Web-Based Creativity Assessment System that Collects Both Verbal and Figural Responses: Its Problems and Potentials

Creativity tests have been administered in traditional paper and pencil format for more than a half century. With the prevalence of computer/web-based testing and increasing demands for large-scale, faster, and more flexible testing procedures, it is necessary to explore and test the usability of web-based creativity tests. Yet few studies have focused on the use of technologies in the assessment of creativity. The purpose of the present study was to design and test the feasibility of an online creativity assessment system that can collect both verbal and drawing responses. The following two aims were addressed: (1) evaluate reliability evidence of creativity test scores, and (2) compare the online test with its paper version regarding creativity scores. One hundred and sixty-four participants were recruited from a northeast university in the US and randomly assigned into three groups: online-basic (OB), online-advanced (OA), and paper-and-pencil (PP). The findings indicated that no differences were found between different modes (online vs. paper) or different interfaces (simple tools vs. advanced tools) in terms of either creativity scores or reliability evidence. Additionally, males were found to produce overall significantly higher originality scores than females did in the line meaning test and the real-world problem test. The implications of these findings are further discussed in the paper.