Translation and Validation of the Kaufman Domains of Creativity Scale on a Croatian Sample of Early Childhood and Preschool Education Students

Marijana Županić Benić

doi:10.26529/cepsj.708

Abstract

The current literature describes creativity as a domain-specific phenomenon. According to Kaufman’s five-factor model, creativity can manifest in the following distinctive domains: Self/Everyday, Scholarly, Performance, Mechanical/Scientific and Artistic. The purpose of the present study was to validate the Croatian version of the Kaufman Domains of Creativity Scale. The scale was administered to a sample of early childhood and preschool education students (N = 222). The results of the exploratory factor analysis showed that certain Self/Everyday tasks did not load on any of the scales, whereas some music-related tasks separated from other Performance tasks into a separate factor. These results could be explained by the characteristics of the convenience sample recruited for the study. The confirmatory factor analysis of the five-factor model and goodness-of-fit tests yielded results that are as satisfactory and consistent as previous validations. The Kaufman Domains of Creativity Scale is therefore considered to be a potentially feasible scale for assessing creativity as a domain-specific phenomenon. Additional research is needed to confirm the validity of the Croatian version of the scale with a representative random sample.

Highlights

Creativity is often associated with the arts because people can observe it and experience it immediately through artwork and performances
The goodness-of-fit of the five-factor model observed in the present study is comparable to the results reported by McKay et al (2017), with better goodness-of-fit according to the results of the chi-square test and lower goodness-of-fit according to comparative fit index (CFI) and TuckerLewis index (TLI)
The purpose of the present study was to validate the Croatian version of the Kaufman Domains of Creativity Scale (K-DOCS) instrument, a scale for measuring creativity in five different domains, on a sample of 222 Croatian early childhood and preschool education students

Summary

Introduction

Creativity is often associated with the arts because people can observe it and experience it immediately through artwork and performances. Contemporary trends in education recognise the importance of developing creativity through different approaches, including creativity-oriented pedagogy (Cheung & Mok, 2018), the development of divergent thinking (Guilford, 1956; Sternberg & Lubart, 1993) and the application of new, creative teaching strategies (Craft, 2003; Feldhusen, 1994; Zoglowek, 2018). The ability to improve creativity through all subjects across the curriculum, not just the arts, has been demonstrated and discussed by numerous authors (Craft, 2003; Haylock, 1987; Robinson, 2015). Teachers’ dedication to lifelong learning and improvement of their own creativity is essential for developing their students’ creativity through education (Darling-Hammond, 2000; Jennings & Greenberg, 2009; Sanders & Rivers, 1996). Most teachers do not consider themselves to be creative (Pendergast et al, 2011), so they are unable to achieve one of the most important goals of contemporary education, which is to teach students how they can creatively solve problems on their own (Sekulić-Majurec, 2007)

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