Discuss how creativity is measured

Measuring creativity has proven to be a difficult undertaking, for anyone who has attempted to do so. There have been many different types of measurement tools used, but several methods of measurement allow various perspectives on creative work produced. Psychologist J.P. Guilford has established a standard by which a person’s divergent production can be measured. The four measures by which creativity are measured are: fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration. Fluency measures the number of creative responses, flexibility reflects the variety of creative responses, originality measures the uniqueness of the creative responses, and elaboration measures the detail in creative responses.

The Taxonomy of Creative Design (TCD) measures changes in the form of the creative work, allowing insight into how unique the produced work is. TCD categorizes creative work into 5 classifications: a variation of a single body of work, a combination of 2+ works, a transformation of work into a new form, an imitation of another work, or a creation that is able to be distinguished from others (“Four Ways to Measure Creativity,” 2012). Though the TCD allows creative work to be measured against other bodies of work, it does not measure the effectiveness of creative work.

The Requirements Model measures body of work against the requirements established before the work begins. The good thing about this method is that it measures the body of creative work against its effectiveness, and ability to solve the problem. A manager can simply use the work requirements to analyze each creative work against itself, versus others. Since the requirements model measures a body of work against the established criteria, it doesn’t work well in comparing creative works against one another. Additionally, clear work requirements must be set so there are clear guidelines for the creative work to follow.

The Csikszentmihalyi’s Systems Model measures how socially valuable a body of creative work is. When creative work is measures, the model analyzes the value of the work as it relates to three categories: person, field, and domain. The Csikszentmihalyi’s Systems Model guards against the title of “creative” being placed on any body of work. In order to be labeled “creative” it must be done by a person, satisfy the area which the work is created for, and be accepted by peers/experts as unique and valuable within the subject matter.

Reference:

Four Ways to Measure Creativity. (2012, March). Sense and Sensation, (), . Retrieved from http://www.senseandsensation.com/2012/03/assessing-creativity.html

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