The Gold Standard for Assessing Creativity

Author(s):  
John Baer ◽  
Sharon S. McKool

The most widely used creativity assessments are divergent thinking tests, but these and other popular creativity measures have been shown to have little validity. The Consensual Assessment Technique is a powerful tool used by creativity researchers in which panels of expert judges are asked to rate the creativity of creative products such as stories, collages, poems, and other artifacts. The Consensual Assessment Technique is based on the idea that the best measure of the creativity of a work of art, a theory, a research proposal, or any other artifact is the combined assessment of experts in that field. Unlike other measures of creativity, the Consensual Assessment Technique is not based on any particular theory of creativity, which means that its validity (which has been well established empirically) is not dependent upon the validity of any particular theory of creativity. The Consensual Assessment Technique has been deemed the “gold standard” in creativity research and can be very useful in creativity assessment in higher education.

Author(s):  
John Baer ◽  
Sharon S. McKool

The Consensual Assessment Technique is a powerful tool used by creativity researchers in which panels of expert judges are asked to rate the creativity of creative products such as stories, collages, poems, and other artifacts. Experts in the domain in question serve as judges; thus, for a study of creativity using stories and poems, a panel of writers and/or teachers of creative writing might judge the creativity of the stories, and a separate panel of poets and/or poetry critics might judge the creativity of the poems. The Consensual Assessment Technique is based on the idea that the best measure of the creativity of a work of art, a theory, a research proposal, or any other artifact is the combined assessment of experts in that field. Unlike other measures of creativity, such as divergent-thinking tests, the Consensual Assessment Technique is not based on any particular theory of creativity, which means that its validity (which has been well established empirically) is not dependent upon the validity of any particular theory of creativity. This chapter explains the Consensual Assessment Technique, discusses how it has been used in research, and explores ways it might be employed in assessment in higher education.


2005 ◽  
Vol 100 (3) ◽  
pp. 592-598 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen J. Dollinger ◽  
Marina Shafran

Amabile's Consensual Assessment Technique is commonly used in research on creative products. This study evaluates a modification of that technique which may facilitate research on creative products by calibrating nonexpert judges to expert judges in previous studies. University students ( N = 200; 59% women, M = 22.3 yr. of age, SD = 5.5) devised drawings to the Test of Creative Thinking-Drawing Production stimulus. These drawing products were rated by five artist-judges using the CAT and five psychologist-judges who first viewed 16 examples of the range of drawings in a previous study, referred to here as the modified consensual assessment technique. The 20 ratings of product creativity loaded on a single principal component, and the mean ratings correlated .91. Finally, the correlations of these ratings with other measures of creativity were nearly identical. Thus, a slight modification of the technique may be useful in programmatic research when the creativity task is not modified across studies and participants are like the present sample rather than from groups with specialized training or artistic talent.


Author(s):  
John Baer

This article reviews research and theory dealing with the psychology of creativity. It begins with a discussion of the most influential and widely known theory of creativity, which is based on the structure of the intellect model. It then considers four aspects of divergent thinking that are frequently mentioned in the literature, along with two models for classifying creativity: the “four P” model and the four C model. The article describes other theories of creativity, including the chance configuration theory, the propulsion model, and the five-factor theory of personality. Finally, it examines other important issues in creativity research, such as mental illness, gender differences, birth order, and IQ. It also looks at some of the approaches used in the assessment of creativity, including the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking and the consensual assessment technique. Finally, it explores the issue of teaching creativity.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David H Cropley ◽  
Rebecca L Marrone

One of the abiding challenges in creativity research is assessment. Objectively scored tests of creativity such as the Torrance Tests of Creativity (TTCT) and the Test of Creative Thinking - Drawing Production (TCT-DP) offer high levels of reliability and validity but are slow and expensive to administer and score. As a result, many creativity researchers default to simpler and faster self-report measures of creativity and related constructs (e.g., creative self-efficacy, openness). Recent research, however, has begun to explore the use of computational approaches to address these limitations. Examples include the Divergent Association Task (DAT) that uses computational methods to rapidly assess the semantic distance of words, as a proxy for divergent thinking. To date, however, no research appears to have emerged that uses methods drawn from the field of artificial intelligence to assess existing objective, figural (i.e., drawing) tests of creativity. This paper describes the application of machine learning, in the form of a convolutional neural network, to the assessment of a figural creativity test – the TCT-DP. The approach shows excellent accuracy and speed, eliminating traditional barriers to the use of these objective, figural creativity tests and opening new avenues for automated creativity assessment.


Author(s):  
Christine Charyton ◽  
Zorana Ivcevic ◽  
Jonathan A. Plucker ◽  
James C. Kaufman

This chapter discusses creativity assessment as a means for evaluating skills required in higher education. Creativity is assessed in the context of the creative person, process, product and press or environment. Creativity is also measured differently in various domains, which we illustrate using divergent thinking tests. A historical view of creativity assessment is addressed with a substantive approach to understanding the construct of creativity, its measurement and evaluation, and the broader implications for use in higher education settings. The authors provide a comprehensive overview of the different ways creativity is assessed and hope to inform researchers concerned about finding ways to better individualize instruction and to evaluate the effectiveness of educational programs.


Author(s):  
Jieun Kwon ◽  
Luke Bromback ◽  
Barry Kudrowitz

The external validity of existing creativity tests was examined in the product-design field. To examine the external validity, this study adopted the Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT), by which industry leaders directly rate product ideas for their creativity. A simple correlation analysis showed that among three broadly used creativity tests (Remote Associations Test, Alternative Uses Test, and Torrance Test for Creative Thinking), only the Alternative Uses Test (AUT) was found to predict creativity in the product-design industry. In addition to the correlations analysis, two factors, product familiarity and level of interest, were tested for moderation. The results show that familiarity with the product lessens RAT-CAT (Remote Associations Test - Consensual Assessment Technique) correlation, whereas level of interest strengthens the correlation. Thus, the less familiar and more interested an individual is in the product, the more likely the individual’s divergent thinking skills will translate into an actual creative product idea.


2021 ◽  
pp. 030573562098878
Author(s):  
Maud Hickey ◽  
Daniel Healy ◽  
Casey Schmidt

The purpose of this study was to determine how inter-rater reliability scores for iPad improvisations and clarinet improvisations would compare between two different creativity assessment measures—the Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT) and the Test of Ability to Improvise (TAI). In addition, we examined how the overall and subscore ratings for each measure related to each other. Improvisation files were collected from 43 students who had 2 to 3 years’ experience on the clarinet. Two independent panels of judges rated the improvisations using either the CAT or the TAI. Results showed no relationships between the composite or subscores of the two measures. Inter-rater reliability ratings were moderate, and slightly higher on the TAI than the CAT except for the subscore of creativity, where the CAT reliability scores were higher. Further research is needed to understand the more nuanced differences between these two measures, as well as to find a valid a reliable tool for the measurement of creativity and improvisation for school-aged children.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Selina Weiss ◽  
Oliver Wilhelm ◽  
Patrick Kyllonen

The assessment of creativity presents major challenges. The many competing and complementary ideas on measuring creativity have resulted in a wide diversity of measures, making it difficult for potential users to decide on their appropriateness. Prior research has proposed creativity assessment taxonomies, but we argue that these have shortcomings because they often were not designed to (a) assess the essential assessment features and (b) are insufficiently specified for reliably categorizing extant measures. Based on prior categorization approaches, we propose a new framework for categorizing creativity measures including the following attributes: (a) measurement approach (self-report, other-report, ability tests), (b) construct (e.g., creative interests and attitudes, creative achievements, divergent thinking), (c) data type generated (e.g., questionnaire data vs. accomplishments counts), (d) prototypical scoring method (e.g., consensual assessment technique; CAT), and (e) psychometric problems. We identified 228 creativity measures appearing in the literature since 1900 and classified each measure according to their task attributes by two independent raters (rater agreement Cohen’s kappa .83 to 1.00 for construct). We provide a summary of convergent validity evidence and psychometric shortcomings. We conclude with recommendations for using the taxonomy and some psychometric desiderata for future research.


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