The effect of energizing and calming movement warm-ups on third grade children's original verbal images

Movement warm-ups have been reported to have had success in facilitating creative production, especially the originality factor. The purpose of this study was to determine whether energetic or calming movement warm-ups which have low relatedness to the test task would positively influence the verbal originality of third graders at different levels of language achievement.
Two hundred and seventy five third grade subjects from an urban city of mixed socio-economic standing were randomly assigned to one of four groups. A posttest-only control group design was used. Variables in the 4 X 3 two-way analysis cf variance included four levels cf group (energetic movement, calming movement, friendly attention, and control) and three levels of language achievement (high, middle, and lew) as determined by subjects' local percentile rankings on the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills. Qualitative data was collected through experimenter journals and interviews with subjects.
The movement groups received movement warm-ups, either calming or energetic. A friendly attention group, included to control for the Hawthorne effect, chatted with the experimenter instead of receiving a movement warm-up. The Sounds and Images test (Torrance, Khatena, & Cunnington, 1973) was administered to the controls and to the treatment groups immediately after the warm-ups.
Significant main effects were found for group ( F =20.71, df =3/263, pC.001) and language ( £ =10.48, di =2/263, p<.001) but there was no interaction. Duncan's Multiple Range Test revealed that the friendly attention and control groups scored significantly higher (p<.05) than the calming and energetic warm-up groups which did not differ significantly from each other. High and middle language achievement levels scored significantly higher than the low language achievement levels although high and middle levels did not differ significantly from each other.
In this study low task related movement warm-ups negatively influenced third graders' verbal criginality as measured by Sounds and Images. Qualitative data and other research suggest that these results may be due to a context effect and low task relatedness. The context effect might be minimized if the warm-up activity bears high relation to the test.