Answered Questions

I’ve found some information which will probably be helpful to you. Link to the Advanced Education Research LibGuide at http://libguides.brenau.edu/grad-ed. We have just recently developed this guide. Once there, click on the Early Childhood tab. Of the databases listed, I searched ERIC (because it’s huge), Wilson OmniFile (because I clicked the Find IT button under an ERIC article that I wanted and was linked to OmniFile for the full text) and Education Journals (ProQuest) (to check out what a different vendor offered. To do a thorough search, I would also check the remainder of the databases listed.

ERIC: I searched (creativity or "creative thinking") AND Montessori. Don’t forget the parentheses and quotation marks; they are important to the search. I limited the search to peer reviewed articles from 2001-2011. The first article seems to be very valuable: Besancon, M., & Lubart, T. (2008). Differences in the development of creative competencies in children schooled in diverse learning environments. Learning and Individual Differences, 18(4), 381-389. Studies on the development of creativity have highlighted the impact of learning environments. In particular, pedagogical approaches are hypothesized to differ concerning their emphasis on individual initiative, and action-based learning. A semi-longitudinal study was conducted during two consecutive years with 210 children in elementary schools with traditional and alternative pedagogical approaches. Our results highlight (1) an influence of pedagogy on children's creative performance; (2) a positive influence of alternative pedagogy on creative development from year 1 to year 2 mainly for Montessori school. Children's creative performance was influenced not only by the type of task but also by the type of school. It’s not available full text; if you don’t already have it, you can request it using the Request Information Delivery button on the database.

Another of the articles is in Young Children (peer reviewed), which the library has in print. The remainder are from Montessori Life (peer reviewed). By clicking the Find IT button, I discovered that we have several years of full text coverage of Montessori Life in the Wilson OmniFile database. You can link to it from ERIC, or from the Early Childhood tab in the LibGuide.

Wilson OmniFile: If you link to OmniFile directly from ERIC, you will automatically be searching just Montessori Life. Using the search box on the right, you can search within the results for (creativity or "creative thinking"). If you link from the LibGuide, search "Montessori Life" AND (creativity or "creative thinking"). Limit the date as before. This yields 6 results, including Luther, D. M. (2004). lnspiring a culture of creativity, One school's journey. Montessori Life, 16(3), 28-31. This is not a study, but may have value.

Education Journals (ProQuest): Searching Montessori AND (creativity or "creative thinking") and limiting to peer reviewed articles from 2001-2011 yielded 147 results. Many are from Montessori Life, but there are others, such as Geist, E., & Hohn, J. (2009). Encouraging creativity in the face of administrative convenience: How our schools discourage divergent thinking. Education, 130(1), 141-150. Because ProQuest searches the full text of its articles (rather than just the abstract), the results are much less focused. You can focus using the right tool bar on the results page. Under SUBJECT, you will see creativity. Clicking INCLUDE will bring out the four articles specifically on creativity. It might be beneficial, though, to wade through most of the articles to see what they say about creativity. The annotation under the article title on the results page will show you the context in which your search terms appear in the article.

These strategies should get you started!