Creativity Tests

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Creativity Tests
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Creativity Tests

• Classic tests developed by Wallach and Kogan
  (1965) Modes of thinking in young children.
• First administered individually to 151 Grade five
  children
• Interested in childrens games
• Not creativity, originality, cleverness,
  intelligence
• No time pressure
• No written responses required only verbal
  responses

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Creativity Tests by Wallach Kogan

• Five tests of creativity (three are verbal and
  two are visual)
• Scored two ways (for uniqueness and sheer number)
• Thus, a total of 10 measures of creativity

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Verbal Stimulus Materials

• 1) Instances
• Im going to tell you something and it will be
  your job to name as many things as you can think
  that are like what I tell you. For example, I
  might say things that hurt. Now you name all the
  things you can think of that hurt.

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Verbal Stimulus Materials

• 2) Alternate Uses
• Im going to name an objectany kind of object,
  like a light bulb or a floorand it will be your
  job to tell me lots of different ways that the
  object would be used. Any object can be used in
  lots of different ways. For example, think about
  string. What are some of the ways you can think
  of that you might use string?

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Verbal Stimulus Materials

• 3) Similarities
• Im going to name two objects, and I will want
  you to think of all the ways that these two
  objects are alike. For example, tell me all the
  ways that an apple and an orange are alike.

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Visual Stimulus Materials

• 4) Pattern Meanings
• Heres a game where you can really feel free to
  use your imagination. I am going to show you
  some drawings. After looking at each one, I want
  you to tell me all the things you think each
  complete drawing could be. Here is an
  exampleyou can turn it any way youd like to.
  What could this be?

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Visual Stimulus Materials

• 5) Line Meanings
• I am going to show you some lines and after you
  have looked at each one, I want you to tell me
  all the things it makes you think of. Now take
  your time, and be sure that when you look at the
  line you tell me what the whole line makes you
  thing of, and not just a part of it. O.K.? Here
  is the first line. You can turn it any way you
  want to. Tell me all the things you can about
  it. What does it make you think of?

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Some Issues To Consider

• Issue 1 Relationship between creativity and
  intelligence has interesting convergence with
  teacher impressions.
• Kids high on creativity and low on intelligence
  are seen by teachers as difficult to manage, too
  many un-harnessed, zany ideas
• Kids high on intelligence and low on creativity
  are seen as fine by teachers teachers tend not
  to notice that anything is missing

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Some Issues To Consider

• Issue 2 Similarities subtest is given on both
  creativity and intelligence subtests
• Similarities on WISC assigns children higher
  scores if they produce the answer that is most
  traditionally acceptable
• Similarities on creativity tests assigns children
  higher scores if they either produce (1) a
  larger number of plausible answers, or (2) more
  unique (but plausible) answers that no one else
  gives

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Some Issues To Consider

• Issue 3 Are the two visual tests, pattern
  meanings and line meanings really tapping
  something different?
• These two subtests tend to correlate quite
  highlycorrelations of at least .5
• Line meanings is perhaps a desperate attempt to
  administer a second nonverbal task

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Some Issues To Consider

• Issue 4 Is it possible that these tests do not
  measure what they say they measure? Or might
  they fail to assess some important types of
  creativity?
• Lingering questions of validity led Wallach to
  completely change his approach
• New approach is riskier, especially with
  reference to issues such as inter-rater
  reliability, but has more face validity