Recently, I’ve read in the news that creativity scores are falling. I was left to wonder, where was this data coming from and should we prepare to alert Chicken Little? While I did not really doubt what I read, I still needed to see the research. Finally, a recent article in the Wall Street Journal refers to the research AND they list the source:
According to Sue Shellenbarger who writes for the Wall Street Journal, “Americans’ scores on a commonly used creativity test fell steadily from 1990 to 2008, especially in the kindergarten through sixth-grade age group, says Kyung Hee Kim, an assistant professor of educational psychology at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va. The finding is based on a study of 300,000 Americans’ scores from 1966 to 2008 on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, a standardized test that’s considered a benchmark for creative thinking.”
This summer I wrote an article on creative testing. As a gifted educator I had administered the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking and had scored the tests for eight years. My findings and thoughts are here: How to Test for Creativity in Children
You can read more of the Wall Street Journal’s article: A box? Or a Spaceship? What Makes Kids Creative? It is an interesting article and worth reading.
