Ellen Winner is a psychologist and a professor at Boston College. She specializes in psychology of art. In this interview, she answers the following questions including: (1) What are you currently working on, researching? (2) Could you elaborate on the intrinsic value of art education? (3) How might you compare your work today to earlier advocates…

Serious identification of the gifted started with the work of Lewis Terman early in the 20th century. Terman's model, based largely on IQ, may have made sense in the early 20th century, but it no longer makes sense today. The problems that society needs its gifted individuals to solve in the 21st century require much more than IQ--in addition to…

Creativity is acknowledged to be important for economic growth and as an everyday life-skill, however several influential reports have suggested that education could do more to harness creative talent. Creative cognition literature suggests the lack of creativity is at least partly the result of "fixation" (difficulty in generating novel…

This article presents a unified model for cognitive processing, WICS, which is an acronym for wisdom, intelligence, and creativity, synthesized. The model can be applied to identification/admissions, diagnosis, instruction, and assessment. I discuss why there is a need for such a model. Then I describe traditional models, after which I describe…

Highly creative children (n=100) and uncreative children (n=100) were selected from 1,450 fifth- and sixth- grade students. Comparisons using data from the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking revealed significant differences in terms of quantity and quality of primary process content. Girls gave more libidinal content and boys gave more aggressive…

This paper is based on hermeneutic research into creativity and learning mentors, focusing on mental well being and the role of the mentor throughout the creative cycle. Participants relate their experiences of the role of the mentor within the creative cycle in their own words. The researcher/participant hermeneutic dialogue shows that the…

Ninety university undergraduate students were tested on a number of tasks assessing their recognition of possible and impossible figures, mental rotation, ideational fluency, and self-report artistic and creative characteristics. Scores on the Impossible Figures Task (IFT-14) and the Mental Rotation Test, and self-ratings on the Artistic…

The program for gifted and talented students in the Austin Independent School District consists of 126 programs in grades K-12 to develop skills and abilities in academic subjects, music, art, problem-solving, and coping with giftedness. The program has been in effect since 1975. The focus of the evaluation in 1981-82 is the identification of…

To investigate intelligence level, academic achievement, nonacademic achievement, ideational productivity, and the uniqueness of the ideas produced, a sample of 503 incoming freshman university students was recruited. Intelligence was measured by using students' Scholastic Aptitude Test scores; verbal and visual stimuli were used to elicit ideas.…

This book explores the conceptual and historical bases for examining creativity, cognitive functioning and creativity, cultural influences on creativity, research methodologies for examining creativity, assessment of creativity, and effectiveness of major creativity training models. Chapters include: (1) "Issues in Studying Creativity in Youth"…

The history of divergent-thinking tests suggests that new approaches to creativity testing are needed. Research has focused on the relation of creativity to insight, divergent problem solving, problem finding, and intelligence. A proposed situational model of creativity defines creativity as a meaningful response to open-problem, open-solution…

Student teachers and college students were trained to be primary mentors to gifted/talented/creative junior high students, while community resources served as secondary mentors. Mentors worked with students on enrichment projects emphasizing higher-level thinking. Described are protege selection, matching with mentors, mentor training and…

ABSTRACTS OF 27 STUDIES WERE COMPILED AS EXAMPLES OF INVESTIGATIONS MADE BY TEACHERS CONCERNED WITH THE INDIVIDUAL QUALITIES OF GIFTED CHILDREN IN THEIR SCHOOLS. THE STUDIES ARE ARRANGED IN FOUR SECTIONS--IDENTIFICATION AND CHARACTERISTICS, ACHIEVEMENT IN SCHOOL, HIGHER EDUCATION, AND EDUCATIONAL PROVISIONS AND PROGRAMS. EACH SECTION PROVIDES A…