Do Design Entrance Exams in India Really Test Creative Aptitude? An Analytical Study of Design Tests Conforming Creativity Benchmarks

Abstract

Design entrance exams are common nowadays for securing admission to design schools in India, be it private or public institutes. Students are often examined during these competitive exams to test their creative aptitude. Over the years, format of design entrance exams in India has gone through innumerable changes. In some formats, objective questions are preferred, in some subjective tests are conducted, while few prefer a combination of both lack of a standardized format of testing creativity across design schools in India, unlike engineering and medical colleges, raises questions like (1) Do these design entrance tests really capture creativity to its fullest? (2) Do they conform to any standardized format of creativity testing? The study reported in this paper intends to investigate these questions by conducting a detailed comparative study of existing entrance exam formats of Design Schools of India. A detailed analytical approach by using affinity mapping and generating open codes was used to classify and categorize question formats of different Indian Design entrance exams. The open codes were then mapped with the extracted factors of the literature review with an objective to identify the factors confirming to creativity evaluation. The results highlight that existing entrance exam, while capturing major factors for creativity evaluation, lacks in capturing a few essential factors that provide greater insight into the creative instincts of an individual assessed. A model for standardization of creativity assessment has also been suggested based on the study results. This study would provide new light into the nature of design-based entrance examinations in India and might lead the way toward a standardized Design entrance exam in the future.