Creative Eleven Plus Testing

The Rorschach Test was developed as a projective test. In projective tests a highly unstructured or ambiguous set of stimuli is presented. The idea is that the person being tested is encouraged to bring his or her own unique meanings and organisation to the situation. He or she does not know what inferences the tester intends to make, and so may reveal some hidden reaches.

There are ten cards, each of which contains an ink blot.

An eleven plus child doing a multiple choice test would be urged to consider the four responses carefully and decide on the answer which best fitted the question. In a Rorschach Test the pupil would be asked to look at the ink blot designs and ask what might be presented.

In the diagram above one response could be two rabbits fighting over a lettuce leaf while someone else may suggest a voodoo dancer spinning between two poles. Could either answer suggest that a child deserves a grammar school place? Do grammar schools need children who can choose one out of four answers or creative children who can think for themselves?

A blog by http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/ commented:

Thursday, February 21, 2013 at 05:30AM

A Blue Skunk Reader, Ric Nudell, in reaction to last week's post that wondered if creativity was assessable, wrote:

Your posts on this subject are interesting and thought-provoking. As a Digital Media teacher I do try to help students develop creativity (or creative approaches to problem solving.) So...I do need to give them feedback on it, i.e. assess.

Category	Indicators in Evidence
Generating Ideas	___ Fluency: generated many ideas ___ Flexibility: looked at problem in a variety of ways ___ Originality: ideas are different than what is already out there ___ Elaboration: adding nuance, making ideas richer ___ Symbolic Thinking: making connections, comparisons, analogies
Digging Deeper into Ideas	___ Analyzing: thinking about what makes the idea(s) work ___ Synthesizing: putting one or more ideas together ___ Reorganizing/Redefining: modifying the original ideas ___ Resolving ambiguity: clarifying, focusing, refining ideas ___ Working with Complexity: building relationships, levels
Courage to Explore Ideas	___ Problem sensitivity: matching solutions to initial problems ___ Curiosity and Risk Taking: out-of-the-box ideas ___ Humor, playfulness, fantasy, feelings: inner emotional content ___ Integration of dichotomies: inclusion of opposing concepts ___ Growth: working with ideas/places that are personally new
Listening to One’s Inner Voice	___ Sense of purpose: reasons for choices ___ Persistence/Hard work: followed vision to completion ___ Rejects stereotypes: concepts move beyond stereotypes

Student: _______(date) Peer: ________ (date) Instructor: _______ (date)

Assessment: Excellent Good Fair Poor

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Ric, I am still thinking about this one. It's one of the most thoughtful attempts at measuring creativity I've seen. I really like that it is used, as you write, as "a framework for conversations."

But my main question still persists: Do we really want to evaluate creativity in and of itself - or do we want to evaluate the impact creativity may have on the effectiveness of a product, a solution, or a task?

I'm guessing you will be asked by many for permission to use this tool!

Thanks again for allowing me to share.