Using Design Thinking in the Organizing Experiential Activities to Promote Problem-Solving Abilities of Young Children

Abstract

The purposes of the research were 1) to investigate the implementation of the design thinking in organizing experiential activities to promote problem-solving abilities in young children, and 2) to compare the problem-solving abilities in young children before and after participating in the organizing experiential activities by using design thinking. The target group consisted of 6 preschoolers in their third year at Ban Liam-Philuek School, Mueang Udon thani District, Udon thani Province, under the supervision of Udon thani Primary Education Service Area Office 1, Semester 2, Academic Year 2023. The research instruments included 1) the 32 lesson plans on using design thinking in organizing experiential activities from 8 units and each unit included 4 plans with the highest level of appropriateness (= 4.85, S.D. = 0.26), and      2) the problem-solving ability test in young children (IOC = 0.96). The statistic used were mean, standard deviation, and percentage.

          The results of the study shown that 1) there were 5 steps of using design thinking in organizing experiential activities to promote problem-solving abilities in young children as follows; understanding the problem, defining the problem, brainstorming, prototyping and trial. These activities were found to enhance the problem-solving skills of young children,       2) after participating in using design thinking in organizing experiential activities of young children demonstrated an overall improvement in their problem-solving ability. Before  the experiment, the scores were at an acceptable level (= 35.50, S.D. = 7.82), whereas after the experiment, the scores significantly improved to a good level (= 45.33, S.D. = 5.61).