Do You Use Creativity Tests? October 5, 2012
Posted by keithsawyer in Uncategorized.Tags: apple logo, bonnie cramond, divergent thinking, torrance center, TTCT
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In my recent blog post about the Apple logo experiment, I made the claim that “divergent thinking” tests of creativity were not reliable. In response, I received a collegial but politely critical email from Bonnie Cramond, Director of the Torrance Center at the University of Georgia. The center is named for legendary creativity researcher Paul Torrance, who is primarily known today as the developer of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, or TTCT. As I wrote in my 2012 book Explaining Creativity, the TTCT is the most thoroughly developed and most widely used test of creativity, and it’s largely based on divergent thinking tasks. After reviewing many research articles about the TTCT, I concluded that it does not meet the levels of reliability and validity that psychologists expect from tests of human abilities. For example, there are several studies that fail to find a relationship between TTCT scores and real-world creativity–suggesting that whatever it is measuring, the TTCT might not be a “valid” measure of creativity.
Professor Cramond rejects this conclusion. And she can point to different studies that find a predictive relationship between TTCT scores and real-world creativity. Regarding reliability, in our email exchange, she argued that you can manipulate the outcome of any test by modifying the instructions–even IQ tests. As an example, she referred to the famous “Mozart effect” study (from 1993) that found that when college students listen to Mozart, and take a test of spatio-temporal reasoning a few minutes afterward, their scores go up. (The test that was used was one of the components of the Stanford-Binet IQ test, but it was not the complete IQ test.)
It would be wonderful if educators and schools had a good measure of creative potential. Professor Cramond and I agree that the TTCT is the best one we have. Have you used the TTCT? What is your experience? Are you a fan, or are you skeptical?
Well i think that apart from the validity issue of creativity tests there are also isues of proper assessment. Please see my recent papers about the use of a relative new category of Item Response Theory models , namely unfolding or ideal IRT models for the assessment of creativity and emotional intelligence:1. Unfolding the measurement of the creative personality, The Journal of Creative Behavior, 44, 2, 105-123.
Thank you! Yes, Professor Cramond made the point to me in an email, that it’s essential to implement the assessment properly (the setting and instructions have to be standardized, for example). I don’t know about Item Response Theory, but I will take a look.
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Thanks for your post, it is quite timely. I am co-facilitating a workshop next month on assessing creativity as part of a small conference on teaching, creativity and neuroscience: http://www.southeasternbrainconference.org. I look forward to learning more about this fascinating and elusive topic.
I have taken the TTCT and studied a little about it, though I am not overly impressed, like any measurement, it is how you handle the results, and nudge people to their creative potential that matters. I prefer the profile tests that have greater reliability and validity such as the KAI and Foursight instruments. Knowing what your creative propensities are and how they fit into a larger, collaborative world is what is important.
I wish I could be there! I don’t know of the Foursight assessment, can you provide a link to a web page for it?
http://www.foursightonline.com/
It’s an easy test to administer live, or of course take online.