This article reviews the history of divergent thinking tests and provides a projection of current research suggesting a bright outlook for creativity tests. A model relating problem finding and problem solving is described, as are approaches to increasing test reliability. (DB)

E. Paul Torrance believed that creativity, like other skills, could be taught. His test to assess creativity is described. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi believes that the right combination of personal characteristics and encouraging environment produces creativity, and that children cannot be taught creativity. The adventure process creates an…

Ss were administered Thinking Creatively in Action and Movement (TCAM), traditional Piagetian measures of conservation of number and mass, modification Piagetian tasks, and the Sequential Assessment Mathematics Inventory. Among findings was that creative thinking ability, as assessed by the TCAM, significantly predicts cognitive performances that…

Forty New Zealand children (ages 3-4) were given false-belief and creativity tasks to investigate whether those with a Theory of Mind outlook are better at searching their own minds for creative answers. The numbers of appropriate and original responses in the creativity test correlated positively with performance on false-belief tasks. (Author/CR)

A major component of the creative problem solving process is divergent production, or the generation of alternative solutions to an open ended problem. Such solutions may be expressed in different forms or creative response styles: the verbal mode of expression involves stating solutions; the kinetic mode involves demonstrating solutions; and the…

This study investigated what effect divergent-thinking training focusing on a single task would have on the creative performance of 79 seventh graders on a closely related task. Students received training in poetry-relevant, divergent-thinking skills. The training was found to have a significant impact on the students' creativity in writing…

This report investigates improvement of pupils' creative thinking and problem-solving abilities through direct educational efforts. The sample consisted of 739 pupils and their teachers from 36 fifth grade classes in two Indiana public school systems. Five sub-tests from the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking were administered to all teachers to…

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…

Controversy exists regarding the nature of the creative process and strategies which hold maximum promise for accelerating creative production. This paper provides a structural overview of the major problems and issues found in the scientific study of creativity, primarily in regard to dimensionality and criterion choice. (KS)

Conditions which call for the discovery of a problem were introduced in a divergent-thinking exercise by inserting blank cards in Pattern Meanings and Line Meanings, two tests from the Wallach and Kogan battery. Twenty-three fifth graders were administered the modified tests and responded divergently to their own patterns and lines as well as to…

Reviews major areas of controversy concerning creativity's definition in chronological order corresponding to the publication of each definition of significant influence. Each definition's reasons for failing to achieve widespread acceptance are analyzed, and a suggestion for a general definition is provided. (Author/CR)

Several studies were conducted where subjects were not instructed to imitate models. Subjects viewing models exhibiting complex, flexible, divergent, or creative behavior tended to increase this behavior, while subjects watching rigid or convergent thinking models were less consistent. (Author/BJG)