With creativity now being emphasized in schools, it is important for teachers to understand what it is and how it is measured. This review of the literature is an attempt to make sense of the many definitions and measures of creativity. As a result, this comprehensive review shows that most definitions agree that there are at least two criteria to…

We teach our children manners, what to do in certain emergencies, and other life basics, but most of us do not intentionally teach our children about thinking strategies and creative problem solving. Perhaps this is the case because many of us have never formalized these processes within ourselves so that we feel capable of communicating them to…

Critics of creativity tests, some of which are used widely in determining student eligibility for special educational opportunities such as gifted programs, claim that scores on these tests can be improved with specific training on the scoring components of the tests. However, we could find no empirical evidence supporting this claim. So, we…

This article updates information about the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT) by reporting on predictive validity data from the most recent data collection point in Torrance's longitudinal studies. First, we outline the background of the tests and changes in scoring over the years. Then, we detail the results of the analyses of the 40-year…

The authors stress the need for teaching gifted children to read creatively, which includes synthesizing information into meaningful relationships, and propose a 20-item checklist to generate objectives and activities for fostering creative reading development. (MC)

An interview with E. Paul Torrance reviews research into creativity in the second half of the 20th century and his own research centering on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking as an indicator of creativity. Trends in current research identified include cross-cultural aspects of creativity, multiple ways of creative thinking, and the systems…

This study of 75 gifted students in grades 6-8 found that the group receiving Creative Problem Solving training with transfer strategies infused had a higher percentage of students applying the strategies to problems out of the context of the training sessions, compared to control group students and students receiving traditional training.…

There is disagreement among researchers as to whether creativity is a unidimensional or multidimensional trait. Much of the debate centers around the most widely used measure of creativity, the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT). This study used data from 1,000 kindergartners (ages 5-7), 1,000 third graders (ages 7-11) and 1,000 sixth…

Gifted students in grades 6-8 were divided into two experimental groups, one receiving traditional creative problem-solving training and the other receiving creative problem-solving with transfer strategies infused; there was also a control group receiving training in various memory tasks, analogical skills, and logic exercises. After the…

Combining both the Western perspective of creativity as productivity and the Eastern perspective of creativity as enlightenment, a Program for Enlightened and Productive Creativity (PEPC) for teaching inquiry was devised. The PEPC describes stages through which a student is guided to solve a problem using increasingly complex observation, inquiry,…

This study examined the incidence of creativity among individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and the incidence of ADHD among individuals who are highly creative. The ADHD group consisted of 34 students, aged 6 to 15. The highly creative group consisted of 76 participants, ages 13 to 15, from the Torrance Creative Scholars…

This monograph is designed to be a tribute to E. Paul Torrance, a renowned creativity researcher, university teacher, and mentor. It is presented in three sections, the first of which is a discussion of Torrance's life. It reviews his childhood in rural Georgia, his academic accomplishments, the emergence of his interest in creativity and the…