Assessing Students' Creativity: Lessons from research
Dr Tom Balchin, Brunel University
10 valid reasons for being concerned with creative assessment.
- Helps remove creativity from the realm of mystery and superstition
- Helps students to recognise their own strengths and talents; enabling people to know and understand themselves better.
- Expands students' risk-taking parameters.
- Helps teachers to discover unrecognized or untapped potential/talent
- Provides baseline data for assessing individuals or groups and results which can guide teachers in planning and conducting appropriate and challenging instruction.
- Highlights current education problems such as 'marking to the assessment criteria'. Consistent gap between a high score in hitting assessment criteria yet low creativity will tell their own stories.
- Helps in the recognition and 'reward' process for students.
- Provides a common language for communication among professionals about the nature of creative abilities and skills.
- Gives a boost to students who tend to fall outside society's norm bebavioural standards and are judged badly as a result of poor academic work
- Provides pre-test and post-test data for group comparisons for further researcher evaluation.
Reference. Balchin T. (2005) "A Creativity Feedback Package for Teachers and Students of Design and Technology in the UK" in the international Journal of Design and Technology Education, 10, 2, p 31-43
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