Description
Creativity skills remain underdeveloped among female learners in Ghanaian primary schools, partly due to a reliance on traditional teaching methods. We examined whether gamification, implemented through Plickers cards in Creative Arts lessons, enhances creativity and academic performance relative to conventional approaches. Thirty female learners from Basic 4–6 participated in a one-group pretest–post-test design for 12 weeks of training. The quantitative results showed substantial improvements in both creativity and performance, with post-test scores increasing by 32% (t(29) = –9.35, p < .001). Regression analysis confirmed a positive relationship between creativity and academic outcomes (R² = 0.161, p = .028). Qualitative findings revealed that learners perceived gamification as motivating, engaging, and conducive to idea generation and problem-solving, although technical difficulties, unclear rules, and time constraints were reported as barriers to its use. We provide evidence that gamification fosters creativity while improving academic outcomes and demonstrate that overlooking implementation challenges risks limiting its effectiveness. Finally, we show that gamification can be a viable strategy for addressing gender gaps in creativity training by embedding interactive game-based elements into early childhood education.
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The study adopted a mixed-method sequential explanatory design, employing a “One Group Design” experiment with pre- and post-tests to holistically address the research questions by integrating quantitative data (creativity skills and academic scores) with qualitative insights (learners’ opinions, perceptions and experiences).This approach allowed for a direct comparison between the creativity outcomes of female learners taught with Plickers cards and those taught through traditional classroom methods, while also uncovering the underlying factors influencing the results. The study population comprised 30 female learners, equally distributed across Basic 4, 5, and 6 (10 learners per class, 33.33% each), drawn from Wesley Methodist Primary ‘B’ School, Sekondi, during the third term of the 2023–2024 academic year. Using a simple random sampling technique, learners who picked “1” formed the experimental group, while those who picked “2” were excluded; participation was voluntary and had no bearing on grades. Only female learners were selected because of the researcher’s experience as a Guidance and Counselling Coordinator and Girl-Child Education Coordinator, which enabled the researcher to address challenges specific to girls’ education. Participants received 20 min of theoretical instruction and 40 min of hands-on training weekly, for a total of 12 hours over 12 weeks. Before the intervention, all learners undertook a pretest using the COMPLEX-21 Scale to assess creativity skills and academic performance. Demographic analysis showed that 50% of participants were aged 14 and above, 30% were between 8 and 10 years, and 20% were 11 and 13 years, an uneven but informative distribution for this study. The intervention followed five phases: Phase 1 (Weeks 1–2) involved classroom observation; Phase 2 (Weeks 3–4) administered the pretest with traditional teaching methods; Phase 3 (Weeks 5–9) introduced gamification through Plickers cards, oral Questions & Answers, picture description, and artwork; Phase 4 (Weeks 10–11) conducted post-tests on creativity skills and academic performance using the COMPLEX-21 Scale with gamification; and Phase 5 (Week 12) concluded with a focus group discussion to explore learners’ perceptions and experiences with gamification in Creative Arts education. In analyzing data, factor analysis was employed to help identify the specific gamification elements that were most effective for developing female learners’ creativity skills. With this reduced set of questions for each of the elements in the study, descriptive statistics, inferential statistics (e.g. t-tests, ANOVA), and regression analysis were sought and findings keyed into Jamovi (2.3.28) to help use “analytical tools like mean, median, standard deviation values, and regression statistical analysis to predict whether the experimental best explain the variations in scores for gamification application.
Institutions
- Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology