Creativity and Academic Achievement

Abstract

This study attempts to clarify relationships between creative abilities and academic achievement. Creativity Test Scores, Millers Analogies Scores (MAT), and achievement scores representing Guilford's categories of Cognition, Memory, Divergent Thinking and Evaluation were obtained for 75 graduate students in education. Re sults indicated that creative test scores correlated sig nificantly with divergent thinking and evaluative abilities; no correlation was found between creativity and cognitive and memory scores. MAT scores correlated with all men tal operation categories, although the relationship was less for divergent thinking and evaluative categories. No differences were found between MAT scores and cr?atives scores in predicting academic achievement. Since most academic examinations favor memory and cognitive abilities, it was concluded that the highly cre ative student is often penalized unduly. RECENT STUDIES (2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11) have focused attention upon the relationship be tween creative ability, intelligence and scholastic aptitude, and academic achievement. The implica tions of this relationship for education are appar ent since achievement in skills, concepts, and con tent are acknowledged goals of the educational process. Until recently it has been assumed that crea tive ability was synonomous with intelligence and, therefore, was included in the level of ability implied by an IQ score. Beginning in earnest with Guilford (4), however, and continuing unabated today is the conviction that intelligence and crea tive abilities do not necessarily accompany one another. The problem of the student is attract ing much attention and the identification and encouragement of gifted students constitutes one of the most urgent tasks in education. The author's use of the term includes not only the students who cluster in the upper per centiles on intelligence tests and measures of academic achievement, but also those students who display the remarkable talent to move in new, untested directions in solving problems, to originate and test hypotheses, and to be creative. Oftentimes these creative students have little op portunity to make their abilities known, since the very nature of our educational system often favors more conforming types of behavior. Un fortunately, the creative student is seldom re warded for academic activity in the area in which he excels. For example, most of the examinations he takes require only recognition and memory, abilities which require little creative talent. The present study was undertaken in an attempt to explore the relationship between crea tive ability and different kinds of academic achievement. Academic Achievement Academic achievement is such an amorphous term, and it includes so much that it is difficult to describe it adequately. However, it is clear that academic achievement involves many different abilities and skills. For example, in the following two questions it is readily apparent that different abilities or processes are necessary in order to answer each question satisfactoryily : 1) The founder of psychoanalysis was (a) Jung; (b) Fromm; (c) Freud, and (d) Adler. 2) List as many reasons as you can why accurate knowl edge about mental health will lead to a stronger, more healthy community. By using these two questions the teacher or evaluator is measuring different kinds of achievement. To answer the first question requires the student to know, or to be able to recognize, the one correct answer. He must move in a convergent or restricting di rection, eliminating the incorrect choices. The second question requires the student to move in several directions, and no one answer is correct or incorrect. This can be called a divergent direc