Assessing the Accuracy of Judgments of Originality on Three Divergent Thinking Tests

Assessing the Accuracy of Judgments of Originality on Three Divergent Thinking Tests

The componential model of creative thinking includes ideation (divergent thinking), problem finding skills, and evaluative accuracy. This investigation was designed to assess the accuracy of originality judgments across three different kinds of divergent thinking tests, one (Uses) being verbal, one (Pattern Meanings) figural, and one (Consequences) "realistic." These tasks were compared using three indices of evaluative accuracy. A second objective of this investigation was to examine the discriminant validity of the evaluative accuracy scores. Given that evaluations reflect judgment, it was possible that existing measures of judgment and critical thinking would be strongly related to (and even redundant with) the new measures evaluative accuracy. Results from the present investigation confirmed that there were differences among various divergent thinking tests in terms of the accuracy of judgments. Additionally, the measures of evaluative accuracy used here were largely unrelated to more traditional measures of judgment and convergent thinking, which supports the discriminant validity of the evaluative measures.