Fostering Pretend Play Skills and Creativity in Elementary School Girls: A Group Play Intervention

• Published in: Psychology of aesthetics, creativity, and the arts Vol. 10; no. 1; pp. 114 - 125
• Main Authors: Hoffmann, Jessica D., Russ, Sandra W.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Educational Publishing Foundation 01-02-2016; American Psychological Association
• Subjects: Childhood Play Behavior; Creativity; Divergent Thinking; Elementary School Students; Female; Human; Human Females; Pretend Play; School Based Intervention; Storytelling; divergent thinking; storytelling; creativity; pretend play
• ISSN: 1931-3896; 1931-390X
• DOI: 10.1037/aca0000039

Pretend play is an important part of child development, associated with constructions of adaptive functioning such as creative thinking and positive affect. Research has demonstrated that interventions to improve play skills can be effective. In the current study, a 6-session, pretend play intervention was administered to 40 participants, ages 5 to 8 years old, enrolled in an elementary school for girls. The study adapted a manualized individual play intervention to be administered to groups. At baseline and outcome, pretend play skills were assessed using the Affect in Play Scale (Russ, 2004, 2014b), a 5-min pretend play task measuring the cognitive and affective processes of fantasy play. Creativity was assessed using the Alternate Uses Test (Wallach & Kogan, 1965), a measure of divergent thinking, and a storytelling task. State positive affect was measured using the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule for Children (Moore & Russ, 2008). Repeated-measures ANOVA analyses indicated significant improvement in play skills for the intervention group compared with controls. For the below-average players, improvements in divergent thinking were also observed at outcome compared with controls. Baseline correlations among pretend play, creativity, and positive affect are also presented, replicating past studies. Taken together, the findings suggest the benefits of pretend play in child development and demonstrate the feasibility of school-based interventions for improving play and creativity skills.