Influence of school environment on children's environmental perception and creativity

Chidren's physical environments (housing environment, schools and parks, etc.) affect the performance of children's cognition, emotion, behavior and creative thinking about the space and it is an important research topic to examine how children perceive and transform these spaces. This research aimed to develop a unique method to identify possible relationships between children's cognitive, emotional and behavioral experiences, and their creative thoughts about their school grounds. In the first phase of the study, which was carried out in four schools with 62 students aged 9-11 years, the participants expressed their existing and imagined school ground and its environment by writing or drawing in a certain period. In the second phase, the participants were interviewed for their emotional and behavioral experiences. The data was firstly evaluated considering the expressive techniques children use in their experiences, then the relationship between spatial perceptions and creative thinking performances was examined with respect to spatial awareness, emotion-behavior towards the space and the characteristics of the imagined school area. The results show that there is no direct relationship between the participants' spatial awareness and creative thinking performances, but suggests that the space interacts with creativity like other externalities (education, socio-cultural environment, and individual characteristics). Moreover, the spatial organization of educational spaces shape the cognition, emotion, and behavior of children. The findings indicate that formal characteristics of space as well as educational curriculum and social environment affect children's cognitive development and creative thinking tendency. The original and innovative method for measuring the spatial awareness, emotion, behavior and creative thinking performance of children can be a pioneer for subsequent studies in this area.