Progression in Student Creativity in School - OECD (PDF)

Please cite this paper as: Lucas, B., G. Claxton and E. Spencer (2013), “Progression in Student Creativity in School: First Steps Towards New Forms of Formative Assessments”, OECD Education Working Papers, No. 86, OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/5k4dp59msdwk-en OECD Education Working Papers No. 86 Progression in Student Creativity in School FIRST STEPS TOWARDS NEW FORMS OF FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS Bill Lucas, Guy Claxton, Ellen Spencer  Unclassified EDU/WKP(2013)1 Organisation de Coopération et de Développement Économiques Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 10-Jan-2013 ___________________________________________________________________________________________ English - Or. English DIRECTORATE FOR EDUCATION PROGRESSION IN STUDENT CREATIVITY IN SCHOOL: FIRST STEPS TOWARDS NEW FORMS OF FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS OECD Education Working Paper No. 86 Bill Lucas, Guy Claxton and Ellen Spencer Creativity is widely accepted as being an important outcome of schooling. Yet there are many different views about what it is, how best it can be cultivated in young people and whether or how it should be assessed. And in many national curricula creativity is only implicitly acknowledged and seldom precisely defined. This paper offers a five dimensional definition of creativity which has been trialled by teachers in two field trials in schools in England. The paper suggests a theoretical underpinning for defining and assessing creativity along with a number of practical suggestions as to how creativity can be developed and tracked in schools. Two clear benefits of assessing progress in the development of creativity are identified: 1) teachers are able to be more precise and confident in developing young people’s creativity, and 2) learners are better able to understand what it is to be creative (and to use this understanding to record evidence of their progress). The result would seem to be a greater likelihood that learners can display the full range of their creative dispositions in a wide variety of contexts. This paper was drafted for the CERI Innovation Strategy for Education and Training. It is the output of a collaborative research project commissioned by Creativity, Culture and Education (CCE) in partnership with the OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI). Contacts: Francesco Avvisati, Analyst: [email protected] Stéphan Vincent-Lancrin, Senior Analyst and Project Leader: [email protected] JT03333178 Complete document available on OLIS in its original format This document and any map included herein are without prejudice to the status of or sovereignty over any territory, to the delimitation of international frontiers and boundaries and to the name of any territory, city or area. EDU/WKP(2013)1 Unclassified English - Or. English  EDU/WKP(2013)1 2 OECD DIRECTORATE FOR EDUCATION OECD EDUCATION WORKING PAPERS SERIES This series is designed to make available to a wider readership selected studies drawing on the work of the OECD Directorate for Education. Authorship is usually collective, but principal writers are named. The papers are generally available only in their original language (English or French) with a short summary available in the other. This document and any map included herein are without prejudice to the status of or sovereignty over any territory, to the delimitation of international frontiers and boundaries and to the name of any territory, city or area. The opinions expressed in these papers are the sole responsibility of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the OECD or of the governments of its member countries. 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The use of such data by the OECD is without prejudice to the status of the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and Israeli settlements in the West Bank under the terms of international law.  EDU/WKP(2013)1 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................................... 4 RÉSUMÉ ........................................................................................................................................................ 4 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .............................................................................................................................. 4 1. Why assessing creativity in schools matters ........................................................................................ 5 A creative challenge ................................................................................................................................ 6 Some pros and cons of assessing creativity ............................................................................................. 6 The principles guiding our development of a framework and associated tool ........................................ 7 Creativity in schools ................................................................................................................................ 8 Assessing creativity in schools .............................................................................................................. 10 2. Thinking about creativity and its assessment ..................................................................................... 10 Differing views of creativity .................................................................................................................. 11 Describing creativity in individuals ....................................................................................................... 12 Freeranging versus Disciplined ............................................................................................................. 14 3. Our prototype tool for assessing pupils’ creativity in schools ........................................................... 16 The Five Creative Dispositions Model .................................................................................................. 16 Trialling and refining the tool ................................................................................................................ 19 Findings in more detail .......................................................................................................................... 20 Reflections on fieldwork in schools....................................................................................................... 21 Refining the second field trial ................................................................................................................ 24 4. Conclusion and next steps .................................................................................................................. 26 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................................. 30 APPENDIX 1: FIELD TRIAL 2 – ASSESSMENT TOOL ......................................................................... 34 APPENDIX 2: PUPIL QUESTIONNAIRE, FIELD TRIAL 2 .................................................................... 35 APPENDIX 3: EXAMPLE TEACHER QUESTIONNAIRE, FIELD TRIAL 2 ......................................... 37 Figures Figure 1. Creativity: Person and location .................................................................................................. 12 Figure 2. Creativity: Learnable or Innate .................................................................................................. 14 Figure 3. Field Trial 1 Tool ....................................................................................................................... 18 Boxes Box 1. Early attempts at assessing creativity in schools ........................................................................... 10 Box 2. Field Trial Methodology ................................................................................................................ 20  EDU/WKP(2013)1 4 ABSTRACT Creativity is widely accepted as being an important outcome of schooling. Yet there are many different views about what it is, how best it can be cultivated in young people and whether or how it should be assessed. And in many national curricula creativity is only implicitly acknowledged and seldom precisely defined. This paper offers a five dimensional definition of creativity which has been trialled by teachers in two field trials in schools in England. The paper suggests a theoretical underpinning for defining and assessing creativity along with a number of practical suggestions as to how creativity can be developed and tracked in schools. Two clear benefits of assessing progress in the development of creativity are identified: 1) teachers are able to be more precise and confident in developing young people’s creativity, and 2) learners are better able to understand what it is to be creative (and to use this understanding to record evidence of their progress). The result would seem to be a greater likelihood that learners can display the full range of their creative dispositions in a wide variety of contexts. RÉSUMÉ La créativité est largement acceptée comme étant un résultat scolaire important. Pourtant il y a beaucoup d’opinions différentes sur ce qu’elle est, comment on peut la cultiver chez les jeunes gens, et si et comment on devrait l’évaluer. De plus, dans beaucoup de programmes scolaires, la créativité n’est reconnue que de manière implicite et rarement définie de manière précise. Ce document offre une définition de la créativité reposant sur cinq dimensions, qui a été testée par des enseignants durant deux expériences de terrain dans des écoles en Angleterre. Le document propose un soubassement théorique pour définir et évaluer la créativité ainsi que nombre de suggestions pratiques sur le développement et le suivi de la créativité à l’école. Deux bénéfices clairs d’évaluer le progrès dans le développement de la créativité sont identifiés : 1) les enseignants peuvent être plus précis et confiants lorsqu’ils développent la créativité des jeunes gens, et 2) les apprenants sont davantage en mesure de comprendre ce que « être créatif » signifie (et à utiliser cette compréhension pour documenter et relater leur progrès). Le résultat semble être une plus grande probabilité que les apprenants témoignent de toute l’étendue de leurs dispositions à la créativité dans un large éventail de contextes. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We are very grateful to Francesco Avvisati and Stéphan Vincent-Lancrin for their extremely helpful detailed reading of earlier drafts of this paper and for their editorial guidance. Our thanks also to the project’s steering group, whose members were: Dr. Francesco Avvisati, Paul Collard, Prof. Anna Craft, Dr. David Parker, Naranee Ruthra-Rajan, Prof. Julian Sefton-Green, Jo Trowsdale, and Dr. Stéphan Vincent-Lancrin.  EDU/WKP(2013)1 5 PROGRESSION IN STUDENT CREATIVITY IN SCHOOL: FIRST STEPS TOWARDS NEW FORMS OF FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS by Bill Lucas, Guy Claxton and Ellen Spencer* In Spring 2011, Creativity, Culture and Education (CCE), in partnership with the OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI), commissioned the Centre for Real-World Learning (CRL) at the University of Winchester to undertake research to establish the viability of creating an assessment framework for tracking the development of young people’s creativity in schools. After reviewing the literature on creativity and its assessment, CRL consulted expert practitioners using both structured interviews and adopting an appreciative inquiry approach (Cooperrider and Whitney, 2005). In the light of this preliminary investigative work we created a framework for teachers to assess the development of young people’s creativity, and associated processes for trialling this framework in schools. We then ran two field trials in 12 schools, the first as a proof of concept and the second one exploring issues raised in the first trial. Three overarching questions guided us: a) Is it possible to create an assessment instrument that is sufficiently comprehensive and sophisticated that teachers would find useful (the proof of concept)? b) Would any framework be useable across the entire age span of formal education? c) If a framework is to be useful to teachers and pupils, what approach to assessment should it adopt? The paper describes the approach adopted by the CRL research team and the conclusions we reached. It includes a highly selective summary of a more extensive literature review (Spencer et al., 2012a) and a description of the assessment tool we developed along with an analysis of its effectiveness. 1. Why assessing creativity in schools matters ‘From its modest beginnings in the universities of the eighteenth century and the school systems of the nineteenth century, educational assessment has developed rapidly to become the unquestioned arbitrator of value, whether of pupils’ achievements, institutional quality or national educational competitiveness.’ Patricia Broadfoot (2000:xi) * Centre for Real-World Learning at the University of Winchester. Contact: [email protected]  EDU/WKP(2013)1 6 A creative challenge Most people agree that schools need to develop creativity in students just as much as they need to produce literate and numerate learners. Yet across the educational world there is no widely used definition of what creativity is, no agreed framework for assessing its development in schools and few assessment tools specifically designed to track learners’ progress. If creativity is to be taken more seriously by educators and educational policy-makers then we need to be clearer about what it is. We also need to develop an approach to assessing it which is both rigorous enough to ensure credibility and user-friendly enough to be used by busy teachers. In this way we can add the kind of value referred to in the epigraph above. In approaching this challenge, our working definition of creativity includes the following elements. Creativity, we believe, is: − Complex and multi-faceted, occurring in all domains of life (Treffinger et al., 2002); − Learnable (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996); − Core to what it is to be successful today (Sternberg, 1996); − Capable of being analysed at an individual level in terms of dispositions1 (Guilford, 1950); and − Strongly influenced by context and by social factors (Lave and Wenger, 1991). Some pros and cons of assessing creativity Both assessment and creativity are enormous subjects, each with extensive bodies of literature. Education stakeholders also have strong opinions on both assessment and creativity. An anecdote from early in our project illustrates this. At an appreciative inquiry session with teachers, creative agents2 and experts, those present strongly agreed with the proposition that it is possible (although not straightforward) to assess progress in the development of creativity in young people and that there are a range of ways in which this could be done. Presented with a circular, bulls-eye like matrix showing a number of levels of creative skill in a number of different areas, the group was entirely comfortable. But when exactly the same conceptualisation was presented in the form of a table, with progression levels explicitly numbered (as opposed to being implicitly graded in the bull’s-eye figure, with ‘higher’ being shown by a larger wedge of shading), teachers and creative agents expressed anger, hostility and bewilderment. The only difference was in the presentational format. The circle somehow only hinted at levels of ‘progression’ while the table looked all too much like the kinds of levels associated by teachers with attainment levels achieved in core subjects such as literacy or numeracy. Thus we learned early on that the problem we faced was one not only of identifying a number of facets of creativity, each of which could be described in terms of a developmental trajectory; we had also to take into account the practicability, plausibility and acceptability of any such conceptualisation to teachers. Despite the complexity of the task, the potential advantages of attempting to measure and/or track the development of creativity in schools are easy to see. They include:  EDU/WKP(2013)1 7 − Indicating that creative-mindedness is taken seriously as an important aspect of the formal curriculum in schools; − Inspiring the development of curricula and teaching activities that foster creativity; − Providing a way of articulating an applied vision of creativity (Hingel, 2009) that allows teachers and others to understand more about different dimensions of pupils’ progression and to support their mental development more effectively (Craft et al., 2007); − Helping teachers to be more precise in their understanding of creativity; − Providing formative feedback to pupils to enable them to develop their creativity more effectively (Black and Wiliam 2000); − Providing feedback to teachers and focus their attention on this dimension; − Starting a discussion on the nature of creativity and build a consensus; and − Understanding more about individual progressions and trajectories in creativity learning. The problem is that there is no consensus on what creativity is. Possible disadvantages or challenges associated with the formative assessment of creativity in schools include, therefore: − Encouraging overly simplistic interpretations of what creativity is (as indicated by the anecdote earlier in this section); − Potentially being confused pejoratively with a comment about a pupil’s character, for example, being unimaginative3; − If we assume that making summative comparisons of individuals’ creativity is not an appropriate goal, there is also the risk that assessment ‘scores’ could be used inappropriately for summative comparisons of performance both between schools and within schools; − Concerns about assessments being made without due regard to context (Koestler, 1964); and − The practical difficulties inherent in measuring something which manifests itself in a range of school subjects. The principles guiding our development of a framework and associated tool We developed a set of guiding principles to help us balance the inevitable tensions between rigour and useability. These criteria (which we list on the next page) seek to combine scholarship with pragmatic common-sense. We decided that our framework should be: − Deliberately identifying those dispositions which the literature suggests are at the core of creativity (Claxton, 2006, Feist, 2010, Kaufman and Sternberg, 2010); − Explicitly premised on the ‘grow-ability’ of creative mindedness (Lucas and Claxton, 2010, Perkins, 1995, Sternberg, 1996);  EDU/WKP(2013)1 8 − As comprehensive in terms of existing research as possible; and − Coherent internally and having distinct elements. In addition we were determined (and strongly supported in this by our steering group) that we should highlight both the social/contextual component of creativity and learning (Lave and Wenger, 1991) as well as the technical and craft aspects (Berger, 2003; Ericsson et al., 1993). This meant including notions of ‘disciplined’ and ‘collaborative’ in our definition of the creative individual. An individual with ‘disciplined’ dispositions would be likely to devote time and effort to crafting and improving, and to the development of their technique, while one with ‘collaborative’ dispositions would be likely to work with others as appropriate, and share the results of their creativity – an important output of creativity. In describing these two ‘choices’ made, we are explicitly aligning ourselves to a broadly social- constructivist tradition within education, as well as drawing on a literature exploring the acquisition of expert performance and how individuals progress from novice to expert practitioners. In most countries creativity is not a statutory element of the school curriculum (even if it is highly valued by many teachers and employers). Consequently any assessment activity undertaken by teachers in relation to their students’ creative development needs to be seen by them as intrinsically valuable. This was clearly the case in England where, for practical reasons, we undertook the first phase of this project. In terms of principles, it was therefore essential that any assessment tools should be: − Seen as useful by teachers; − At the right ‘grain’ of analysis: neither too abstract to be directly observable, nor too detailed to become unwieldy; − Clear and accessible in its use of terminology; and − Applicable to a broad range of types of creativity. Creativity in schools In England the status of creativity in schools has waxed and waned. In the first decade of this century, in the years following the report by the influential National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education (National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education, 1999)4, creativity seemed to be in the ascendency. Indeed for a recent period it seemed as if creativity was set to become embedded in the curriculum. As Jeffrey Smith and Lisa Smith put it: "creativity and education sit and look at one another from a distance, much like the boys and girls at the seventh-grade dance, each one knowing that a foray across the gym floor might bring great rewards but is fraught with peril." (Smith and Smith, 2010:251). As in most OECD countries, education policy in the United Kingdom officially gives some place to creativity. However, while Personal, Learning and Thinking Skills (PLTS) in England (and their equivalent in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) still exist as a framework, they are rarely referred to by policy makers and education stakeholders. The PLTS framework comprises six groups of cross-curricular skills, of which ‘creative thinking’ is one. There are economic and social reasons why creativity might have a place within the school curriculum. Creativity is held as one of the most important competencies by 21st century employers  EDU/WKP(2013)1 9 (Florida, 2002), and when creativity is acknowledged by and promoted through policy it is often in response to employability and competitiveness concerns. Education policy widely positions itself as putting creativity at the centre in order that pupils are able to solve problems and challenges beyond the classroom. For example, The Qualification and Curriculum Authority’s understanding of creativity is that it ‘improves pupils’ self-esteem, motivation and achievement’; it ‘prepares pupils for life’; and it ‘enriches pupils’ lives’ (Banaji et al., 2010:23). From the literature it is clear that creativity can also be seen as a ‘social good’ (Banaji et al., 2010) and that it is important, therefore, for ‘the social and personal development of young people in communities and other social settings’. There is often an ‘economic imperative’ involved as well. The National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education (NACCCE) explicitly argued that creativity in education enables a country ‘to compete in a global market, having a flexible workforce, facing national economic challenges, feeding the ‘creative industries’ and enabling youth to adapt to technological change’ (Banaji et al., 2010:35). A central challenge for the cultivation of creativity in schools is their subject-dominated nature. Thus, while creativity spans all subject areas and is not limited to the ‘arts’, there are inherent conflicts in attempting to ensure assessment of cross-curricular concepts. The degree to which creativity is context-free or domain-specific is ambiguous also. For example, in the United Kingdom, the National Curriculum generally treats creativity as cross-curricular, and yet, in the early years curriculum, creativity is located in a set of specific domains including art, design, music, and play. As Anna Craft (2008b) comments, this makes the decision about what exactly to assess (and indeed what not to assess) problematic. In developing our assessment framework we tried two different approaches, one in each of the field trials, to explore this further. A further issue for schools in England is the overriding agenda of school accountability grades, assessment systems and their league tables, new pay regimes, a sense of reduced professional freedom in making curriculum choices locally that competes with serious attempts at fostering creativity (Menter, 2010). It may be that a formative assessment valuing creative dispositions is at odds with the performance agenda of national testing, and is therefore subordinated (Looney, 2009). Craft’s report for Futurelab notes: ‘the powerful drive to raise standards and to make performance judgments about individuals and about schools, can be seen as being in tension with an almost equally powerful commitment to nurturing ingenuity, flexibility, capability’ (Craft, 2008b:3). Yet a closer examination of research, for example into meta-cognitive processes (including mental processes such as ‘challenging assumptions’ – itself a disposition of the creative individual), reveals clear evidence to suggest that the embedding of creative (and other learning) dispositions into lessons actually raises achievement, with attempts to enhance creativity and develop more powerful learners leading to increases in measured test results (Watkins, 2010). The two agendas need not be mutually exclusive. It is certainly feasible both to cultivate creative dispositions and to raise achievement levels in subjects. Indeed, research commissioned by CCE into the impact of Creative Partnerships on attainment found small but significant attainment gains, especially for young people at Key Stages 3 and 4 (Cooper et al., 2011). With the creation of a tool to measure progression in creativity, this relationship would be clearer to see. Unsurprisingly, many teachers focus more closely on high-stakes state-mandated testing than on tracking the development of dispositions such as creativity (Wiliam et al., 2004). . The lack of any requirement to assess creativity in a national, summative way (or even formatively in class) also contributes to the undervaluing of creativity. But the lack of school-friendly tools to assess creativity is arguably another reason for paying less attention to creativity than to content or procedure knowledge.  EDU/WKP(2013)1 10 Assessing creativity in schools Despite the difficulties, attempts to assess creativity have a rich history (Hocevar, 1981; Plucker and Makel, 2010). Yet our review found no examples of widely used and credible methods of assessing creativity in schools, although it uncovered some noble attempts and experiments, many stimulated by CCE’s work. The purpose of any assessment activity critically influences the selection of methods. Boud and Falchikov (2006:401) tell us that there are two fundamentally distinct purposes of assessment: one is to provide certification of achievement, the other is to facilitate learning. Assessment can thus be formative, helping pupils and teachers improve, or also summative, enabling comparison. Indeed, one can sometimes make formative use of summative assessments, although it is more dificult the other way around (Looney, 2011). Formative assessment has a view of reality that sees reality as socially constructed rather than objective. Variables assessed formatively are complex, interwoven, and difficult to measure. A summative use of formative data would fall down on its requirement for ‘validity’ and ‘reliability’, while formative data uses different criteria: ‘trustworthiness’ and ‘credibility’, for example. Approaches to formative assessment in English schools have been shaped significantly by the Assessment for Learning (AfL) movement in recent years5. AfL uses a range of feedback methods to help learners achieve mandated levels of examined performance more effectively (see also OECD, 2005, for an overview). Box 1. Early attempts at assessing creativity in schools Plucker and Makel (2010) suggest tests for creativity fall into a number of categories: • Psychometric tests for divergent thinking; • Behaviour or personality tests of past behaviour or personality characteristics; • Personality tests of personality correlates of creative behaviour; • Activity checklists of experience associated with creative production, • Scales assessing attitudes towards important aspects of creativity or divergent thinking; • Advanced techniques for the assessment of creative products; • Expert judges to assess level of creativity in a product or response (Consensual Assessment Technique); • Six components to assess creative design of product (Consumer Product Design Models): newness, ability to resolve problems, level of pleasure induced, ability to match needs of customer, importance to needs of customer, level of desirability or criticalness. 2. Thinking about creativity and its assessment ‘Despite the abundance of definitions of creativity and related terms, few are widely used and many researchers simply avoid defining relevant terms at all.’ Jonathan Plucker and Matthew Makel (2010:48)  EDU/WKP(2013)1 11 This section introduces the theoretical foundations for our assessment framework, building on ideas introduced above and drawing selectively on a much larger review of the literature (Spencer et al., 2012a). The psychological and social components of creative performance are hard to disentangle. Because our study attempted to develop a framework for assessment of individuals in schools, however, the literature review focused on the characteristics of creative dispositions that might be assessable, rather than on exploring the nature of creative outputs and performances, or of environments that might support creativity more effectively. This section begins by summarizing some tensions between different views of creativity, then brings together key conceptualisations about the dispositions that make up a creative individual, and considers the challenges presented for anyone seeking to create an assessment framework for creativity. Inevitably in developing any assessment framework, choices have to be made with regard to earlier thinking about the subject. Informed by our literature review, the decisions we took with regard to assessing creativity can be summarized thus: a) We describe creativity in terms of individual creative dispositions selecting a cohesive set of dispositions drawn from the literature. We chose consciously to focus directly on what is going on for the learner during acts of creativity, not on the environment in which this takes place nor on any creative products produced per se (although these may well be used by learners to indicate their own sense of progress); b) While recognizing and valuing the social and collaborative nature of creativity, we focused on assessing creativity within individuals and we deliberately included one disposition which specifically acknowledges the collaborative nature of creativity; c) We explicitly adopted a view of creativity (and of intelligence) that sees it as largely learnable rather than essentially innate; d) We acknowledged the importance of context by valuing both creativity within subjects (in music and in mathematics, for example) as well as creativity in its more generalisable forms (such as being able to have good ideas in a range of domains); and e) We included an emphasis on the discipline of being creative as well as on the well-documented value of free-thinking. Differing views of creativity Craft’s (2008a) model (Figure 1) helpfully maps a range of views of creativity. These range from creativity as an individualised endeavour to creativity as a collective phenomenon. It also serves to point up the tension between creativity as domain-specific versus it being domain-generic.  EDU/WKP(2013)1 12 Figure 1. Creativity: Person and location Describing creativity in individuals Guilford was one of the first researchers to examine creativity from the perspective of creative dispositions, commonly referred to as psychological trait theory. Trait theory focuses on habitual patterns of mind and their associated behaviours to describe and account for different personalities. Guilford’s definition of traits linked them with the broad categories of aptitudes, interests, attitudes and temperamental qualities. From his perspective, the ‘creative personality is then a matter of those traits that are characteristics of creative persons’ (Guilford, 1950). There is increasing consensus about which dispositions might serve as indicators of the strength of creative-mindedness in individuals. In a comprehensive meta-analytical review of the creativity literature, Treffinger et al. (2002) compared 120 definitions of creativity in papers exploring the ‘traits’, ‘characteristics’, and other personal ‘attributes’ distinguishing highly creative individuals from their peers. From these 120 definitions they compiled a list of creative dispositions (cognitive, personality, and biographical), cited in at least three sources, clustering them into four categories: − Generating ideas; − Digging deeper into ideas; − Openness and courage to explore ideas; and − Listening to one’s ‘inner voice’. There have been several attempts to map the dispositions that underlie creative performance (e.g. Kaufman and Sternberg, 2010; Root-Bernstein and Root-Bernstein, 1999). Some lists of creativity-related dispositions were simply too long for teachers to be able to find manageable. Root-Bernstein and Root- Bernstein (1999), for example, list 13 such dispositions, all of which have a degree of both empirical and face validity. They are careful observation; use of sensory imagination; the ability to abstract essentials; recognizing patterns in information; forming new patterns; generating useful analogies; use of intuition and embodied cognition; empathy and shifting perspectives; mapping between different dimensional representations; creating and adapting models; playfulness with material and ideas; transforming ides into different media; and synthesizing elements of thought into a coherent whole.  EDU/WKP(2013)1 13 Individual versus social components of creativity Treffinger et al.’s (2002) list of dispositions, while a helpful starting point, is incomplete as a framework for assessment in so far as manifestations of creativity are, to a degree, almost always the result of complex collaboration across social groups. The challenge of using such a categorisation to create an assessment framework is that such dispositions are not simply located within the individual, they are also a function of what the broader context affords. As the authors note, many definitions of creativity challenge the notion that dispositions alone are sufficient. Fillis and McAuley (2000:9), for instance, cite the work of Amabile as they assert that ‘examining creativity from a trait perspective can have limited impact, given that social surroundings have also been shown to impact upon creative behaviour’. An early authoritative text on creativity was Arthur Koestler’s (1964) The Act of Creation, which takes a broad conception of creativity and emphasises its social dependencies. Koestler’s general theory of human creativity in art, humour, and scientific discovery pinpointed the role of external influences on an individual’s creative thought process. Citing the scientific ‘discoveries’ of Kepler, Kelvin, Newton, Pasteur, and Fleming, Koestler demonstrated the way all ideas develop through cross-fertilisation and recombination of existing components. Human beings do not, he argued, ever ‘create’ wholly original thinking. Regarding the social element many current approaches to creativity stress the social and collaborative nature of the creative process. John-Steiner, for example, tells us that: 'The notion of the solitary thinker still appeals to those moulded by the Western belief in individualism. However, a careful scrutiny of how knowledge is constructed and artistic forms are shaped reveals a different reality. Generative ideas emerge from joint thinking, from significant conversations, and from sustained, shared struggles to achieve new insights by partners in thought.' (John-Steiner, 2006:3). The challenge for anyone creating an assessment tool exploring individual creativity is to allow sufficient scope for the social element of creativity to be accounted for. This could be achieved by including a ‘collaborative’ dimension as an important, assessable, element of the creative individual. Subject-specific versus general creativity Csikszentmihalyi wrote that the key difference between creative people with a big C and their less creative peers is the ‘complexity’ of their tendencies of thought and action. Those veering toward creativity ‘tend to bring together the entire range of human possibilities within themselves’ (1996:57). This is not to say that only a privileged few have capacity for creativity, but that the creative side is nurtured and cultivated in the process of developing maturity and that it is likely to draw on experiences in different contexts. Looking at the subject-specific/domain-free continuum, Craft (2008a:7) comments that: 'Whilst some views of creativity argue that at its heart, creativity in one domain is the same as in another, in that it ultimately involves asking ‘what if?’ in appropriate ways for the domain…, others would argue… that creativity cannot be understood without reference to the domain of application.' A tool for assessing creativity needs to allow for assessment of creativity across a range of contexts, which might be subject domains as well as in or outside of the school environment.  EDU/WKP(2013)1 Learnable versus innate Assessment of creativity only has v creative. We take the well-supported v ways, including in its ubiquity and in Figure 2 below. Figure It is clear, for example, that every Creativity also has levels, so that we c Heindel and Furlong (2000) suggest tha other skill, Csikszentmihalyi believed combination of personal characteristics made a powerful case for the learnability the creativity literature (Perkins, 1995). To be of formative use, a framewor of behaviour that represent learnable disp Freeranging versus Disciplined One important aspect of generalize ideas from a range of perspectives with important, but it is not a proxy for crea creative thinking and problem solving’. B ‘disciplined’ is the convergent and impor Our tool for assessing creativity sho convergent aspects of the creative indivi and imagination and, on the other, the di narrow down options. Assessing Creativity – a specific challeng In section 1.5 we noted the difficu consider the specific challenges which a of the purposes of any assessment. At a very practical level assessing s as we have observed elsewhere in a revi school labelled as a ‘level 7 imaginer’ evaluation of success is necessary’ (Luca Learnable 14 value if we take the view that children can learn t view that creativity is comparable to intelligence its ‘learnability’. This latter tension is presented 2. Creativity: Learnable or Innate y individual is creative to some degree (Csikszen can ask ‘how creative’ an individual is (Treffing at while Torrance believed that creativity could be that, while children could not be taught creat and an encouraging environment could produce y of intelligence, including many aspects of creativ rk for assessing creativity should thus include asse positions over which individuals have a degree of c ed creativity is ‘divergent thinking’ – the ability to out being limited by preconceived thinking. Diver ativity. Rather tests of it represent ‘estimates of t Being imaginative can be seen as the divergent asp rtant parallel one (Runco, 2010:424). ould thus include dispositions that represent both th idual. This would include, on the one hand, notion isposition of reflecting upon a range of choices criti ge? ulties others have found in assessing creativity. H assessing creativity in schools may bring as well as something like creativity, if reductionist, could give iew of wider skills: ‘The idea that young people co or ‘grade C collaborator’ is horrific – yet clearl as and Claxton, 2009:25). Innate to become more in a number of d graphically in ntmihalyi, 1996). er et al., 2002). e taught like any tivity, the right e it. Perkins has vity identified in essable elements control. o generate many rgent thinking is the potential for pect, while being he divergent and ns of playfulness ically in order to Here we briefly s the wide issues e rise to ridicule, ould come out of ly some kind of