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Assessing Creativity in the Schools

Indiana Association for the Gifted Conference

December, 2012

Bonnie Cramond, Ph.D. Director, Torrance Center for

Creativity and Talent Development The University of Georgia

323 Aderhold Hall Athens, GA 30602-7143

bcramond@uga.edu

Some Good Resources for Information on Creativity Measures

•Center for Creative Learning http://www/reativelearning.com/Assess/index.htm

•National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt/resource.html#02170

•Test reviews online, e.g.Buros MMYB http://buros.unl.edu/buros/jsp/search.jsp

•University of Indiana site http://www.indiana.edu/~bobweb/Handout/d5.rat.htm

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Thinking Creatively With Words and Pictures Torrance Tests Combined Demonstrator

Directions: Do not begin until you are told to do so.

Try to think of things that no one else will think of. Try to think of as many ideas as possible. Add details to your ideas to make them complete. If you finish before time is up, you may continue to add details to this page or sit quietly. Please do not go to the next page

Activity 1: Try to think of as many uses as you can for old floppy disks.. You have 2 minutes. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Activity 2: : Just suppose that people could transport themselves from place to place with just a wink of the eye or a twitch of the nose. What might be some things that would happen as a result? You have 2 minutes. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Activity 3: Add lines to the incomplete figures below to make pictures out of them. Try to tell complete stories with your pictures. Give your pictures titles. You have 2 minutes.

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Activity 4: Add details to the triangles below to make pictures out of them. Give your pictures titles. You have 2 minutes.

PERSON

Never Rarely Occasionally Frequently Always Rarely 1 2 3 4 5 6

CREATIVITY CHARACTERISTICS The individual demonstrates... 1. imaginative thinking ability.

2. a sense of humor.

3. the ability to come up with unusual, unique, or clever responses.

4. an adventurous spirit or a willingness to take risks.

From Scales for Rating the Behavioral Characteristics of Superior Students Joseph S. Renzulli, Linda H. Smith, et al. Copyright 2002, 2004 Creative Learning Press Mansfield, CT.

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Gough Personality Scale

Please indicate which of the following adjectives best describe yourself. Check all that apply. This is the scoring key.

___+___ Capable ___-___ Honest

___-___ Artificial ___+___ Intelligent

___+___ Clever ___-___ Well-mannered

___-___ Cautious ___+___ Wide interests

___+___ Confident ___+___ Inventive

___+___ Egotistical ___+___ Original

___-___ Commonplace ___-___ Narrow interests

___+___ Humorous ___+___ Reflective

___-___ Conservative ___-___ Sincere

___+___ Individualistic ___+___ Resourceful

___-___ Conventional ___+___ Self-confident

___+___ Informal ___+___ Sexy

___-___ Dissatisfied ___-___ Submissive

___+___ Insightful ___+___ Snobbish

___-___ Suspicious ___+___ Unconventional

Gough, H. G. (1979). A creative personality scale for the Adjective Check List. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 1398-1405.

Gough, H. G., & Heilbrun, A. B., Jr. (1965). The Adjective Check List manual. Palo Alto, CA: consulting

Psychologists Press.

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ENVIRONMENT

Take the self-test below to see how suitable your work environment currently is for creativity. Rate each item below from 1 low to 6 high.

Climate for Innovation

1. How challenged, how emotionally involved, and how committed am I to the work?

2. How free am I to decide how to do my job?

3. Do we have time to think things through before having to act?

4. Do we have a few resources to give new ideas a try?

5. Do people feel safe in speaking their minds and openly offering different points of view?

6. How relaxed is our workplace - is it OK to have fun?

7. To what degree do people engage in interpersonal conflict or "warfare?"

8. To what degree do people engage in lively debates about the issues?

9. Is it OK to fail when trying new things?

Based on the work of Goran Ekvall in Sweden. Ekvall's work has been further refined and validated by Scott Isaksen and others at the Center for Creative studies at SUNY-Buffalo http://www.thinking.net/Creativity/creativity.html

PRODUCTS Novelty

Surprising Originality

Resolution Logicalness Usefulness Value Understandability

Elaboration and Synthesis Organic qualities Well-craftedness Elegance

Besemer, S. P.(1998). Creative Product Analysis Matrix: Testing the Model Structure and a Comparison Among Products--Three Novel Chairs. Creativity Research Journal.11, 333-347.

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Cropley, D.H., Kaufman, J.C., & Cropley, A.J. (2011). Measuring creativity for innovation

management. Journal of Technology Management & Innovation, 6, 3, 13-29. http://www.scielo.cl/pdf/jotmi/v6n3/art02.pdf

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The Audacity of Creativity Assessment Bonnie Cramond

The University of Georgia

It is audacious and ambitious to attempt to measure a construct such as creativity, but it is the nature of human understanding to base our conceptions on samplings of information. Psychological constructs, which are concepts that cannot be directly observed but are theorized to exist, such as intelligence, creativity, motivation, or personality, are massive, multifaceted, and dynamic. However, we have found that we can take small samples of behaviors that can give us pretty accurate pictures of these constructs. As long as we remember that there are many things that are not in the pictures, that have changed since the pictures were shot, or are not able to be photographed, we may use the pictures to give us a good idea of the construct.

Caveats and Considerations:

Or course, as with all measurement, we must consider reliability and validity. These are some additional considerations.

1. There are false negatives. There are intelligent and creative individuals who do not get high scores on intelligence and creativity measures for many reasons.

2. There are not likely to be false positives. Given valid measures, it is not likely that a student will get a high score on an intelligence test and not be intelligent, or a high score on a creativity test without creative thinking.

3. All tests are not equal. So, one could get very different scores on two different measures of the same construct if the tests are based on different conceptions of the construct.

4. Assessments have a short shelf life. The content and form of the tests, as well as the norms, should be updated periodically to ensure that they are still relevant and representative of current populations

5. Assessment results have a short shelf life, too. Constructs such as intelligence and creativity are now largely considered to be dynamic and developmental rather than fixed amounts at birth.

6. No assessments have pinpoint accuracy. They all have ranges of error that can occur randomly, ao the standard error of measurement for the test should be considered.

Methods and Instruments for Assessing Creativity

Cognitive or Personality One way to conceptualize the different views of creativity is the degree to which creativity is seen as a cognitive ability versus a personality trait. . The more modern, complex view of creativity is of a multi-faceted construct that incorporates such diverse components as genetic influences, cognitive processes, temperament, neuroanatomy, the field, and the domain in an all-encompassing dynamic, or system (c.f. Csikszentmihalyi, 1988; Feldman, 1988). A systems view would require a variety of measures such as creative thinking tests, personality checklists, judgments of real products, and observations of creative behaviors in different situations. Eminent or Everyday While some prefer to study the highest forms of human creativity, others have come to realize the shortcomings or pitfalls oftentimes associated with the biographical approach in studying deceased eminent creators. Hence, some contemporary psychologists have come to favor the empirical rigors of psychometric testing and measures to find everyday creativity. Aptitude or Achievement There is the issue of evaluating production (or achievement) versus potential (or aptitude.) Individuals who are producing artifacts that can be judged as creative often have had experiences and specialized training that allows them to produce at a high level of excellence as compared with others who have not had such training or experiences. An alternative is to provide children with the opportunities to create products and be trained to do so, such as with Maker’s Project Discover (1992, 2009). However, Cropley (2000) argued that all creativity tests must be considered as measures of potential because creative achievement requires additional factors such as motivation, mental health, technical skill, and field knowledge.

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Holistic, Subjective Judgments or Specific, Objective Criteria In describing the consensual assessment technique, Amabile (1982) emphasized the importance of using a product-oriented measure that does not depend on objective criteria. She maintained that such objective criteria are impossible to develop. This is certainly the method by which most creative work is really judged. On the other hand, there are those who maintain that the best way to get valid and reliable judgments of the creativity of products is to use specified criteria that are clearly linked to theories of creativity as well as real world assessments of products. Some criterion-based instruments that can measure creative products in various domains include the Creative Product Semantic Scale (CPSS, O’Quinn & Besemer, 1989) and Creative Product Analysis Matrix (CPAM, Besemer, 1998), as well as a similar system developed by Cropley and Cropley (2009). The Cropleys instrument differs in being more explanatory of the levels for each descriptor. Child or Adult A major consideration, which has strong implications for the choice of an instrument or assessment system is whether one will be assessing children or adults. Some instruments are very age specific whereas others can be geared toward children or adults. Divergent or Convergent Thinking Some have criticized divergent thinking tests as less than adequate in measuring creative ability, although the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking have been found to have good predictive validity even after 50 years (Runco, Millar, Acar, & Cramond, 2010). On the other hand, convergent thinking tests such as the Remote Association Test (Mednick & Mednick, 1967) and standardized IQ tests (i.e. Wechsler’s) do not reliably predict adult level creative achievements. If neither divergent nor convergent thinking ability by itself sufficiently captures the creative potential of an individual, and a confluence of both types of thinking abilities accounts for a larger variance of creative achievement or potential over either type of thinking alone, it is logical to infer that a complete creativity assessment model should take both factors into consideration.

Still others prefer to look at the phenomenon at the neurobiological level, hence, bypassing the fuzzy boundaries between divergent thinking and creative thinking abilities, although the actual assessment tools these researchers use on human subjects are still by and large psychometric. This is certainly a promising area for continued research. However, this research is too new, the relationships too tenuous, and the tools too imprecise for use in identification of creative individuals at this time.

In Context or Decontextualized An area of debate for assessment in general is that of authentic assessment, which is measurement in a natural setting, versus testing that is decontextualized (cf. Messick, 1994). There is much to be said for the legitimacy of authentic assessment. Certainly, Maker’s Discover Method, Amabile’s Consensual Assessment Technique, and other observational methods or product evaluations are more likely to be situated in a learning or life context more than a paper and pencil test. This issue is important both for issues of motivation, especially with children, and with the task specificity of the product or performance. So, if one is interested in performance in a particular field, it is logical to assess performance in the field. General or Specific This leads to a question which is one of the major tensions in the study of creativity—is creativity a generalized ability or is it task specific? One’s belief about this issue will certainly impact the type of assessment chosen. General tests of creative thinking, such as the Guilford Tests, Torrance Tests, and personality measures, assume that creativity can be measured as a way of thinking or being that is generalizable, as conceptualized by the Root-Bernsteins (1999) and others. It may only be expressed in a certain area or areas, but it is a general way of thinking, similar to the idea for g as a general intellectual ability (Gottfredson, 1997). Others contend that creativity is domain-specific (c.f. Gardner, 1997). Clearly, measures of aptitude in specific areas or assessment of specific products are more appropriate for such assessment.

This question brings up the measurement concern of bandwidth versus fidelity raised by Cronbach (1970): The wider the area measured (bandwidth) the less precise the measurement (fidelity). So, a test of general creativity would have a wider bandwidth resulting in lower fidelity. A specific test will have greater fidelity, but less bandwidth.

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Self or Other Another concern is the source of information for the assessment. Tests and product evaluations involve an initial response by an individual that is then rated by one or more judges. Self-identification checklists, such as the RIBS, are completely dependent upon input by the individual. Other checklists, though dependent upon observations of an individual’s behavior, emphasize the input of the person completing the checklist.

The Four Ps

One system for studying creativity that honors its multidimensionality is called the four Ps (Rhodes 1961): Person, Process, Product, and Press.

Person In studies of the creative person, several common traits are evident regardless of the domain in which the individuals operate. Tardif and Sternberg (1988) compiled a list of such characteristics from research studies, and concluded that although there is no one personality trait that can differentiate creative people from those less creative, there are constellations of traits that are commonly mentioned in studies of the personality of creative individuals (p. 435). These personality traits include, in order of the most commonly mentioned to the least commonly mentioned in the studies: psychological risk taking; perseverance; curiosity; openness to experiences; driving absorption; self-discipline, commitment, and task focus; high intrinsic motivation; freedom of spirit that rejects limits; self-organization; and a need for self-efficacy and challenge (p. 435-436). These personality traits can be measured through personality tests and observations. Process Although the detailed creative process for each individual is probably idiosyncratic, Wallas’ (1926) four-stage process: preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification, provides an overarching model that has been found to apply to both the arts and the sciences (Langley & Jones, 1988). Yet, it was the operational processes of fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration, as described by Guilford (1956) that enabled psychologists such as Guilford and Torrance to create assessments of creativity. In 1979, after studying creativity for over thirty years, Torrance released the Streamlined Scoring for the figural version of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, which goes beyond the original FFOE system developed by Guilford to include additional psychological constructs and creative behaviors. Product Ultimately, what brings a creative person attention and what causes the process to be valued is the product, and evaluating creative products is considered the purview of each domain. However, history has shown us that the gatekeepers in a domain are not typically the most forward thinking. So, the problem of evaluating products in a domain becomes one of combining the wisdom of domain knowledge with the sensitivity to and appreciation of innovation. As discussed above, this is usually done by judges of some kind, but there are differences of opinion about whether the judges should be guided by established criteria or by their inherent standards and implicit understandings of creativity. Press The final P of the system is Press, which refers to the environmental factors that affect creativity. The press includes time and place as well as the people, culture, physical setting, political climate, resources available, etc. Researchers such as Amabile and her colleagues (KEYS, 1995) and Ekvall (Situational Outlook Questionnaire, [SIQ], 1996) have sought to determine the factors in an environment that are conducive to creativity. Slightly different in focus, but also designed to assess organizational creativity, Basadur and Hausdorf (1996) developed a questionnaire to measure attitudes within an organization toward creativity and creative problem solving.

Conclusion

Yes, it is audacious to attempt to measure creativity, but the value of recognizing and nurturing creativity for the good of the individual and society is so great that we should not shirk from the task because it is challenging. Rather, we should use the best means available to identify creative abilities while continuing to refine existing

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measures and develop new and better ones. Such a task requires audacity, but rather than being daunted, we should remember the words of Disraeli (1833), “Success is the child of audacity” (p. 9).

This paper is abridged from: Cramond, B., & Wang, L. (in press). The audacity of creativity assessment. In S. Hunsaker (Ed.). Identification of

Students for Gifted and Talented Education Services: Theory and Practice. Mansfield, CT: Creative Learning Press.

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Three Novel Chairs. Creativity Research Journal, 11, 333-346.

Besemer, S. P., & O'Quin, K. (1999). Confirming the Three-Factor Creative Product Analysis Matrix Model in an American Sample. Creativity Research Journal, 12(4), 287-296.

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from http://www.uky.edu/~cecilia/MCSM/mcsm.htm