One of the most important goal of education should be to developing students abilities as creative thinkers (Baer & Kaufman, 2005). Most of the educational program that do include creativity training assume that creativity is a general skill and therefore that these training would improve creative thinking in all domains equally (Baer & Kaufman, 2005). It could be argued, however, that one’s creativity could be specific to one domain and not to another, meaning that creativity is not a general skill but rather it is related to a specific domain or subdomain. As Baer & Kaufman say in their article (2005) : “To decide what kinds of creativity training might best meet the needs of a particular gifted education program, one needs a theory of creativity that accounts for both domain-specific creative-thinking skills and more general kinds of creative-thinking skills”. To feel the gap between the general and specific creativity models, Baer and Kaufman (2005) developed the Amusement Park Theoretical (APT) Model of creativity. This model uses the metaphor of an amusement park in order to explore and understand creativity. It focuses on 4 aspects :

1. initial requirements
2. general thematic areas
3. specific domains
4. micro-domains

The initial requirements are factors that are necessary (but not sufficient) for a creative activity or production in any domain, such as intelligence or motivation. To apply the metaphor with the amusement park, an initial requirement could be the ticket to get into the park.

General thematic areas are the broad domains such as “science, interpersonal relationships, writing, art, interpersonal communication, solving personal problems, mathematics, crafts, and bodily/physical movement” (Baer and Kaufman, 2005 p. 5). In an amusement park this would correspond to the kind of amusement park you choose to go to (water park, cartoon-centered, etc.) or one theme of one amusement park (in Disneyland for example the Magic Kingdom or the Animal Kingdom).

Specific domains are domains within broader general thematic areas (for example biology is a specific domain of science or poetry is a specific domain of the Arts). This would correspond to a specific section of a given amusement park (for example Fantasyland).

Micro-domains are specific areas of a specific domain (for example cognitive psychology is a micro-domain in the specific domain of psychology). In the amusement park this would be, if you choose to go to Fantasyland, for example, to choose between Cinderella’s Castle or It’s a Small World (Kaufman and Baer, 2006).

The interest of this model is that it can be applied as the framework to test creativity using, for example the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT).

The TTCT has two subtests : verbal and figural. Both subtests aim at assessing 4 cognitive processes of creativity (Almeida et al, 2008, p. 2):

1. fluency or number of relevant responses
2. flexibility as referred to a variety of categories or shifts in responses
3. originality entails considering novelty responses, not familiar and unusual, but relevant;
4. elaboration as referred to the number of details used to extend a response

The TTCT is by far the most used test for measuring creativity but some studies are currently questioning its validity (Almeida et al, 2008) showing, for example “inconsistency of the cognitive processes (fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration) as the main cognitive factors to define and assess creativity” (Almeida et al, 2008, p. 5).

It is to be noted, however, that when Torrance designed his test, “his primary goals [...] were to help us better understand the human mind and its functioning; to find ways to better individualize instruction, including remedial and psychotherapeutic interventions; to evaluate the effectiveness of educational programs; and to become more sensitive to latent potential in people” (Kaufman and Baer, 2006). The APT model could therefore be applied as a framework when using the test. However, the most important point, according to Kaufman and Baer (2006), is for the tester to interpret the pattern of scores obtained in different domains, not just as a number that it is useless for the student, but rather in the light of its strengths and weaknesses (Kaufman and Baer, 2006). That is look for signs of “insufficient motivation, a thinking style that might conflict with the task, or other areas that could be improved for enhanced creative potential”(Kaufman and Baer, 2006, p. 100) .

Sources:

Baer, J., & Kaufman, J. C. (2005). Bridging generality and specificity: The amusement park theoretical (APT) model of creativity. Roeper review, 27(3), 158-163.

Kaufman, J. C., & Baer, J. (2006). Intelligent testing with Torrance. Creativity Research Journal, 18(1), 99-102.

Almeida, L. S., Prieto, L. P., Ferrando, M., Oliveira, E., & Ferrándiz, C. (2008). Torrance Test of Creative Thinking: The question of its construct validity. Thinking skills and creativity, 3(1), 53-58.