The Patient is Thriving! Current Issues, Recent Advances, and Future Directions in Creativity Assessment

Abstract

In 1998, Plucker and Runco provided an overview of creativity assessment, noting current issues (fluency confounds, generality vs. specificity), recent advances (predictive validity, implicit theories), and promising future directions (moving beyond divergent thinking measures, reliance on batteries of assessments, translation into practice). In the ensuing quarter century, the field experienced large growth in the quantity, breadth, and depth of assessment work, suggesting another analysis is timely. The purpose of this paper is to review the 1998 analysis and identify current issues, advances, and future directions for creativity measurement. Recent advances include growth in assessment quantity and quality and use of semantic distance as a scoring technique. Current issues include mismatches between current conceptions of creativity and those on which many measures are based, the need for psychometric quality standards, and a paucity of predictive validity evidence. The paper concludes with analysis of likely future directions, including use of machine learning to administer and score assessments and refinement of our conceptual frameworks for creativity assessment. Although the 1998 paper was written within an academic climate of harsh criticism of creativity measurement, the current climate is more positive, with reason for optimism about the continued growth of this important aspect of the field.

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