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Wallace/Kogan

In Wallas and Kogan's (1965) assessment of creativity examinees are asked to come up with many possible items that contain a specific component, such as with wheels, round things, or things that make noise.

Example

Name things with wheels:

  1. a car
  2. a truck
  3. a train
  4. a go cart
  5. your mind

Scoring

Scoring is comprised of four components:

  1. Originality - each response it compared to the total amount of responses from all of the people you gave the test to. Reponses that were given by only 5% of your group are unusual (1 point), responses that were given by only 1% of your group are unique - 2 points). Total all the point. Higher scores indicate creativity*
  2. Fluency - or total. Just add up all the responses. In this example it is 5.
  3. Flexibility - or different category, in this case 2 (the first four are all methods of transportation but the "wheel turning in your mind is a different category from transportation)
  4. Elaboration - amount of detail (for Example "a car" = 0 whereas "a car racing down the street" = 1 (another point is given for the detail of where the car is going).

*You might have noticed that the higher fluency the higher the originality (if you did "good for you!") This is a contamination problem and can be corrected by using a corrective calculation for originality (originality = originality/fluency).

Administration

Any one can administer Wallas and Kogan's (1965) test. No training required. Materials can be created by the examiner and individually administered to the examinees or shown on an overhead projector to a group of examinees.

Typically the test is administered in a classroom setting. However, the test can also been an unlimited time "take home": since time is an issue. The majority of responses given by the examinees in the first few minutes tend to be their least creative.

Also see similar tests:

Guilford’s Alternative Uses Task (1967)

Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT) (1974)


IU Crimson