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The Open Education Journal, 2011, 4, (Suppl 2:M5) 124-132
Open Access
Assessing Creativity in the Classroom
Baptiste Barbot*,1, Maud Besançon2 and Todd I. Lubart2
1
Yale University, Child Study Center, New Haven, CT, USA
2
Paris Descartes University, Laboratoire Adaptation Travail Individu (LATI), Paris, France
Abstract: This article provides a historical presentation of creativity assessment from a psychological perspective (since
Guilford), from traditional divergent thinking tasks, to current theoretical models of creativity assessment which allow
creativity to be assessed in different domains, capturing the multidimensionality of creative potential (e.g. EPoC). These
techniques and alternative assessment tools are contextualized by addressing their interest for educational programs which
take into account children’s needs (as suggested by their creative profile). Finally, we discuss the importance of assessing
creativity reliably in the classroom, to study the efficiency of these educational intervention programs aiming to promote
student creativity.
Keywords: Creativity assessment, divergent thinking, creative style, evaluation of potential for creativity, EPoC.
INTRODUCTION
“What is creativity?”, “Is this student creative?”, “How
can we improve creativity in children?” These questions are
of interest in many fields of social sciences and are regularly
addressed by psychologists, educators and teachers. The
responses to these questions depend, however, on the general
issue of assessing creativity. In our contemporary society in
which individuals have to adjust constantly to new problems
and find original solutions, creativity is indeed a feature that
has become increasingly important. A crucial issue for both
creativity research and practical applications is thus to assess
properly creativity to support and guide its development and
to contribute to the identification of children with special
needs (e.g., gifted children with school difficulties).
The goal of this article is not to review exhaustively the
large number of assessment methods — which essentially
present all the same limits — but rather to provide an
overview of the field and the different ways to measure the
creative potential that can be used for educational purposes.
First, we propose a general presentation of the field of
creativity and the context in which different approaches to
the concept emerged. Second, we describe the main methods
of assessment available, with emphasis on the most popular
techniques, their advantages and limits. Third, we present
EPoC (Evaluation of Potential for Creativity [1]) a new
multifaceted, domain-specific, modular test battery that
allows evaluators to capture the multidimensionality of the
creative potential to derive profiles of potential for creativity.
Finally, we contextualize creativity assessment methods by
addressing their use and misuse in the classroom and
educational settings.
*Address correspondence to this author at the Child Study Center, Yale
University, 230 South Frontage Rd., New Haven, CT 06520-7900, USA;
Tel: (+1) 203-785-4239; Fax: (+1) 203-785-3002;
E-mail: baptiste.barbot@yale.edu
1874-9208/11
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
ASSESSMENT
ON
CREATIVITY
The field of creativity has dramatically expanded since
the second half of the last century. In fact, the term
“creativity” itself was not systematically employed before
the 50’s although a clear interest was apparent in a few – but
still influential – works on the topic, including philosophical
essays (e.g., Bergson, James), introspective descriptions of
the concepts of scientific discovery and invention by
recognized scientists (e.g., Poincaré, Einstein), conceptual
models of the creative process [2], and the first empirical
studies in the 40’s [3, 4]. In fact, until the 50’s, the study of
creativity was, thus far, essentially related to the study of
gifted or talented individuals, and therefore mainly
interpreted as an exceptional process. Consequently,
assessment of creativity was not a primary concern at the
time because creativity was recognizable by the
extraordinary creative outcomes / achievements of
individuals. It is, however, worth noting that Binet’s pioneer
test battery for intelligence assessment in children [5, 6]
included some items on “creative imagination” — not items
of creative potential per se – that were progressively dropped
from the test battery along with the “purification” of the
concept of intelligence.
Since Guilford’s [7] presidential address to the American
Psychological Association, and other pioneering work of the
time, creativity has been viewed as a psychological
dimension that is widely distributed in the general
population, which can be developed and measured. This new
approach to the concept marks the starting point for modern
interest in creativity and corresponds to an increasing focus
on “everyday” creativity, “mini-c” creativity or “psychological” creativity – as opposed to historical creativity,
eminent creativity, big-C creativity or genius [8-10]. From
this time, and more clearly from the 60’s, the field of
creativity has seen a progressive increase of the description
and definition of the concept, development of measures and
assessment techniques, including major works that strongly
influenced the field nowadays [11-13]. However, in the 90’s,
2011 Bentham Open
Assessing Creativity
the creativity research literature increased exponentially with
the appearance of new scientific journals, international
conferences and book series on the topic, which coincided on
the other hand, with significant progress in psychometric
science.
Due to the multiplicity of the conceptual approaches of
creativity used at that time, the field of creativity assessment
was viewed as experiencing a “mid-life crisis” [14] with a
problematic proliferation of assessment techniques showing
lack of definition and limited educational applications [14].
Most of these numerous techniques and new assessment
tools have also been criticized for their weak psychometric
properties or lack of up-to date norms to situate individual
performance in developmental, gendered and culturalrelevant groups of comparison [15]. These major issues in
creativity assessment reduced dramatically the number of
efficient techniques available. Again, it is likely that
imprecision surrounding the definition of creativity was the
source of most of the difficulty encountered in assessment
and the proliferation of assessment tools.
Indeed, defining creativity is a research topic per se [16].
As an illustration, Treffinger [17] reviewed and presented
more than 100 different definitions from the literature and
there are at least as many techniques to assess it [15]
probably because numerous scientists dealt with this
conceptual issue by proposing both a definition of creativity
and a method for its assessment. However, assuming that
there is not a certain consensus, or a least some core
elements to define creativity would be incorrect. Indeed, a
usual way to define creativity is the ability to produce
something which is both new/original and task/domain
appropriate [18-22].
Whatever the definition of creativity used, post Guilford,
and still currently, important research efforts tried to identify
the psychological factors that best predict creative outcomes
and many assessment techniques for creative potential have
used these relevant factors surrounding creative potential as
a means to measure creativity. In other words, measures of
“components” involved in creativity — in particular,
divergent thinking measures, that we will review in the next
section — have, been interpreted, wrongly, as “pure
measures” of “general” creative potential.
It is today accepted that no single ability or trait is the
key to creativity. Indeed, creativity involves a combination
of cognitive (information processing), conative (personality
traits, motivational aspects), and emotional factors (affective
state, trait) that are interacting dynamically with the
environment (which stimulates or inhibits the expression of
creative potential; see Besançon and Lubart [23]) resulting in
the uniqueness of the creative process and product. It is
hypothesized that, as these factors are present to varying
degrees in each individual, both ordinary and exceptional
levels of creativity can be explained by a specific
combination of these factors (exceptional levels would result
in an optimal combination of these factors, which is
obviously extremely rarely found in the general population).
Furthermore, it is accepted that the ability to produce
creative work is partly domain-specific because the nature of
creativity varies with the field, and could even vary as a
function of the task within a domain [24] or the constraints
within the task [25]. Consequently, the concept of creativity
The Open Education Journal, 2011, Volume 4
125
has evolved toward a “multivariate” framework, in which
creativity is viewed as a multi-faceted and domain-specific
ability, which can be developed and can be assessed properly
by assessment tools tapping into the multidimensionality of
this ability [1]. These many faces of creativity that no one
single measurement instrument can capture resulted in a new
modern myth on creativity, that there really aren’t any good
tests of creativity [26].
DIFFERENT MEASURES,
SAME ISSUES
DIFFERENT
GOALS,
As suggested above, creativity assessment developed
along with the evolution of the concept of creativity, and
along with the questions that researchers addressed when
developing their tools (questions that were representative of
their time). As the field has been expanding, many
techniques have been developed. A thorough review of these
tools is not the purpose of the present article; for this specific
end, there are many reviews and discussions on the
numerous instruments, procedures, and methods that have
been used to assess creative processes, products, or persons,
in the literature [14, 15, 26-37]. For example, Petrosko’s
early review [38] already mentioned hundreds of creativity
tests. Haensly and Torrance [29] identified over 200
instruments focusing only on verbal, figural, or "general"
creative abilities. Fishkin and Johnson’s review [28]
compared strengths and weaknesses of numerous methods
used to assess children's creativity. Later, a useful
monograph on creativity assessment for educators, published
by the National Center on the Gifted and Talented [15]1
reviewed thoroughly over 70 creative assessment techniques,
selected from a list of over a hundred. In addition to this
“general” literature on creativity assessment, there are also
multiple reviews on techniques to assess creativity in
specific domains of expression such as music [39-43].
Taken as a whole, instruments for creativity measurement have been categorized in different ways: type of
instrument, “component” measured, and question addressed
by the tools. Above all, Houtz and Krug [14] distinguished
measurement, assessment and evaluation tools, which then
can be divided by type: tests, self-report inventories, personality/preference inventories, and environmental indexes.
As for the “component” measured by creativity assessment
tools, Fishkin and Johnson [28] grouped the tools in
categories representing the four P’s dimension of creativity
[44]: measures of process, personality, product and press (i.e.
environment), whereas Treffinger et al. [15] differentiated
measures according to their focus on the ability to generate
ideas as opposed to the ability to dig deeper into ideas, listen
to one’s “inner voice”, the openness and courage to explore
ideas, or personal creativity characteristics.
Last but not least, instruments for creativity assessment
can be categorized by the question they address (these
questions can be mapped into different conceptions of
creativity that can be situated historically). We suggest that,
to date, instruments for measuring creativity can be grouped
roughly into three main questions: Achievement measures
would address the question “Is this student creative?”
(interpretation of creativity as exclusively related to
1
http://www.creativelearning.com/images/stories/freePDFs/AssessCreatRep
ort.pdf
126 The Open Education Journal, 2011, Volume 4
giftedness or talent), whereas the componential (“unitary”
measurement) approach mostly addressed the question “How
creative is this student?”. A recent focus on “style” leads us
to ask a related question: “How is this student creative?” [45,
46]. Indeed, this question lends itself to the assumption that
all students have a creative potential which takes different
forms that can be identified and nurtured. The next section
presents examples of the two previous traditions of
measurement, whereas the last focuses on the more recent
approach of measuring creative potential as a style.
“Is this Student Creative?”(Creativity as a Status)
When asking this question, the implicit conception of
creativity refers to an exceptional process that is rarely
observed in the general population; a process which is thus
either present or absent. Measures addressing precisely this
question therefore focus on the creative outcomes that one
may or may not demonstrate. For instance, indicators of
eminence (e.g., number of patents, scientific articles or
musical compositions) have been used for a long time as a
means to estimate individual’s creativity [47]. Biographical
inventories (e.g., Biographical Inventory for Students [48])
and achievement questionnaires (e.g., Creative Achievement
Questionnaire [49]) are also good examples of this category.
Typically, these self-report measures focus on past
accomplishments in creative domains. The main assumption
underlying the measurement of creative achievement is that,
if one has already demonstrated creative outcomes, the
probability to demonstrate other creative outcomes in the
future is high (e.g., see Hocevar and Bachelor [30]) which is
indeed tenable empirically (as demonstrated by Carlson et al.
[49]). This type of approach is thus extremely limited when
it comes to assess creativity in school settings, because it is
rare to find creative achievement per se at the school age
level (e.g., a published book or novel or released musical
composition). Clearly, these measures are more adapted for
adults who already demonstrated valuable creative outcomes,
showed identifiable creative accomplishment, talents,
expertise or special training in one or several creative
domains.
“How (How Much) Creative is this Student?” (Creativity
as a Level)
The answer raised by this question suggests a unitary
conception of creativity – i.e. creativity is viewed as a
continuous and unidimensional construct – with the implicit
idea that creativity is present in each individual to various
degrees. Since Guilford [7], this approach to creativity has
been prevalent. As mentioned previously, many assessment
techniques in this approach have in fact measured isolated
components of creativity. The assumption behind this
approach is that, by measuring a component of creative
potential, one can have a good estimation of creative
potential without distinction of the component, type of task,
or domain of creative expression. Component measurements
are thus, too often, interpreted as “pure measures” of general
creative potential (if such a general potential exists). In
addition to this difficulty, there are many candidate factors
that could serve as indicators of creative potential because, to
date, the characteristics presumed to indicate creativity may
exceed 300 [26]. These factors are of different nature:
cognitive, conative, or environmental. Product-based
Barbot et al.
assessment is also commonly used to answer the question
“How creative is this student?”. These different paths to
derive “levels” of creativity are described below.
Measuring Cognitive Aspects
Cognitive factors involved in creativity refer to basic
processes of thought that lead to creative production, which
include identifying, defining and redefining the problem,
selective encoding (i.e., the ability to input environmental
information related to a problem), divergent thinking,
evaluation of ideas, associative thinking, and flexibility (see
Lubart et al. [16]). However, a common definition of
creativity from the cognitive approach makes reference to
divergent thinking only [50]. Divergent thinking tests such
as the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking [12] or the
Wallach and Kogan tests [13] are standardized tasks which
evaluate the capacity of the individual to generate many
ideas from a simple starting point, in a limited amount of
time. This starting point can be, for example, a hypothetical
situation (e.g., proposing many answer to the question “What
would happen if strings were attached to the clouds?”), a
graphic stimulus (e.g. supplement as many incomplete
circles as possible by proposing original drawings using the
graphic stimulus) or an object (e.g., propose various
solutions for the improvement of a toy). Quantitative
indicators reveal individual differences in the divergent
thinking production generated in response to the stimuli
during the allotted time. The number of ideas (ideational
fluency) corresponds to the number of given answers, the
variety of ideas (ideational flexibility) corresponds to the
number of unique categories in which individual ideas can
be ranked, and originality refers to the relative infrequency
of each proposed idea in comparison to a population of
reference. According to Guilford [7], divergent thinking is
essential for creativity. It allows generating numerous ideas,
enables the individual to consider alternative pathways of
research, thus increasing the probability of finding an
original and adapted idea [1].
Other measures of cognitive abilities involved in
creativity include measures of problem-solving such as the
Purdue Elementary Problem Solving Inventory [51] which
consists of tasks for sub-process aspects of creative problem
solving (e.g., problem identification, problem definition,
generating questions and guessing causes, clarifying the
goal, analyzing details, or verifying solutions). The popular
Mednick and Mednick’ Remote Associates Test [52] is also
a measure frequently used to capture associative thinking
(creative ideas come about when elements which are not
usually associated together are, in fact, made to relate in a
new and appropriate way).
Many of these early measures (divergent thinking tests
and other creative cognition tests) have been criticized for
sampling only a narrow range of creative behaviors [53],
even though they have also shown evidence of long-term
predictive validity with measures of adult productivity [54,
55]. Unfortunately, many limits of these tools can be noted,
in particular the use of old standards in psychological
assessments [28]. More importantly, nowadays these
instruments rarely provide adequate norms (i.e., updated and
appropriate benchmarks for relevant criteria such as age,
gender, and culture), and the implicit approach of creative
Assessing Creativity
potential underlying the development of these tools appears
also obsolete.
Measuring Conative Aspects
Conative factors refer to preferred ways of behaving
(personality and motivationally related). Conceptually, it is
conceived that these factors facilitate (or inhibit) the
effective use of cognitive factors involved in the creative
process [56]. Creative personality measures have been
reviewed extensively [45], suggesting a wide diversity of
measures. Many personality traits have indeed significant
relationships with creativity [16]: the “core” factors include
perseverance (the tendency to overcome obstacles,
surrounding problem solving and the process of accepting
change), tolerance for ambiguity (tendency to consider
solutions, as ambiguous as they are), openness to new
experiences (the tendency to be open to the unknown);
individualism (characterized by a search for independence,
allowing the emergence of unconventional solutions); risktaking (proposing a new idea contains a risk that this idea be
rejected); psychoticism (involving a tendency to develop
distant or eccentric associations, if mastered, can lead to
original ideas). Also, Selby et al. [45] pointed the importance
of many other factors such as self-acceptance, dominance,
self-confidence, willingness to admit unusual and unconventional self-views, non conformity. Many self- or
informant- rating scales and inventories have been proposed
in this category of measure to capture these various aspects
of creative personality. They include tools such as, the
Barron-Welsh Art Scale [57], or the Creative Perception
Inventory [58, 59] in which individuals are asked to autoevaluate themselves and check personality traits relative to
creative personality or characteristics that typify their
behavior. We can also mention the well-known Gough’s
Adjective Checklist [60] that includes a creative personality
scale which captures more broadly the creative personality
attributes.
The motivational dimension involved in creativity is also
a factor often targeted to capture aspects of creative potential.
Theoretically, novelty-induced motivation influences the nature
and strength of individuals’ engagement in creative activity.
When motivation is assessed in relation to creative
production, intrinsic motivation (task oriented motivation)
predicts a greater degree of creativity (assessed by measures
of creative products) than extrinsic motivation (reward
oriented motivation). For instance, as evidenced by Amabile
[18], poems generated for intrinsic reasons are considered
significantly more creative than when they are made for
extrinsic reasons. Moneta and Siu [61] showed that intrinsic
motivation in school (measured using the Work Preference
Inventory; [62]) predicted greater creativity in a writing task
of story composition. Other measures include, for example,
the Torrance Creative Motivation Scale [63].
One of the main psychometric difficulties with these
scales is the unverifiable, subjective nature of people's
reported creative accomplishments or self-description and
the potential for biases, such as halo effects in self-reports
[24] or social desirability [1]. Furthermore, for the cognitive
components we noted, the conative approach to the
measurement of creative potential captures only isolated
aspects of creativity with the assumption that the particular
component is an equivalent (or good enough predictor) of
The Open Education Journal, 2011, Volume 4
127
creative achievement; creativity being viewed as a broad
ability without distinction of the particular domain or work
involved within the domain. As they reflect “general
tendencies”, it is indeed possible that self-report inventories
lead to a more general-oriented conception of creativity [64].
However, it is also possible that the apparent “generalized”
creativity captured through these instruments (observed by
correlations between these measures) reflects common biases
(i.e., halo effects and social desirability) that underlie the
answers in these instruments.
Measuring Environmental Aspects
Several environmental factors have been found to
contribute to creative potential. These include factors such as
parental practices [65], school environment [66], and even
birth order [16]. The effects of teaching methods have also to
be considered. For example, alternative pedagogies (e.g.,
Freinet or Montessori schools) have been found to be more
conducive to children’s creative development in primary
education than traditional approaches [23]. Because,
important environmental factors have been identified and
recognized as contributors to an individual’s creativity, the
instruments identifying the presence or absence of these
factors in the child’s environment help estimate the extent to
which children are likely to have a strong creative potential.
To this end, there are quite a number of observational and/or
rating scales for assessing environmental characteristics,
classroom atmosphere and learning environments [14]
favorable to individual creativity. For example, measures of
school environment favorable to creativity include, the
Classroom Activities Questionnaire [67]. However, the
ability of these instruments to represent creative potential
may vary as a function of individuals’ "absorption rate" [39]
of the environmental factors, which however, might be
difficult to capture.
Product-Based Assessment
A common way to assess creative potential involves the
achievement of a creative product based on initial elements
or constraints [68]. These include producing a story, a
drawing, a musical composition, based on predetermined
criteria (e.g. integrate various heterogeneous elements in a
drawing, inventing a story based on a title). This type of
standardized tasks thus simulates partly real creative work
and involves the ability of putting together several ideas;
synthesizing them, to achieve a unique, original production
integrating the imposed constraints or elements. Along with
the involvement of this convergent-integrative mode of
thinking (which we will describe further) in this type of task,
many other aspects of the creative potential may be involved
(cognitive, conative, and environmental aspects) and the
resulting creative products become comparable with each
other due to the standardized nature of the tasks. Typically,
these products are then evaluated by experts of the domain
using the Consensual Assessment Technique [69]. This
technique is built upon the caveat that judgments about
creativity imply a social consensus because there is no
absolute norm for assessing the creativity of production
(productions are evaluated relatively, each one against the
others). Technically, domain-appropriate judges are asked to
score independently a series of productions resulting from
the same task, using a Likert scale (e.g. from “1- not creative
128 The Open Education Journal, 2011, Volume 4
Barbot et al.
at all”, to “7-highly creative”). A statistical consensus is then
estimated to ensure inter-rater agreement. The idea behind
this procedure is that, if every expert agrees to "classify" the
same creative products in the same order for their level of
creativity (resulting in high inter-rater agreement), it is
possible to conclude that raters have identified the same
quality (that is, creativity). When the consensus is reached
(as indicated by a statistical criteria), the scores given by
each judge to each production can be averaged to derive a
composite score of creativity. In other words, the
accumulation and convergence of expertise by multiple
informants for the same “subjective” quality results in a
consensual measure. A computerized interface, the
“Consensual Assessment Technique – interface” (CAT-i) 2
allows the implementation of such product-based assessment
via the Internet, in order to manage creative product and
raters who are geographically distant, in a straightforward
and methodologically-suitable manner (i.e. following
recognized guidelines for consensual assessment such as
Hennessey’s [70]).
consensual approach. To address these major issues on
creativity assessment, a few recommendations have emerged
from the literature. First, the failure to achieve commonly
agreed upon definitions of creativity, creative thinking, or
creative problem solving should not be an excuse to abandon
efforts to invent new measures or to improve the predictive
validity of existing measures [14]. For example, Michael and
Wright [33] recommended that theoretically-oriented
psychologists combine their efforts with those of
psychometricians to formulate new conceptual frameworks
for creativity that they can empirically test. Houtz and Krug
[14] also proposed some principles for further development
of creativity assessment techniques. These principles
included the need to multiply the assessment approaches to
yield a more complete picture of an individual's potential for
creativity, as recommended by many other authors [27, 28,
31, 72].
Even though product-based assessment is a more
integrated approach to creative potential (involving
presumably many components of the creative potential), this
method for creativity assessment is insufficient – solely — to
provide an overall estimate of individual’s creative potential.
Indeed research evidence has shown only limited overlaps
between product-based measures in diverse domains [71].
Accordingly, performance-based evaluations provide results
favoring a domain-specific view of creative behaviors
[24,64].
Research informs us that individuals vary, not only in
relation to level of creativity, but in relation to style of
creativity as well [73] and that effective assessment of
creativity involves a profile of characteristics [14, 15, 26,
74]. Thus, an increasingly important question to address by
creativity assessment tools is “How is this student
creative?”[46]. This question, built upon the previous
tradition of creativity assessment, goes beyond the notion of
“status”, “degree”, or “level” of creative potential, as
emphasized in the “componential-unitary” measurement
approach, and even more as in the “eminence” approach,
which respectively put emphasis either on a dichotomous or
on a unidimensional approach to creativity. Rather, it
underlies the “form” that creative potential can take and it
implicitly includes both questions “Where is this student
creative?” (creativity as a domain specific ability) and “How
the creative potential of this student is expressed across
various dimensions?” (multifaceted concept of creative
potential). In other words, this new perspective on creativity
assessment emphasize the importance to take into account
the multidimensionality and domain specificity of the
construct of creativity, when assessing creative potential in
children. Only a few authors have addressed the domainspecificity issue in creativity assessment [24, 72] which
however has implications in the field of education. Indeed,
some periods of development may be best for promoting
general creative achievement, and during other periods it
may be best to focus on specific creative activities [24]. As
such, it appears important to extend the former tradition of
assessment, by developing instruments that measure creative
potential in diverse domains of creative expression
“developmentally relevant” and through diverse modes of
thinking in order to capture the range of creative abilities. Until
the development of EPoC [1] that we present further in the
next section, the 2000’s have seen relatively few – and
perhaps no – techniques for the assessment of creativity
following these recommendations.
Looking Back: The State of the Art in Creative Potential
Assessment
The large number of assessment techniques mentioned
above reflects two major issues on creativity assessment.
First, creativity is a multifaceted, domain-specific construct,
so instruments to measure creativity may vary as a function
of the domain-component aimed at being measured. Second,
there are correspondingly many definitions of the concept,
but still no clear definition of creativity on which to base
instrument development [14]. As a consequence, most of
what we know today about creativity is derived from
assessment tools that are based, themselves, on pre-defined
conceptions of creativity. More importantly, there is to date
only little evidence as to the stability, factor complexity, or
predictive validity of most measures and methods, leading
many authors to lament the failure of existing measurement
methods [14,29]. Finally, we noted thorough the above
review the lack of up-to-date, developmentally, gendered and
culturally appropriate norms for most instruments and the
tendency of “unidimensional” measures of creative potential
(such as divergent thinking tests) being interpreted as the
equivalent of all creative potential (which is actually more a
question of misuse of the test scores, rather than a deficiency
of the instruments per se).
Thus, unlike other domains of human cognition such as
intelligence, in which “mainstream” instruments exist, with
relatively few alternatives, a comparatively narrow research
topic – that is, creativity – has generated an important
amount of assessment techniques with difficulties to find a
2
www.cat-i.org
New Perspective on Creativity Assessment: “How (and
where) is this Student Creative?” (Creativity as a Style)
EPOC: A NEW INSTRUMENT
To overcome the limitations of the various methods
mentioned previously, we developed the Evaluation of
Potential for Creativity (EPoC [1]) which is an up-to-date
Assessing Creativity
measurement tool for children in elementary and middleschool students (K-6th). EPoC is indeed a synthesis and
extension of several traditions of measurement, which is
based on a current theoretical framework envisioning
creativity as a multifaceted, domain-specific construct that
involves many components. Based on the multivariate
approach of creativity, the main tenets guiding EPoC
development suggest that, first, it is possible to categorise
the numerous micro-processes involved in creative potential
into two main sets, called divergent-exploratory processes,
and convergent-integrative processes [1]. Second, as
creativity is partly (if not primarily) domain specific, it is
important that measures of creative potential take into
account the domain of creative expression [24, 72, 78].
Consequently, EPOC measures both sets of micro-process
(divergent-exploratory and convergent-integrative, as
opposed to previous measurement tools that typically
measure a single component), in diverse domains of
expression, whereas the previous approaches of creativity
measurement had rather a generalist approach (tending to
generalise the observed results to any domain of creative
expression).
In EPoC, divergent-exploratory and convergentintegrated modes are hypothesized to occur in cycles during
the creative process, which take different forms (frequency
and length of the cycles) as a function of the creative task
and individual preferences (i.e. creative style), influencing
the quality of the resulting production. The divergentexploratory mode of thinking refers to the process of
expanding the range of solutions in creative problem solving
and includes factors such as flexibility, divergent thinking,
selective encoding, which are supported by personality traits,
such as openness to experiences and intrinsic task-oriented
motivation. Convergent-integrative thinking refers to the
activity of combining elements in new ways, which is the
second fundamental aspect of the creative work. This ability
involves micro-process such as associative thinking,
selective comparison and combination allowing a synthesis
of various heterogeneous elements to converge into a unique,
original production. Relevant supporting conative factors of
convergent-integrative thinking include, for example,
tolerance for ambiguity, perseverance, risk taking, and
achievement motivation.
EPoC includes two alternative forms (Form A and Form
B) so that users can assess the progress made by children in
pre-test post-test study design (e.g. to assess the efficiency of
creativity-based training and interventions programs), or
simply assess change overtime to monitor the development
of creative potential. Each of EPoC’s forms is composed of
eight subtests covering, to date, two developmentally
appropriate domains of expression (verbal and graphic) and
addressing the two modes of thinking described above.
EPoC tasks are designed to arouse creative potential through
these two domains and two modes of thinking by putting
children in situations of creation. In divergent-exploratorytype tasks, children are asked to generate many ideas in
response to a single stimulus or problem (involving processbased assessment approach focusing on the quantity of the
production), whereas the convergent-integrative-type task
consists of producing an integrated composition which is
more elaborated and finalized (involving a product-based
assessment approach focusing on the quality of the
The Open Education Journal, 2011, Volume 4
129
production). For example, a task of Divergent-Exploratory
thinking in the Verbal domain consists of proposing as many
story endings to a single story beginning as possible in 10
minutes. Each answer must be original and different from the
previous answer. In contrast, a task of ConvergentIntegrative thinking in the Graphic domain consists of
generating in 15 minutes a single, original and integrated
drawing which combines a set of heterogeneous elements
presented on a photo (including objects such as a suitcase, a
fruit, a candle). Resulting drawings are then rated using 7
points Likert scales. These diverse tasks sample suitably
important facets of the creative potential and allow, based on
EPoC’s underlying theoretical model and factorial structure,
to compute four scores: Divergent-Exploratory thinking in
the Graphic domain (DG), Divergent-Exploratory thinking in
the Verbal domain (DV), Convergent-Integrative thinking in
the Graphic domain (IG), and Convergent-Integrative
thinking in the Verbal domain (IV). These test scores are
reliable with inter-subtest correlations ranging from .60 to
.78 (equivalent to Cronbach Alpha ranging from .75 to .88)
depending on the dimension. Results are interpreted in terms
of efficiency and creative potential style, based on EPoC’s
profile. These styles emphasize individual “preferences”,
such as the likelihood to perform well in a particular domain
(e.g., high score in DG and IG, suggesting a “preference” for
the graphic domain across processes) or a specific mode of
thought (e.g., high scores of IG and IV, suggesting a
“preference” for the Convergent-Integrative thinking mode
across domains). These EPoC profiles thus provide useful
insights to tailored creativity-based educational programs
aiming to guide the development of creativity appropriately,
or in a diagnostic perspective (e.g. for the detection of
children with high creative potential on the four EPoC
indices).
EPoC was initially developed and validated in a sample
of French students and is presently available in this country
(EPOC [1]). Internal validity has been informed by
confirmatory factor analysis proving an acceptable
adjustment of the data to the theoretical model for both form
A and form B. External validity also proved to be
satisfactory with an independence of EPoC scores with a
measure of IQ, a moderate correlation between EPoC scores
and personality-relevant dimensions such as openness to new
experience, and moderate to high correlations between EPoC
scores and classic subtest of divergent thinking derived form
the Torrance test, indicating both convergent and divergent
validity. Developmentally-appropriate norms are available to
situate the performance of the assessed child in comparison
to his/her age-group and an original internet-based training
system (based on the CAT-i platform) 3 is offered to enhance
rater accuracy in scoring creative productions resulting from
EPoC tasks. Diverse developments of EPoC are currently in
progress: 1) it is translated and adapted in several countries
(including the development of local norms), 2) norms for
adolescents (middle to high school level) are under
preparation, 3) extension of the test battery for new domains
of creative expression are under development (including
social, scientific, and musical domains), and 4) a
computerized version is envisioned.
3
http://www.cat-i.fr/hogrefe/
130 The Open Education Journal, 2011, Volume 4
To summarize, EPoC is a modular, domain-specific tool,
which presently includes verbal and graphic subtests that
measure the two key modes of creative thinking—divergentexploratory thinking and convergent-integrative thinking—in
elementary and middle-school students. As such, EPoC is the
first tool in the history of creativity assessment that
combines an approach by domain of creative expression and
by mode of thinking, in order to capture the diversity of
creative abilities of children. This up-to-date approach thus
offers a broader vision of creative potential in children and
proves useful as a monitoring tool to guide the development
of creativity.
PERSPECTIVE ON THE APPLICATION OF CREATIVITY MEASUREMENT IN CLASSROOM SETTINGS
“We frequently hear the charge that under present day
mass-education methods, the development of creative
personality is seriously discouraged. The child is under
pressure to conform for the sake of economy and for the sake
of satisfying prescribed standards” [7].
Over six decades after Guilford [7], this statement makes
still great sense, and while creativity and innovation are
features of human behaviors more and more valued in
modern societies, few policy efforts and educational
practices are concentrated into the development of creativity
in classroom context. Indeed, specialized instruction for
teachers in creativity and in creativity assessments are often
recommended topics for teacher preparation programs but
are rarely realized [14]. Even though teachers declare liking
“creative students”, research shows that creative
characteristics appear to be unappealing to the same teachers
[75].
However, Guilford himself emphasized the need to
encourage the development of creativity [7]. “This
development might be in the nature of actual strengthening
of the functions involved or it might mean the better
utilization of what resources the individual possesses, or
both” (p. 448). Broadly, the construct of creativity has a
great deal to offer educational psychology [34]. Many
empirical studies on the development of creativity and
creativity-relevant attributes established that an individual’s
creative productivity can be improved through instruction
[15, 76], suggesting that training is possible, at least to some
degree.
In echo with the “unitary” assessment issue, training has
for a large part focused on isolated components of creative
potential (such as divergent thinking) with the hypothesis
that the stimulation of a specific process in a specific domain
would result in global support of creative potential.
Unfortunately, some research results show evidence that
divergent training shows only limited transferability to other
domains [77]. In other words, it appears that training
programs to foster “global” creativity development are
inappropriate. Given this, the most effective training
programs will be those tailored to enhance creativity in a
specific domain, and even better in a specific task [78]. Of
course, educators aiming to encourage creative potential
should be careful not to use or develop training programs
that could be qualified of “training for the test” by focusing
only on narrow aspect of creative potential that are captured
by most creativity tests. Indeed, training programs that focus
Barbot et al.
on one or a small number of abilities are bound to yield
limited effects on the development of creativity [24].
Correspondingly, Tan et al. [79] encourage integrative
instructional activities (in the domain of creative writing),
that lead children to “think like writers”, rather than
promoting artificial activities such as the practice of
“brainstorming” ideas in a whole group session, as a basis to
creative writing exercises. Indeed this particular approach
can lead students to conform their ideas to the themes and
elements emerging from the collective brainstorming
exercise [80]. This illustration emphasizes that it is important
to foster multiple components of creative potential in a way
that is relevant to the domain and the specific task within the
domain (e.g. writing poems). To be even more effective,
creativity training could be tailored to each child’s needs by
determining which component of creative potential could be
improved in a specific domain. Therefore, multidimensional
assessments of creative potential such as EPoC are relevant
to identify children’s specific needs as a means to guide their
creativity development.
CONCLUSIONS
An important issue for both creativity research and
practical applications is to assess creativity to support and
guide creative development. However, existing creativity
assessment tools are limited, especially for their lack of up-to
date norms and theoretical framework. We presented a new
instrument that allows creative potential to be measured
(Evaluation of Potential Creativity, EPoC [1]), based on
solid theoretical and research-based evidence for creativity
assessment. This instrument allows researchers, educators,
and teachers to capture more broadly the creative potential of
children, so that it can be better described and nurtured.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors thank Gabrielle Santa-Donato and Jeffrey
Plante for their editorial assistance and their help in the
preparation of the manuscript.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
None declared.
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