Students’ Creative Thinking Stages in Inquiry-Based Learning: A Mixed-Methods Study of Elementary School Students in Indonesia

Resumo

Background: Creative thinking skills significantly affect the learning process's success. Improving higher-order thinking skills requires wise consideration of learning techniques and a commitment to an active and learner-centered learning environment. Objectives: The objective of this research is to explore the creative process of children when playing games using coding skills. Design: This study employed a mixed-methods approach to data collection, combining semi-structured and comparison methods. Setting and Participants: The research sample consisted of 20 five-grade students (twelve boys and eight girls) from SD Negeri 149 Tokinjong, Sinjai Regency. Data collection and analysis: Descriptive statistics and the N-Gain test were used to analyse participants’ creative thinking pre- and post-test scores. Interview analysis was performed through data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing and verification. Results: The results showed that IBL has the potential to improve elementary school students’ creative thinking skills with a mean score of 77.25. Besides, participants engaged in a cyclical thinking phase between the preparation and imagination phases. The two cognitive tasks distinguished the cyclical thinking process are information collection and information examination. This process was repeated until participants decided that no more viable alternatives. Conclusions: The implementation of inquiry-based learning has the potential to improve elementary school students’ creative thinking skills; participants engaged in a cyclical thinking phase between the preparation and imagination stages.