Creativity in Engineering by Cropley David H

Author:Cropley, David H
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780128003183
Publisher: Elsevier Science
Published: 2015-09-22T16:00:00+00:00

Attitude and Potential

Basadur and Hausdorf (1996) emphasized a somewhat different aspect of the personal correlates of creativity: attitudes favorable to creativity (e.g., placing a high value on new ideas, believing that creative thinking is not bizarre). The 24-item Basadur Preference Scale consists of statements with which respondents express their degree of agreement/disagreement on a 5-point scale ranging from strong agreement to strong disagreement. Items include “Creative people generally seem to have scrambled minds,” “New ideas seldom work out,” and “Ideas are only important if they impact on major projects.” Factor analysis yielded three dimensions when the scale was administered to university students and young adults working in business settings: Valuing New Ideas, Creative Individual Stereotypes, and Too Busy for New Ideas. Test–retest reliabilities of the three dimensions ranged from .58 to .63, while alpha coefficients ranged from .58 to .76. Basadur and Hausdorf reported validity coefficients involving correlations with other creativity tests of about .25.

Kirton’s (1989) Adaptation–Innovation Inventory (KAI) does not mention creativity in its title but is frequently cited in creativity research and is becoming particularly well known in organizational settings. This test distinguishes between people who seek to solve problems by making use of what they already know and can do (adaptors) and people who try to reorganize and restructure the problem (innovators). Kirton’s view is that both adapting and innovating are involved in generating novelty, but the innovative style (which is accompanied by greater motivation to be creative, higher levels of risk taking, and greater self-confidence) leads to higher productivity.

The scale consists of 32 items (e.g., “Will always think of something when stuck,” “Is methodical and systematic,” “Often risks doing things differently”) on which respondents rate themselves, indicating how difficult it would be for them to be like this on a 5-point scale (“very easy” to “very hard”). The procedure yields an overall score and scores on three subscales: Originality, Conformity, and Efficiency. Kirton himself reported KR20 reliabilities of from .76 to .82 for the subscales and .88 for the total score, and test–retest reliability over seven months of .82 for the total score. Puccio, Treffinger, and Talbot (1995) reported alpha reliabilities for the total score of .86 to .88, and from .61 to .83 for the subscales. The same authors reported correlations ranging from about .25 to .47 for the subscale Originality with the rated originality of products.

A more recent development in the area of attitude and creative potential is the concept of creative self-efficacy. This addresses people’s beliefs about their own capacity for creativity. Studies have shown that the construct can be measured with acceptable reliability and validity, using items such as (Beghetto, 2006)

• I am good at coming up with new ideas;

• I have a lot of good ideas;

• I have a good imagination.

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