2. Making Sense of Creativity
• A work in progress
• A case for engaging critically with the term
• A sense of a future direction for research
• An enquiry into some assessment issues
• The implications of this for A level work
• No easy answers!
6. The uncritical embrace of creativity
• Creativity is something unambiguously positive/desirable
• Emotional/intellectual/financial investment in creativity
• Multiple references to creativity in benchmark statements and
performance descriptors
• Increasingly enshrined in policy
• Rarely interrogated - reliance on common sense/folk psychology
7. Typical definitions
“Novel associations which are useful” (Isaksen and Treffinger,
1993)
“A process needed for problem solving…not a special gift enjoyed
by a few but a common ability possessed by most people” (Jones,
1993)
“The achieving of tangible products such as works of art or
science” (Abra, 1997)
“The making of the new and the rearranging of the old” (Bentley,
1997)
“Creativity results from the interaction of a system composed of
three elements: a culture that contains symbolic rules, a person
who brings novelty into the symbolic domain, and a field of experts
who recognize and validate the innovation.” (Csikszentmihalyi,
1996)
8. Contradictions
Creativity is:
Rule breaking/boundary testing yet ‘appropriate’
A function of the unconscious yet the product of rational agency
A rarefied form of human production yet any form of human
production (exclusive/inclusive)
A ‘gift’ yet a ‘burden’
A process yet an outcome
A trait yet a state
Conceptual yet practical (a kind of knowledge/ a skill set)
Potential yet actual
Non-commercial yet ‘marketable’
9. Roberts’ Report: Nurturing Creativity
in Young People
‘…creativity is not only related to the arts but to all
subjects, including science and maths, and…it should
permeate everything children and young people do
in, and outside, of school.’ (p67)
10. Roberts’ Report: Government
Response
‘We believe, as QCA makes clear, that:
• Creativity involves thinking or behaving imaginatively;
• This imaginative activity is purposeful: that is, it is
directed to achieving an objective;
• These processes must generate something original;
• The outcome must be of value in relation to the
objective.’ (p4)
11. Themes and questions
1. Is creativity an internal cognitive function, or is it an external
social and cultural phenomenon?
2. Is creativity a pervasive, ubiquitous feature of human activity,
or a special faculty, either reserved for particular groups,
individuals, or particular domains of activity, in particular artistic
activity?
3. Is creativity an inevitable social good, invariably progressive,
harmonious and collaborative; or is it capable of disruption,
political critique and dissent, and even anti-social outcomes?
4. What does the notion of creative teaching and learning imply?
Banaji, Burn & Buckingham (2006)
13. The pragmatic response
• “Creativity has been defined…as ‘the ability to bring something
new into existence’; and this definition will serve our present
purpose well enough.” (Anthony Storr)
• “…this particular understanding of creativity involves the
physical making of something, leading to some form of
communication, expression or revelation. Of course there are
other forms, and other kinds, of creativity. But then it gets more
fuzzy, and can start to seem meaningless. In this context, going
with a ‘common sense’ interpretation of the term is probably as
good as any…” (David Gauntlett)
• “We favour a more inclusive notion of creativity that embraces
personal creativity used in problem working but the outcome
would not change the domain.” (Norman Jackson)
14. Research tendencies
• Neuroscientific
• Psychoanalytical
• Social/environmental/biographical
• ‘instrumental’
• Attribution based/social judgment theory
15. Neuroscience:
brain damage = creativity?
It is proposed that there are four basic types of
creative insights, each mediated by a distinctive
neural circuit. By definition, creative insights occur
in consciousness. Given the view that the working
memory buffer of the prefrontal cortex holds the
content of consciousness, each of the four
distinctive neural loops terminates there. When
creativity is the result of deliberate control, as
opposed to spontaneous generation, the prefrontal
cortex also instigates the creative process. Both
processing modes, deliberate and spontaneous, can
guide neural computation in structures that
contribute emotional content and in structures that
provide cognitive analysis, yielding the four basic
types of creativity. (Arne Dietrich)
16. Attributional/Social Judgment Theory
“This finding suggests that
having a perceived handicap
(such as being unpolished)
sometimes leads catchers to
judge a pitcher as more creative
than individuals who appear
more conventional. This
phenomenon might be termed
the quot;Woody Allen effectquot; after the
famously neurotic but talented
writer, director, and actor.”
Elsbach and Kramer, 2003
18. A philosophical problem?
• Creativity tends to be treated as a ‘given’
• Research tends to ‘work backwards’
• But the concept under scrutiny is inadequately
defined – does not have unproblematic ‘object’ status
19. A ‘cultural theory’ turning point
• “If we have learnt anything from cultural theory, it is
that a term like ‘violence’ cannot simply be a
descriptive collection of naturally grouping items.
Rather, it is a concept, a category of which we need
to ask a number of questions. What is, and isn’t,
contained under it - and how are the boundaries of
the concept policed against intrusions?”
Martin Barker
20. ‘Creativity works like violence’
• Both are used to connect rhetorically a range of
disparate human activities
• Both are predicated on a concept of ‘human nature’
• Both are ‘slippery’ and ‘sticky’ – hard to pin down, yet
often anchored with the attachment of modifiers
(‘gratuitous’/ ‘pure’)
• Both are built around ‘problems’ – how do we make it
happen?/how do we stop it?
• Both cling to a priori status, despite empirical
complications
21. Future directions
• Shift away from attempting to define a ‘phenomenon’
• Analysis of the construction of the concept through
academic, popular and public discourses and
representations (ideologies of creativity)
• Analysis of historical shifts in the meaning/importance
of the concept
• Analysis of language (rhetoric & temporary alliances
– talent/genius/art/craft/play)
• Examination of the ideological construction of a
‘creative identity’ (students/practitioners)
• ‘a refusal to operate with the category any longer’?
22. ‘The creative affordances of
technology’
‘If creativity is not inherent in human mental powers
and is, in fact, social and situational, then
technological developments may well be linked to
advances in the creativity of individual users. This
rhetoric covers a range of positions, from those who
applaud all technology as inherently improving, to
those who welcome it cautiously and see creativity as
residing in an, as yet, under- theorised relationship
between contexts, users and applications.’
Banaji, Burn & Buckingham (2006)
25. A problematic assessment term
‘Production of an artefact in an appropriate medium
which displays creativity and originality to
demonstrate your reflection on and exploration of
the theoretical concept.
In this artefact, and adjunct material, students are able
to demonstrate the successful synergy of a theoretical
position with contemporary media practice techniques in
an original way.’
MA in Creative & Media Education (Practice Unit)
29. Assessing (or not) creativity
‘The musical artefacts represent a considered
attempt to discover aspects of creativity through
different modes of production and, as such, they
constitute a contribution to this debate. There is some
originality in this approach and evidence of
attempting to problematise the nature of musical
production. A level of technical skill necessary to
produce coherent, appropriate products is also
evident.’
(Mark Readman: assessment of MACME Practice unit)
30. Human judgments
‘There is no absolute judgment. All judgments are
comparisons of one thing with another.’ (Donald
Laming)
31. Assessment
‘We cannot assess learning on its own, we can only
assess learning plus its form of representation.’
(Jenny Moon)
35. Grading Criteria?
‘For a great song...you need a great
chorus, you need a great voice singing
it and then I think you need to be
original with the instrumentation, the
arrangement. You just need to give
people something different.’
James Oldham
38. A pragmatic approach
• Acknowledge that assessment may not assess what
we think it assesses
• Strive for transparency in what is being assessed
• Consider difference between ‘knowledge object’ and
‘art object’
• Strive for a fit between objectives and criteria
• Identify implicit ‘assessment constructs’, particularly
with ‘creative work’
• Encourage students to engage with the construction
of the term, rather than accept it as a given
