Methods of Assessing Creativity: The Geneplore Model and the Consensual Assessment Technique

Although both concepts developed in the second part of the twentieth century, with almost ten years in between, they show slightly different approaches to creativity. The concepts have intention to define creativity, creativity processes, strategies for enchasing creativity and creativity assessment methods. The authors deserted a hope of defining creativity as final, explicit, absolute, or an objective category. Amabile defined creativity from the position of the social psychological theories of motivation, and Finke and his colleagues’ stand is based on the experimental methods of cognitive science. A shared definition of both authors is that creativity is a product. According to Amabile:

...a product or response is creative to the extent that appropriate observers independently agree it is creative. (p.1001).

Which is to say, when professionals agree that a product or response is creative or not creative, that is the way it should be.

Finke et al. considered creativity as a product or outcome of many mental processes. Finke et al. started from the creative cognition approach. From here Finke and his associates developed the Geneplore Model. The model has two distinct phases in the generation of a creative product: a generative phase and an explorative phase. According to the theoretical framework the generative phase is preliminary where mental representations are created. They call these mental representations preinventive structure which are there to promote creative discovery. Upon this phase comes an exploratory phase in which a person searches for meaningful ways in interpreting the preinventive structures. A person’s search ends in a result which is satisfactory problem solving of the task. The creative process presents a cycling between two phases. According to the authors cycling is not a necessary process; in contrast, they believe that there are situations when creative discoveries will occur quite rapidly and unexpectedly, which they consider is one of the main characteristics of creativity. There are certain limitations to the Geneplore model: reinterpretation of a preinventive structure and limitation by general capacity restrictions on human cognition.

Amabile believes that “the intrinsically motivated state is conductive to creativity, whereas the extrinsically motivated state is detrimental. (p. 91)

This statement represents the core of the hypothesis of the intrinsic motivation. According to Amabile task motivation is the most important component of the componential framework of creativity. The componential framework of creativity includes three major elements: domain-relevant skills (factual knowledge, technical skills, talents in the domain question); creativity-relevant skills (cognitive styles, application of heuristics, working style); and task motivation (motivation variables which determine personal approach to a task). All three components operate at different levels in the process. Amabile’s hypothesis is constructed on studies of other authors, in contrast to the Geneplore Model which was empirically proven by the authors (Finke et al., 1992).

Even though these two concepts appear different, there are a lot of similarities. For example, both concepts suggest that creativity enhancement is possible and they offered a creativity-training program (Amabile, 1983, Finke et al., 1992). Also, there are similarities when it comes to issue of motivation, intimate engagement, or creativity assessment (Amabile, 1983, Finke et al., 1992). 

Although her theoretical framework, compared to Finke et al., seems weak Amabile provided us with the Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT). The CAT is a standard method for assessment of creative products. According to Amabile, the creativity assessment technique is grounded in a consensual definition of creativity,

A product or response is creative to the extent that appropriate observers independently agree it is creative. Appropriate observers are those familiar with the domain in which the product was created or the response articulated. Thus, creativity can be regarded as the quality of products or responses judged to be creative by appropriate observers, and it can also be regarded as the process by which something so judged is produced (p.1001).

Essentially this is the way that creativity is assessed in the real world. We can see it all over the globe: Nobel Prize, Academy Awards, Cannes Festival, Grammys, Emmys, MTV Awards, different design competitions, or even popular television shows like Americas Got Talent or American Idol.

Amabile presented several features which the methodology requires. First, requirements of the task: task should not depend greatly on certain particular skill, it should be open-ended, task should allow for novelty in response, finally task must lead to some clearly observable response which could be assessed by judges. Second, judges should be familiar enough with the domain in question, the judges have to make their assessments independently, judges should rate other dimensions in addition to creativity (Table 1), they should be instructed to rate the products relative to one another rather than against some absolute standards. Next, the CAT requires that each assessed dimension is to be analyzed for interjudge reliability. Thus, if appropriate judges independently agree that a given product is highly creative, then it can and must be accepted as such.

There are several limitations of the CAT: it is time-consuming and it is absolutely impossible in the short run experiments. The technique is probably not useful for identifying a range of individual differences in creativity. Furthermore, it would probably be very hard to apply this method to a creative product which has a revolutionary nature, because it would make difficulties for people, even experts, to agree on the level of creativity. And finally, it is obvious that judgments gained by this method are necessarily limited by historical time.  

Finke et al. also presented dimensions on which creativity of a product could be assessed. However, they did not provide us with a rigorous method in assessing creativity of a product as Amabile did; also that method is not widely tested. The reasons for this fact can be speculated. Whichever the reason is, the fact is that their stands are very similar to Amabile’s. For example, Finke et al. stated:

One possibility is using experts in a field as judges, and this is in fact the preferred method … We therefore prefer to use judges who are not necessarily experts but who are practiced in judging when a product or idea appears to be original across a wide range of categories. (p. 38).

Categories or dimensions that are to be assessed when it comes to creative product are presented in Table 2.

Even though the concepts ideas look like they are moving parallel one to the other, they are a matter of fact merging at one point. This point is assessment of final creative product. The following subheading will present how other authors, interested in creativity research employed concepts described above.

Implications of the Geneplore Model and the Consensual Assessment Technique

Finke et al. developed a consistent, universal and widely accepted theoretical ground for creativity (materialized in the Geneplore Model); and Amabile developed a structured, rigorous assessment technique, the Creativity Assessment Technique. Together, these concepts have been widely used in creativity studies for about 30 years now.

The reviewed literature can be split in two major categories, namely the Amabilians and Finkians. Both of the categories have their own subgroups. There are two subgroups for Amabilians (Hypothesis of intrinsic motivation or its elements and The Creativity Assessment Technique) and four for Finkians (the Geneplore Model or its elements, problem-solving strategies, mental synthesis agenda and creativity product dimensions). The following subheadings will take the reader through the different descriptions of the subgroups. A comparative summary of the creativity concepts can be found in Table 3, from which conclusions will be drawn.

Hypothesis of intrinsic motivation or its elements in literature

The concept of Amabile’s intrinsic motivations was usually utilized as a source for supporting claims or building a hypothesis in the research. Authors utilized elements of intrinsic motivation in literature reviews, (Hunter, Bedell, & Mumford, 2007; Jia, Hirt, and Karpen, 2009; Kaufman, Gentile, & Bear, 2005; Mumford, & Antes, 2007).  

The Creativity Assessment Technique in the literature

The Creativity Assessment Technique presents a standard and widely accepted method of assessing creativity in products. The assessing technique has been used in different experiments in a wide range of areas, for example in assessing verbal and visual art products, evaluating movies, drawings, creative writing, etc. (Amabile, 1982; Chen, Kasof, Himsel, Greenberger & Xue, 2002; Plucker, Kaufman, Temple, & Qian, 2009; Kaufman, Gentile, & Bear, 2005). Also, there are those which employed the CAT as a source for developing their own theories or assessment methods (Epstein, Schmidt, & Warfel, 2008; Batey, & Furnham, 2006).

Significant groups of studies utilized the CAT as an instrument for evaluation of creative products. For instance, Chen et al. (2002) utilized the CAT in a study which examined whether European, American and Chinese differ in their creation and evaluation of drawings of geometric shapes. Kaufman et al. (2005) used the CAT to measure novices’ creativity evaluation compared to experts’ creativity evaluation in creative writing. Furthermore, Plucker et al. (2009) made use of the CAT as an instrument in order to get answers to the question if experts and novices evaluate creativity the same way. This question was put in the context of a movie evaluation where college students rated selected movies. Their ratings were compared to expert evaluation.

The Geneplore Model or its elements in literature

Many scholars used the Geneplore Model as a main creativity concept for their studies. For example, Roskos-Evoldsen, Black, & McCown, (2008) adopted the Geneplore Model and measured two phases of creativity that the concept suggests— generating and exploring the implications of an idea. In addition, Heylighen, Deisz, & Verstijnen, (2007) used the model as theoretical framework in their research and basis for their experiment. They wanted to find out which approach to design can result in more original solution: designers who consciously develop one design solution or the other which deliberately search for multiple alternatives before selecting one.

Problem-solving strategies

Finke et al. (1992) developed the Geneplore Model with persuasion that creativity can be enchanted by utilization of creative strategies for problem solving, which is a part of creative cognition concept. The literature confirms how Finke’s creative strategies could be intriguing. For example, Casakin (2007) utilizing the concept in order to get an answer if metaphors could help designers to solve design problem.

Creative mental synthesis agenda

Finke (1990) demonstrated that people are capable of making creative visual discoveries in imagery and that they are strong cognitive resource which people could use for inventive thinking. Although not the first who conducted experiments on mental synthesis, Finke inspired many scholars to carry out their own or to use the creative mental synthesis agenda. For example, according Purcell and Gero’s “Drawing and the design process” mental synthesis takes strong repercussion on design research in general and on the role of sketching in design. Design researchers are obviously aware of Finke’s mental synthesis agenda. Heylighen, et al. (2007) put focus on the question how the generation of design alternative ideas relates to creative mental synthesis. In addition, Goldschmidt and Smolkov (2006) also exploited the agenda when they were examining how different kinds of visual stimuli affect the solving dissimilar design problems. Design students were asked to solve two different design problems, while variability in condition included use of sketching during the process versus the use of mental imaginary alone.

Creativity product dimensions

In addition to the other elements of the creative cognition approach the dimensions of creative product, proposed by Finke et al., were also employed in different experiments (Purcell&Gero, 1998; Goldschmidt&Smolkov, 2006). The scholars employed only a few of them in their studies, for instance originality, practicality or general quality.

In conclusion the author would like to recognize that there is a significant body of literature which is, and was, employing both creativity concepts. However, observing the concepts form different aspects it could hardly be stated that the concepts are conclusive. Aware of all limitation, I would like to state that both concepts have very strong key points which one could grasp. 

REFERENCES:

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