Extended Abstract
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of integrated education in comparison with traditional teaching, in Persian lessons, on students' creativity. This research was conducted in terms of applied purpose and quasi-experimental method with pre-test-post-test design with control group. The statistical population includes 1012 female students in the third grade of elementary school who were educating in non-governmental schools in Sirjan in the academic year 2020-2021, and 20 students among whom were selected randomly, divided randomly in two and placed in the test group and control group. The data collection tool was Abedi's creativity questionnaire, the content validity of which was approved by experts, including the tutor and the consultant. Examination of Cronbach's alpha values shows that the reliability is obtained from a minimum of 0.77 for fluidity to a maximum of 0.89 for total creativity. The results showed that the method of integrated education has a significant effect on creativity. The assumed significance level in this study was 0.05 and the significance level of the test was less than 0.05 (p <0.001) and showed the difference between the averages and the effectiveness of the intervention. The level of creativity among students who were trained in the integrated method was higher than students who were trained in the traditional method. Therefore, it is suggested that school teachers use this method to promote the level of creativity of students.



 



Introduction
Primary school children are often naturally curious and like to learn things creatively rather than learning information prepared in advance by parents and teachers (Sortiji Okrekaii & Rastegaropur, 2012). Children need curricula that provide them with unpredictable and exciting experiences, and the implementation of such curricula requires creative teachers. It is often thought that creativity is not teachable; but in the absence of evidence that it is inherited, teachers must accept that this skill can be developed in the classroom environment and generalized to the living environment (Darras, 2019). Unfortunately, our teachers are not well-familiarized with the creation of the right atmosphere in the classroom to flourish creativity. Furthermore, there are serious weaknesses in the training of creative and thoughtful people by educational institutions, especially the education system. The system with which students and most students around the world engage is perhaps the main reason for their creativity to be destroyed (HUI, A. N, & HE, M. W, 2021). Integrated learning is a combination of traditional face-to-face learning and online learning, so that teaching takes place both in the classroom and online, and the online section is an extension and continuation of traditional classroom learning (Ahmady & Nakhostin-Ruhi, 2014: 21). In today's world, special attention should be paid to learning creativity, so in schools, a special place has been considered for this to develop creative thinking (Esnaashari, FooladChang & Daryapour, 2017: 25). Teaching patterns are actually learning patterns. Teachers use these patterns to teach students how to learn while helping students acquire information, ideas, skills, ways of thinking, and tools of expressing ideas. (Brahuei Moghadam & Kahrazehi, 2020: 45).
Considering the teachability of creativity and the opportunities that integrated education provides for self-learning, exploratory learning, personal independence, application of constructivist and multisensory curriculum (Amiri, 2020: 43), also considering the importance of deep learning in the primary schools, a single teaching model based on the cognitive learning cycle is suggested, which can be used to teach all courses; this cycle is derived from the E5 method. Teaching in the cognitive learning cycle is a stage of integratd description and explanation and developement, so the cognitive learning cycle consists of four steps (Fluid capacity growth, expansion, flexibility and initiative capability). (Ganji, 2005: 134). Assessment as an acquired skill can be perceived as a measure that has become a student's mental habit and has made him an assessor of his behavior. Self-assessment tools, checklists, and workbooks can be used for assessment in part-time school (online, which is the basis of judgment of students (Malmir & et al., 2019: 189). Considering the above issues and the urgent need of the country's educational system for new developments in lesson planning, it seems that the integrated teaching method is a suitable alternative to traditional teaching methods to be effective in cognitive and applied learning of Persian literature. Therefore, in this study, we intend to pay attention to the importance of the theoretical foundations of creativity and innovation and one of the practical solutions to achieve a significant impact of integrated education on creativity and its components (fluidity growth, expansion, flexibility and initiative), to produce many of the socio-cultural contexts tied to it in order to produce knowledge, which is the main strategy for the progress and development of society. Therefore, the researcher tries to address the main goal of investigating the effect of integrated education patterns with traditional education methods on the creativity of female third grade elementary students in non-governmental schools in Sirjan.
Theoretical framework
Integrative education uses new ways of thinking in conjunction with lesson design to adapt traditional values and activities by absorbing technological possibilities and expectations that provide a combination of face-to-face and online components. Nowadays, learning based merely on either online or face-to-face has lost its fans, and the third view, called combined education, believes that this method of teaching carries satisfactory results (Wehlburg, 2010: 23). Curriculum integration is a way of organizing shared learning materials or life skills for all citizens and aims to help students learn how to participate in a democratic life (Mehrmohammadi & Abedi, 2001: 47). The traditional approach to education consideres the learner as passive. In the new educational approach, there is interaction between teacher and student and an opportunity to assess the level of student perception is provided, and appropriate and meaningful issues are suggested in the classroom (Adib, & et al., 2015: 117). The new perspective emphasizes the integration of information and perception. As a facilitator of learning, the teacher tries to strike a logical balance between classroom teaching and work teaching, and between intuitive thinking and analytical thinking. This perspective emphasizes the integration of knowledge through its application in meaningful situations, innovation, creativity and knowledge production. (Brahuei Moghadam, Kahrazehi, 2020: 50).
Methodology
The present study is an applied research in terms of purpose and in terms of method is a quasi-experimental design of pre-test post-test with a control group. The statistical population included 1012 female students in the third grade of non-governmental primary schools in Sirjan in the academic year 2020-2021. The statistical sample of this study includes 20 students from the third grade who were selected randomly and were divided into two groups of 10 people in the experimental and control groups. The integrated training sessions were performed in 10 sessions of 45 minutes for the experimental group and the control group did not receive any training. Total sessions were held during the academic year for 2 months and 15 days (equivalent to 10 weeks) until the first half of Aazar, the productive period carried out for 50 days (Dey 25, the time of descriptive-functional evaluation). In pre-test and post-test, both groups answered the research tool, Creativity Questionnaire (Abedi 1993). Findings collected using paired t-test and analysis of covariance including ANCOVA and MANCOVA Were performed and analyzed in SPSS software.
The educational content of the selected courses was considered in the third grade according to the education decree. In the traditional group, Persian literature courses were taught separately from each other. The integrated curriculum in the experimental group includes teaching patterns of rhetoric, pre-organizers, brainstorming, concept perception, inductive thinking in the content of each lesson of Persian literature by combining the teaching model of distance learning E5 online, and at the end, Abedi's creativity questionnaire was used as the post-test. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. The descriptive statistics section describes the sample data. In the inferential section, t-test was used for continuous groups to analyze the research hypotheses, and independent groups' t-test was used to test the hypotheses. The effect of pre-test on post-test was investigated by univariate analysis of covariance. SPSS software was used for data analysis.
Discussion and Results
The results of statistical analysis showed that no significant difference was observed in the average of creativity and its components in the traditional teaching group, and the average of the pre-test and post-test stages of the traditional teaching group was almost equal (p <0.05). But in the integrated education group, the average of creativity and all its components in the post-test stage compared to the pre-test has changed significantly (p <0.05). The results showed that in the integrated training group, the average of creativity and all its components in the post-test stage had a significant increase compared to the pre-test. Also, the effectiveness of integrated training on creativity is confirmed (p <0.05) and integrated training has significantly increased the creativity of the subjects.
Wilkes's multivariate Lambda test showed that the intervention was effective in general and integrated training was able to affect the components of creativity (p <0.05). Also, the study of components showed that the effect of integrated training on all four components of creativity including fluidity, expansion, initiative and flexibility has been confirmed (p <0.05).
Conclusion
The purpose of this study was to compare the effect of integrated teaching methods in comparison with traditional education on students' creativity. The results showed a significant effect of integrated teaching, compared to traditional teaching, on creativity and its components. Specifically, research on the integrated curriculum of teaching patterns of rhetoric, pre-organizers, brainstorming, concept perception, and inductive thinking in the content of each lesson of Persian literature by combining the teaching model of distance learning E5 has not been done online, but the results of this study are consistent with the findings of Banihashemi. Et al (2020), Kadkhodaii & soleimani (2015), Kazemi (2016), Emadi.et al (2018), Rahmatzehi.et al (2018), Ahmadi.et al (2014), Chamaro (2006) and Darras (2019), all of which show the impact of e-learning and integration on increasing students' creativity and learning. Explaining the effect of rhetorical method on increasing students' creativity, it can be said that since this teaching model has been developed with the aim of creating innovation; it has features that, directly and indirectly, teaches metaphorical thinking, motivates learners to use a variety of direct, personal and intensive (contrast) analogies, all of which are aimed at strengthening creative thinking and innovation skills.