Promoting creativity in early childhood education

interviews conducted with experts, ‘open-ended questions were prepared’ in order to deter- mine the opinions of teachers and teacher candidates for the aims of the study. The steps to develop the data collection tool is listed in Table 2. Due to the pandemic, the opinions of teach- ers and teacher candidates were obtained using online methods. After the subject and aims of the study were explained to teachers and teacher candidates, open-ended online questionaire forms were sent to volunteers, and they were asked to answer the questions in the data collec- tion tool. The participants were told that it was prominent that they put emphasis on their per- sonal experiences and pay attention to their practices or future practices while offering suggestions. The first part of the data collection tool includes the personal information of teachers and teacher candidates. The second part of the data collection tool focuses on the prominence of creativity and creative thinking in the preschool stage. The third part contains what should be done in order to promote creativity and creative thinking during the preschool stage while the fourth part focuses on in- class and out of class activities that affect creativity and creative thinking. The fifth part includes the suggestions of preschool teachers and teacher candidates on the contribution of Preschool Educational Program on the development of crea- tivity and creative thinking in children. The data collection stage and ethical procedure During the data collection process, it was stated that teachers and teacher candidates were to

pay attention to certain criteria while filling in the open-ended questionnaire forms. 1. The open-ended questionnaires were sent to teachers via online methods as it was impossi- ble to conduct face-to-face interviews with the participants because of the pandemic. These open-ended questionnaire were conducted between March 15th 2021 and June 28th 2021. 2. Before filling in the open-ended questionnaire forms, written consent form was signed by adult participants to make sure that they are aware of the ethical issues. 3. Each teacher and candidate teacher was told that that codings would be used instead of their names, and that their real names would not be used so as to ensure that the partici- pants would answer the research questions sincerely. 4. The data obtained in the pilot study was not included in the final findings of the study. 5. Codings were given to each participant, and their names and schools were kept secret so that teachers would give sincere answers to research questions. The abbreviations used for the coding for the reporting were made as: - Teacher 1 (T1) - Teacher Candidate 1 (TC1) - Teacher 2 (T2) - Teacher Candidate 2 (TC2) Table 2. The steps used to develop the data collection tool. Step 1: The open-ended questionnaire was structured with four questions Step 2: The open- ended questionnaire form was examined by 3 experts who were experienced in qualitative research. The statements for the items were changed based on the views of the experts. The new forms were re-sent to the experts for a second examination.

Step 3: The questions in the open-ended questionnaire form were directed to 3 teachers for the pilot study. Some changes were made in statements which were unclear. Step 4: Following the pilot study, the questions in the open-ended questionnaire were examined by 3 experts who were experienced in qualitative research for the correction of statements which were unclear. Step 5: The final form of the open-ended questionnaire form was prepared in order to be used in the study. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0294915.t002 PLOS ONE Creativity in early childhood PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0294915 December 6, 2023 6 / 21