Abstract
In this chapter we ask a simple question: How can creativity be assessed? This entails exploring generative mechanisms and structures supporting creativity, its definition and emergence, and also how it might be assessed. Central to this argument will be the point that tests of creativity are not enough on their own; it is necessary to understand assessment as a form of connoisseurship. As examples we will draw upon the taught subjects of media studies, art and music. Additionally, we will have cause to reflect upon the Future Problem Solving Program as originally developed by Torrance, along with the debate on the gifted and the talented, and how it might give rise to exclusionary practices and forms of elitism.
I have always been interested in empowering children, releasing their creative potential. But first I had to measure that potential. (Torrance, as cited in Hébert et al., 2002, p. 13)
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Notes
- 1.
‘In fact, the UTS building was originally scratched onto a napkin with a pen over lunch when he had the simple idea of a treehouse’ (New Atlas, 2015).
- 2.
The example is inspired by the second-year upper secondary school program in media studies and communication in Norway, where the national curriculum goals are specified in the Knowledge Reform National Curriculum from 2006. The teacher in this example further specified the design production goals in terms of communicating and marketing a message.
- 3.
Enerstvedt drew his philosophical inspiration from the early writings of Marx.
- 4.
The concept of divergent thinking (seeing many solutions to a problem) was proposed by Guilford, an IQ and creativity researcher. He identified four characteristics: ‘fluency (the ability to produce great number of ideas or problem solutions in a short period of time); flexibility (the ability to simultaneously propose a variety of approaches to a specific problem); originality (the ability to produce new, original ideas); elaboration (the ability to systematize and organize the details of an idea in a head and carry it out)’ (New World Encyclopedia, 2018).
- 5.
Another multifaceted conception is given by Treffinger et al. (2002) who identify four interdependent components: generating ideas (e.g. divergent thinking or creative thinking abilities and metaphorical thinking or making new connections); delving deeper into ideas (e.g. analysing, synthesising, reorganising or redefining, evaluating, seeing relationships, desiring to resolve ambiguity or bringing order to disorder); openness and courage to explore ideas (includes some personality traits relating to one’s interests, experiences, attitudes and self-confidence, along with sensitivity, aesthetic sensitivity, curiosity, sense of humour, playfulness, fantasy and imagination, risk taking, tolerance for ambiguity); lastly, listening to one’s ‘inner voice’ (e.g. traits that involve a personal understanding of who you are, a vision of where you want to go, and a commitment to do whatever it takes to get there). The characteristics for the category called listening to one’s ‘inner voice’ also include awareness of creativeness, persistence or perseverance, self-direction, introspection and work ethic.
- 6.
To name some: Australia, Canada, Great Britain, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Turkey and India.
- 7.
The norm-referenced scores measure fluency, originality and elaboration, with the addition of abstractness of titles, as a verbal measure on the figural tests, and resistance to premature closure, as a gestalt measure of a person’s ability to stay open and tolerate ambiguity long enough to come up with a creative response. Flexibility scoring was eliminated because it correlated very highly with fluency. Norms have been developed in the USA and for a number of other selected countries by local test users (e.g. France, Turkey, Taiwan). The 13 criteria measure creative strength and sought to capture manifestations of creativity missed by the norm-referenced scores: emotional expressiveness, storytelling articulateness, movement or action, expressiveness of titles, synthesis of incomplete figures, synthesis of lines or circles, unusual visualisation, internal visualisation, extending or breaking boundaries, humour, richness of imagery, colourfulness of imagery, and fantasy.
- 8.
‘Certificate assessment tasks are “rich” if they provide assessment information across a range of course outcomes within one task, optimising students’ expression of their learning’ (Plummer, 1999, p. 15).
- 9.
In more detail (Sadler, 2008, p. 3): ‘In holistic (also called global) grading, the assessor progressively builds up a complex mental response to a student work. This involves both attending to particular aspects that draw attention to themselves, and allowing an appreciation of the quality of the work as a whole to emerge. The appraiser then makes a qualitative judgment as to its overall quality, and maps that judgment directly to the appropriate point on the grading scale. In addition to assigning the grade, the assessor may provide a rationale for it, perhaps in summary form for the work as a whole, or as running comments on various features of the work. Rationale and feedback statements necessarily invoke one or more criteria, because criteria are constitutive elements of all evaluative explanations or advice. In analytic grading, criteria play a clear front-end framing role. In holistic grading, the assessor’s emergent global judgment dominates. In principle at least, the global judgment is made first; references to criteria follow from reflection on that appraisal.’
- 10.
Colleagues of Sadler have developed and provided empirical support for his argument utilising a tripartite set of concepts: latent, explicit and meta-criteria (the last mentioned specifying the rules and occasions for the use of latent and explicit criteria) (see Wyatt-Smith & Klenowski, 2013).
- 11.
An example in another discipline is offered by Chu (2009), where leadership practice is in focus.
- 12.
These strands of activity are inspired by Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (2005).
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Dobson, S.R., Fudiyartanto, F.A. (2023). Assessment as Connoisseurship. In: Transforming Assessment in Education. The Enabling Power of Assessment, vol 10. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26991-2_5
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