title: Effects of the Skills4Genius sports-based training program in creative behavior.
abstract: Team Sports has been suggested as a suitable environment to investigate creative behavior. This study's purpose was two-fold: first, it intended to identify the effects of the Skills4Genius sports-bases training program in thinking, motor, and in-game creative behavior in team sports. Second, it aimed to investigate the relationship between creative thinking and in-game creativity. Forty children from primary school were allocated into control (n = 18, age: 9.2±0.4) and experimental (n = 22, age: 9.5±0.7) groups. The experimental group participated in a five-month training program involving either creative thinking, diversification, physical literacy, and nonlinear pedagogy approaches (Skills4Genius). Variables in the study included: a) creative thinking; b) motor performance (vertical jump, speed, and agility); c) in-game individual creative behavior (attempts, fluency, and versatility); and d) in-game collective behavior (positional regularity). The results suggested that the Skills4Genius program fostered creative thinking, agility, and speed performance. Moreover, it stretched the in-game individual creative behavior mainly through the improvement of the attempts and versatility of the player's actions. Lastly, it nurtured a better learning of the tactical principles, whereas the children were more coordinated with their teammates' and opponents' positioning. Additionally, this study presents a positive correlation linking creative thinking and in-game creative performance. These findings highlighted that creativity is facilitated while players become more thinking and game-skilled. Coaches and educators may apply this functional environment to inspire children's disposition to move outside the box and trigger a creative spark in team sports players. Notwithstanding, the sports environment is ideally suited for fostering creative behavior, a higher-order disposition that will go on to differentiate the everyday life of a child.
authors.affiliation: Research Centre in Sports Sciences, Health Sciences and Human Development, CIDESD, CreativeLab Research Community, University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, Vila Real, Portugal.
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Santos
authors.affiliation: Facultad de Ciencias de la Actividad Física y el Deporte, Universidad Europea de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: Sergio
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jiménez
authors.affiliation: Research Centre in Sports Sciences, Health Sciences and Human Development, CIDESD, CreativeLab Research Community, University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, Vila Real, Portugal.
authors.forename: Jaime
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sampaio
authors.affiliation: Research Centre in Sports Sciences, Health Sciences and Human Development, CIDESD, CreativeLab Research Community, University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, Vila Real, Portugal.
authors.forename: Nuno
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Leite
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D003405:Creativity; D006801:Humans; D009043:Motor Activity; D013177:Sports; D013850:Thinking