Full text of DOI:10.1002/j.2162-6057.2002.tb01057.x

M U H A M M A D S H A H R I N
K O K - A U N . T O H
B O O N - T I O N G. H O
J E S S I E W O N G
Performance Assessment:
Is Creative Thinking Necessary?
ABSTRACT
The study examined the relationship between creative think-
ing ability of 13 to 14-year old female students and their ability
in tackling problem solving situations in the science labora-
tory. The latter has been variously labeled as hands-on prob-
lem-solving tasks, scientific investigations, and performance
assessment. No tutoring or guidance concerning how to solve
the problem was provided. The scientific concepts embedded
in the tasks are within the scope of the 13 to 14-year old stu-
dents, but the setting for the tasks are novel and not likely
to be dealt with by their class teacher during the course of
instruction. The solution process for these tasks is likely to
involve the following components: preliminary trialing, plan-
ning, performing, communicating, interpreting and reflecting
on the task to provide feedback for further refinement of the
task (Department of Education & Science, U.K., 1987; Toh,
1990). The paper looks into the correlation of creative think-
ing ability and each of the six performance components, as
well as the overall performance.
INTRODUCTION
The call for the development of creativity in students has
prompted educators, including those involved in science edu-
cation, to seek new strategies that lead to higher-order think-
ing skills. Science, as a subject taught in schools in every
country, has two major components. One component is class-
room-based theory lessons and the other is laboratory-based.
The strategies that are employed in the classrooms and the
possible gains that can be derived from the activities that
enhance creative thinking are well-documented (Beyer, 1991;
Marzano et. al., 1988; Swartz & Parks, 1994). On the other hand,
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Performance Assessment: Is Creative Thinking Necessary?
when the laboratory-based component is examined, the num-
ber of studies that have looked into it as a place to enhance
creativity is far less in comparison. This is true despite many
claims that one of the higher goals of laboratory work is to
contribute to the development of creative thinking ability
(Shulman & Tamir, 1973; Hegarty-Hazel, 1990; Hofstein &
Walberg, 1995; Gangoli, 1995). Many laboratory activities
are designed simply with the aim to demonstrate and verify
some physical principle, or to determine the value of some
constant. Such activities often require pupils to follow recipe-
like instructions (Clackson & Wright, 1992), an activity which
Hodson (1992) described as “muddled and without real edu-
cational value”.
Two important strategies are often referred to in many
approaches to developing creativity: “problem-solving” and
“open-endedness”. Moravcsik (1981) has suggested the use
of an open-ended problem approach to help develop creative
thinking skills in pupils. Woolnough and Allsop (1985) con-
curred with this view and suggested further that the quality of
investigative work done by students when based on their own
open-ended problems is of a significantly higher standard. They
wrote, “Such investigations are to encourage and develop in
the students different and often unexpected talents of original-
ity, creativity, independence . . .” (p.53).
The solution process for open-ended science investigations
is characterized by six performance components (Department
of Education & Science, U.K., 1987; Toh, 1990), as summa-
rized in Table 1. Lock (1989) and Toh (1990) separately found
that there is very low inter-correlation between these perfor-
mance components, providing confirmation that they are dis-
tinct and independent variables.
Creativity can be defined by looking at four major aspects:
creative personality traits, creative products, the creative pro-
cess, and the creative press or supporting environment (Rhode,
1961). Davis and Rimm’s (1982) definition of creativity is based
on the characteristics or personality traits of individuals. It was
used for this study because the instrument employed in this
study, How Do You Think Inventory (Form E), was designed
by Davis (1975) based on attitudes, motivation, interest, values,
and certain personality traits. Creative people, for example,
were assumed to be above average in spontaneity and willing
to take risks and make mistakes. At the same time, they were
assumed to be more playful and have a sense of humor. They
were also assumed to be open to new ideas and experiences,
Open-ended
Science
Investigations
Creative Thinking
Ability
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Journal of Creative Behavior
TABLE 1.
Component Processes in Science Investigation and their Skills.
(Adapted from Toh, 1990)
Performance Components Skills Identified
Preliminary Trialing
Planning
Problem formulation
Planning and designing procedures
Controlling variable
Quality of experimentation
Performing
Setting up
Manipulating apparatus
Carrying out
Observing
Measuring
Repeating of measurements
Communicating
Interpreting
Reporting
Recording of results
Interpreting
Analyzing
Drawing conclusions Discussing
results
Reflecting (for
feedback/refinement)
Further reformulation
Refinements to the task
and to have both artistic and aesthetic interests. The research-
ers also cited traits that were deemed as not being creative,
for example, “neat”, “well-ordered”, “predictable” and “value
others’ opinion”.
The present study seeks to examine the degree of influence
these creative characteristics or personality traits have on dif-
ferent components of open-ended science investigations as
well as the performance of whole investigations. It also seeks
to determine whether creativity helps to enhance performance
in these components or whether it actually interferes with the
processes and worsens their performance ultimately. The evi-
dence from this study helps users of open-ended investigations
to implement it as a strategy to encourage creativity in science.
METHODOLOGY
Sample
The sample was comprised of 114 female pupils aged 13 to 14
years old randomly selected from two schools. They were
in 8th grade at the time of the study. The pupils had been
exposed to formal science education for more than five years
from the 3rd grade level. From the 7th grade onwards, the pupils
had been attending laboratory sessions at least once a week.
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Performance Assessment: Is Creative Thinking Necessary?
Instrumentation
Creative thinking ability of the pupils was measured using
the How Do You Think Inventory or HDYT (Revised Form E)
designed by Davis (1975). This was originally a 100-item test
with respondents providing feedback on a five-point Likert
scale. Form E of the HDYT inventory is derived from a Form B
in which Davis (1975) reported a relatively high reliability co-
efficient of 0.933. The HDYT scores of a study sample had
been correlated with creativity ratings given to project work
assigned to the sample. The correlation was found to be 0.42
(p < 0.01). This according to Davis (1975) is quite reasonable
considering the large number of factors influencing test and
criterion scores in measurements of creativity. The Revised
Form E was re-validated by Teo and Quah (1997) for use in
the Singapore context. It consisted of 96 items; four items not
applicable to the local context were discarded and another two
were modified to suit the local culture.
Two open-ended investigations, a task involving sticky tapes
and another involving candles, were used for studying the per-
formance components when students were involved in the
solution process. The two selected tasks were devised and
validated by the Assessment of Performance Unit (Department
of Education & Science, U.K., 1987) for national testing in the
United Kingdom and Lock (1986) respectively. Toh (1990),
for his own study, also validated the two tasks for use in the
Singapore context. He had also reported that the investigative
tasks were not gender-biased and both male and female pu-
pils performed equally well in both investigations. A brief
description of both tasks is given in Table 2. In each task, the
pupils were given a set of materials and apparatus to solve a
problem posed in the form of a question. The experimental
variables and the nature of the problems for each task are given
in Table 3.
The solution process for each task was elicited using the
Self-Report Sheet (SRS) devised by Toh (1990), together with
an accompanying rubric. The SRS was reported to have a rela-
tively high inter-rater reliability of 0.943 (p < 0.01). The instru-
ment measures all the six performance components (see Table
1), and the composite score represents the performance as-
sessment of the whole investigation. In his study, Toh (1990)
determined the score awarded to each component process by
looking at the number of decisions pupils needed to make
during each process. Generally, one mark was awarded for each
decision. The decisions were considered vital to the overall
solution of the problem posed by the task.
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Journal of Creative Behavior
TABLE 2.
Description of the Performance Assessment Tasks
Task
Materials and Apparatus
Problem
Sticky- 1. Forcemeter/Spring Balance
Which kind of tape
sticks most strongly
to the board?
tape
(10N/1000gf maximum
applied force)
2. Hard board (Formica)
3. 15 cm length tapes
(3 different types: say
Type X (width: 1, 2, 3 cm);
Y (2, 2.5 cm); Z (1, 2, cm)
Candle 1. Beakers (4 pieces of different
When a lighted candle
sizes: 100, 250, 600,1000 cm3) is covered, it goes out
after a short while.
How does the size of
the container affect
the time for which the
candle burns?
2. Conical flasks (2 pieces of
different sizes: 250, 500 cm3)
3. Stop watch
4. Bunsen burner
5. Lighter
6. Wooden splint (20 pieces
bundled together)
7. Candles (5 pieces,
3 = 5 cm long; 2 = 7 cm long)
TABLE 3.
Summary of the Performance Assessment Tasks.
Independent
Variable
Task
Dependent Variable
Nature of Problem
Sticky- Type of tape Force to pull tape off To determine the
tape
minimum force
required to pulling
the tape off the
surface.
Candle Size of
Time candle burns
To time the
container
duration a candle
takes to burn in a
confined space
Procedures
1. The HDYT Inventory (Revised Form E) was administered
to a random sample of 114 female students.
2. After a week, these same students were divided equally
into two groups. Each one was given one of the tasks to
perform and they were to report their investigation in the
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Performance Assessment: Is Creative Thinking Necessary?
SRS given to them at the beginning of each session. The
whole session lasted about an hour. The students were not
assisted in any way concerning the investigative procedure
or the reporting in the SRS.
RESULTS AND
DISCUSSION
Based on a five-point Likert scale, the minimum score for the
96-item test is 96 and the maximum possible score is 480.
Figure 1 shows the distribution of the HDYT scores for the study
sample.
Creative Thinking
Ability
The mean score obtained from the study sample is 294.1
with a standard deviation of 38.2. Most students (68.4%) scored
between 241 and 340 with 53.5% of the study sample scoring
above the median score of 288.
Table 4 gives a summary of the performance of the study
sample on the two investigative tasks.
Performance
Assessment in Two
Investigative Tasks
The most common score (mode) for the Candle task was
11, and 38.6% of the sample had this score. In fact, a total of
73.6% obtained scores between 10 and 12 (inclusive). For the
Sticky-tape investigation, the mode was 9 and 24.6% had
this score. A total of 80.7% had scores between 8 and 12
(inclusive).
FIGURE 1. Distribution of the HDYT scores in the study sample.
35
29
30
25
20
15
10
5
18
18
16
15
9
4
2
2
1
0
HDYT scores
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Journal of Creative Behavior
TABLE 4.
Summary Statistics for Performance on the Candle and Sticky-
tape tasks.
Statistic
Candle
Sticky-tape
Total number (N)
Mean
Standard Deviation
Variance
57
10.74
1.54
2.38
11
57
10.05
1.93
2.73
9
Mode
Minimum, Maximum marks
Range
5, 14
9
6, 14
8
TABLE 5.
Summary of Outcomes in the Performance Components.
( )
Mean (X) Standard Maximum Mean score X
Performance
Components Mode (N = 114) Deviation
score
Maximum score
Preliminary
Trialing
1
0.83
0.38
1
0.83
Planning
Performing
3
3
2.80
2.50
0.79
0.61
5
3
0.56
0.83
Communi-
cation
2
1.79
0.63
3
0.59
Interpreting
Reflecting
2
1
1.52
0.96
0.57
0.64
2
2
0.76
0.48
Table 5 gives a summary of the performance on the six per-
formance components using the aggregate scores from both
tasks. For the sake of comparing the performance across the
different processes, the relative performance was used (see
the last column in Table 4). It was obtained by dividing the
mean score for the particular component by its maximum
achievable score.
Comparing across the six performance components, the
students in the sample had done well in the “preliminary
trialing” stage and were more proficient in the “interpreting”
and “performing” process skills. The other three component
processes, “communicating”, “planning” and “reflecting”
showed lower relative performance values in that order, with
“reflecting” being the lowest of the three. Typical laboratory
classes are sessions devoted to non-investigative type activity.
As such planning an investigation, devising ways for commu-
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Performance Assessment: Is Creative Thinking Necessary?
nicating the findings, and reflecting/re-thinking of the experi-
ment with a view to improving upon it, are not in the normal
scheme of things. These aspects are therefore less familiar
domains. Understandably the study sample did not perform
well in these component processes.
Correlation between
Creative Thinking
Ability and the
Six Performance
Components, as
well as the Overall
Performance
Table 6 summarizes the correlation results of the six perfor-
mance components with creative thinking ability. The out-
comes are both interesting and exciting. The processes of
“planning” and “communicating” are significantly correlated
with creative thinking ability. In other words those who scored
high on the HDYT questionnaire did well in planning their
investigations and devising ways to communicate the findings
of the investigations. Considering that these are non-familiar
tasks, since these aspects are not what they do or encounter
in regular laboratory sessions, the creative ones amongst
the study sample therefore performed better in these two com-
ponents of the investigative process, as one would have intu-
itively expected.
Assessment
The study sample seemed to have done better in “perform-
ing” and “interpreting” as these are components often focused
upon in regular laboratory classes. The fact that they are nega-
tively correlated with creativity can be intuitively explained. The
“performing” component calls for the individual to operate or
use the apparatus and materials in a standard way, and at the
same time, to take precautionary measures to ensure accu-
racy of data. There is a need to stay focused and to be on task
TABLE 6.
Summary of Creative Thinking Ability and the Six Performance
Components.
Pearson’s product-
moment correlation
coefficient
Types of
correlation
Performance
Components
Planning
Communicating
Performing
0.35*
0.23**
– 0.28*
– 0.20**
– 0.12
0.09
Positive
Negative
Zero
Interpreting
Preliminary Trialing
Reflecting
* significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)
** significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed)
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Journal of Creative Behavior
so that a complete set of readings can be obtained. Creative
individuals might have been less “on task” because of their
greater curiosity and their greater tendency to take risks. The
“interpreting” component requires cognitive skills that are
convergent rather than divergent. The latter is a stage often
associated with the creative thinking process. On the relation-
ship between creative and convergent thinking, Toth and Baker
(1990) remarked that creative ability might impede convergent
thinking through the excessive production of ideas.
The results also revealed that the aggregate scores for both
investigations were not significantly correlated with creative
thinking ability. This seemed, in the first instance, to be going
against the fundamental premise that open-ended tasks
would involve creative thinking. On closer scrutiny this can be
explained from the investigative tasks selected for the study.
Both tasks were selected because the scope covered by the
tasks was in familiar terrain for the study sample. The outcomes
and findings could also be predicted (for the task involving
determination of the time taken for the candle to be extin-
guished) or anticipated (for the task involving determination
of the force required to pull off pieces of tape firmly stuck to a
clean surface). It is therefore not quite as open-ended as it
seems for students who are familiar with the setting of the task.
In this instance, a high level of creativity is therefore not a
pre-requisite to seeking a solution to the tasks assigned.
CONCLUSIONS
We would expect creativity to have a greater influence on sci-
ence investigations if the latter were more open-ended and
complex whereby the pupils had to deal with more than two
variables. Creative pupils have been observed to prefer a more
open structure learning experience (Hofstein & Kempa, 1985;
Toth & Baker, 1990). We would also expect greater correla-
tions if older pupils had been used in the study given that they
have shown to be better at presenting their data and designing
their investigations. According to Gott and Duggan (1995), this
is due to their greater understanding of scientific concepts.
Getting pupils to plan, perform and interpret their own
experiments represents a substantial break from the more tra-
ditional teacher directed approach to practical work. The ques-
tion of whether creativity can contribute towards success in
the performance of open-ended science investigation really
depends on the approach to laboratory work. This exploratory
study implies that there is a need to move away from the teacher
directed approach should the laboratory lesson be intended
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Performance Assessment: Is Creative Thinking Necessary?
for this purpose. If the open-ended investigation approach is
to be employed, then competence in the skills used in the two
performance components: “planning” and “communicating”
should be taught and developed. This could involve the teach-
ing of strategies in problem-identification and problem-formu-
lation. The conclusions drawn from the study are important
considerations in the design and planning of learning experi-
ences and teaching interventions, both by teachers and cur-
riculum developers, as well as those who are responsible for
performance assessment in schools.
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