The effects of instructions and response time on divergent thinking test scores

Abstract

What a test measures is a function not only of the items on the test, but also of the testing conditions. This study examined the effects of varying instructions and response time in testing for divergent thinking (DT) on both the level of performance and the intercorrelations of D T subscores with each other and with I&. Christensen, Guilford, and Wilson (1957) varied the instructions and the time allowed for completing D T tasks. They found that subjects told to "be clever" responded with more high quality, clever responses, but fewer total responses, than subjects not so instructed. When more time was allowed the rate and level of cleverness remained relatively constant, while the remoteness and uncommonness of the responses increased. hqanske and Davis (1968) extended the findings of Christensen, Guilford, and Wilson (1957) by asking some subjects to be "original," others to be "practical," a third group to be "original and practical," and a fourth to be "wild." Control subjects were given nonspecific directions. The responses of subjects instructed to be original were rated by judges to be more original but less practical than the control group. The subjects instructed to be practical gave practical and common responses. The subjects instructed to be both original and practical gave responses similar to those of the control group in originality and practicality. However, they gave fewer total responses than the control group. When subjects were told to be wild, they gave the largest total number of responses. There was a moderate tendency for responses occurring later in the order of emission to be rated as more original than those emitted earlier.Wallach and Kogan (1965) reviewed the literature on the relationship between D T and intelligence and concluded that there was no clear evidence of a unitary creativity factor as measured by the usual array of D T tasks. Further, the relatively high correlations between I& and D T measures did not allow the interpretation that I& and DT (as measured) are orthogonal. They studied the effects of removing evaluative stress from D T measures by testing individuals in a game-like atmosphere. Under conditions of low evaluative stress most of the intercorrelations among the D T tests were significant and substantial, and the correlations of D T measures with I& measures tended to be low and not significant. Thus, changes in the DT testing situation resulted in changes in the relationships among DT measures and between D T and IQ.Ward (1966), Boersma and O'Bryan (1968), Williams and Fleming (in press), McGuire, Hindsman, King, and Jennings (196l), Clark, Veldman, and Thorpe (1965), Kogan and Morgan (1967), Connett and Lyon (1969), and Wallach and Wing (1969) have provided evidence supporting the Wallach and Kogan finding that under conditions of low evaluative stress, creativity measures (expecially measures of ideational fluency and uniqueness) correlate highly with each other and tend to be statistically independent of I&. From the literature it is clear that changes in ...

Methodological Issues in Measuring Creativity: A Systematic Literature Review

“…Task-specific characteristics might make an individual more susceptible to changes in testing context when responding to this task. Van Mondfrans et al (1971) revealed that an untimed condition increased creativity scores on figural tasks, but did not have a significant effect on the scores on verbal tasks. Also, Smith, Michael, and Hocevar (1990) greatly across creativity tasks (artistic, verbal and mathematical), ranging from 1% on verbal tasks to 30% on artistic tasks.…”

“…Adams, 1968;Vernon, 1971), while other studies reported contrary results (e.g. Busse, Blum, & Gutride, 1972;Channon, 1974;Hattie, 1980;Johns et al, 2000;Kogan & Morgan, 1969;Leith, 1972;Van Mondfrans, Feldhusen, Treffinger, & Ferris, 1971;Williams & Fleming, 1969).…”

Conditions for administering creativity tests.

“…To further complicate this issue, Lero (1974) reported an interaction between particular creativity tests and whether those tests were timed or not timed. Van Mondfrans, Feldhusen, Treffinger, and Ferris (1971) found that the removal of time limits did not have a significant effect on verbal creative performance and that tension produced by evaluation was necessary to ensure a high level of response. However, they also pointed out that only when time limits were relaxed were there high intercorrelations among the various creativity subscores and that these subscores were unrelated to intelligence measures.…”

“…Trentham (1972) found that giving model answers along with the usual Torrance manual instructions did not significantly alter scores, McCormack (1975) was not able to confirm Trentham's results. Van Mondfrans, Feldhusen, Treffinger, and Ferris (1971) investigated the effects of four conditions on creative ability: a formal test condition, a take-home test to complete in 4 days, a relaxed, playful game-like condition, and an incubation session prior to administration. On verbal tasks the formal group performed best, whereas on nonverbal tasks the take-home group excelled.…”

Environmental Influences on Creativity Measurement

“…Wallach and Kogan, 1965;Nicholls, 1971), and some support the efficacy of test-like conditions (e.g. Hattie, 1980;Van Mondfrans, Feldhusen, Treffinger, and Ferris, 1971). Other approaches to the issue of pre-administration environmental conditions include using varied test instructions (Christensen, Guilford, and Wilson, 1957;McCormack, 1975), comparing competitive and non-competitive environments (Halpin and Halpin, 1973;Raina, 1968), and investigating the effect of warm-up activities (Hershey and Kearns, 1979;Carroll, 1980).…”