Measuring Creativity in Students

Steven E. Stemler, Ph.D.Wesleyan University

12.08.11

4 Approaches to Measuring Creativity

1. Creative Person

2. Creative Product

3. Creative Process

4. Creative Environment

1. Creative Person• Key Issues

o Big-C v. Little-C Creativityo Self-enhancement/Social Desirability via Self-Report

1. Creative Person• Assumptions of the Approach

o Personality Traito Relatively Fixed

• Typical Measuremento Adjective Checklistso Self-reports, External evaluations

• Known relationso Openness to new experience, Tolerance for Ambiguityo Curious, Active, Adventurous, Enthusiastico Self-confident, resourceful, industrious

2. Creative Product• Key Issues

o Domain-specific v. Domain-generalo Judgment of products (Psychometric issues with

Portfolios)

2. Creative Product• Typical Measurement

o Student Theses or Capstone Experiences• Domain-specific products

o http://thewondrous.com/2009/08/10-photos-of-most-creative-dog-grooming-show/ o Rainbow Measures

• Oral and Written Stories

• Known relationso Predicts FYGPA1

o Reduced Ethnic Differences in Achievement

1 Sternberg, R.J., and the Rainbow Project Collaborators (2006). The Rainbow Project: Enhancing the SAT through assessments of analytical, practical, and creative skills. Intelligence, 34, 321-350.

3. Creative Process• Key Issues

o Cognitive Subcomponents of Creativityo Little-C Creativityo Domain-general v. Domain-specifico Relationship to actual achievement/productso High-fidelity v. Low-fidelity assessment

• Apollo 13 – Square Peg in a Round Holeo http://movieclips.com/ukKJv-apollo-13-movie-square-peg-in-a-round-hole/

3. Creative Process• Assumptions of the Approach

o Domain-general processes

• Typical Measuremento Divergent Thinking Taskso Functional Fixednesso Adaptability/Mental Flexibility

• Known relationso Relate to FYGPA2

o Relates to Life Satisfaction

2 Matthew & Stemler (2008). Exploring pattern recognition as a predictor of mental flexibility.Final report submitted to the Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences.

3. Creative Process• Room Task

o Adaptability

• Story Tasko Flexibility

• Maze Tasko Adaptability

• Word Recognition Tasko Flexibility/Fluency

Word Recognition Test

4. Creative Environment

• Industrial/Organizational Approach

• Conditions that Stimulate Creativity?o Supervisory encouragemento Freedom to choose and work on assignmentso Sufficient resourceso Optimal workload pressureso Some degree of constraint

Key Issues in the Measurement of Creativity

• Big-C v. Little-C

• Domain-specific v. Domain-general

• Cognitive Subcomponents of Creativity

• How to judge products/portfolio assessment

• High-fidelity v. Low-fidelity assessment