The work of the teacher has its own specifics, because children need to not only pass on any specific knowledge, but also help to reveal their abilities, for example, the ability to think outside the box. It is inherent in everyone to varying degrees, therefore, using various techniques, a diagnosis should be made that will help develop a strategy for communicating with such unusual personalities. A very effective way to quickly diagnose (the so-called express) is D. Johnson’s creativity questionnaire, which we offer to meet.
What is creativity?
Consider the essence of the term itself. By creativity, it is customary to understand a person’s ability to think outside the box, make unusual decisions to get out of problem situations, move away from generally accepted norms and rules, act on a “hunch”, just as one managed to come up with a difficult moment. The term includes personal and mental characteristics, leadership qualities and cognitive principles; it is creativity that determines the ability of a particular person to creativity.
Simply put, by creativity we can understand the ability of a person to act outside the standard, most often manifested in problem situations. In the specialized literature one can come across another term, somewhat dissonant, “creativity”.
The purpose of the questionnaire
The use of questionnaires or surveys as a research method has been practiced for a long time. Its advantages are obvious:
- Ease of use. The respondent simply answers the questions by entering his answers in a pre-prepared card.
- The ability to simultaneously interview a large number of people for a certain period of time.
- The method allows you to maintain objectivity, since the personality of the researcher does not have a significant impact on the respondent.
The purpose of Johnson’s creativity questionnaire in the modification of E. Tunic is to conduct the level of expression of creative abilities in children and adults. It is carried out in the form of an individual written survey.
Description
We continue the consideration of the Johnson questionnaire for the diagnosis of creativity. It consists of 8 questions, each of which involves the selection of one of the answers, arranged in descending order:
- 5 - constantly.
- 4 - often.
- 3 - from time to time.
- 2 - rarely.
- 1 - never.
Based on the total points received, and creativity is assessed, the minimum possible number of points scored is 8, the maximum allowable is 40.
Each item in the Johnson Creativity Questionnaire is one of the characteristics of creative thinking, behavioral specifics. It can be carried out as a study or self-diagnosis. How to find out the results will be discussed below.
Creation Background
The express method of D. Johnson was created based on two theoretical provisions:
- According to Torrens, creativity often manifests itself when solving a problem with a lack of knowledge. A person who lacks information about certain aspects begins to use what he already knows, but from a new angle, in a completely different kind of activity. This is creativity.
- In 1973, Johnson himself considered this concept as the appearance of an unexpected spontaneous product, for the creation of which the artist used only his knowledge and experience.
These two provisions became the theoretical basis for creating the questionnaire. Later it was adapted by E. Tunik for Russian schoolchildren and is actively used in this form.
Essence
Let's get acquainted with the blocks of Johnson’s creativity questionnaire, which is often referred to in the literature as OK. This checklist consists of 8 items, each of which is one of the characteristics of creative thinking, aimed at identifying the manifestation of creativity.
You can fill it out on your own, that is, evaluate your own activity according to the given parameters. It is also permissible to fill out an expert who previously observes the subject (s) of study. All data is entered in a special form, which is then analyzed.
Test questions
Blocks 8, each of them has its own specifics:
- It is connected with the attitude to the most problematic situation.
- An opportunity to offer fresh ideas.
- Flexibility, that is, the ability to modify your idea depending on changing external circumstances.
- Assessment of ingenuity.
- The subject's ability to use imagination.
- Originality.
- Variability, the ability to improve your idea with new information.
- Self confidence.
The questionnaire blocks themselves are presented in the figure.
The respondents or the researcher himself evaluate each statement from 1 to 5, where 1 is never, 5 is constant. Next, the points are calculated and summed up.
Results Analysis
We continue our acquaintance with Johnson’s methodology and creativity questionnaire. So, all the blocks are considered, for each of them a specific score is set. It remains to calculate the overall score and interpret the results. It is not difficult to do this; let us consider a specific example.
Let's say the answer options for the questionnaire were as follows: 5-4-3-5-5-3-3-3-3. Adding these numbers, we get an indicator of 32 points. Next, you need to look at the following table and identify the level of creativity of this subject.
It turns out that this person has a high level of creative abilities. In general, this questionnaire requires no more than 20 minutes to complete, so the method is called “express diagnostics”.
For conducting professional research, the reliability of the results is of particular importance, to achieve which Johnson proposes a method for comparing data obtained by different experts on the same subjects. For example, several researchers evaluate the assessment of the creative abilities of one person at once, and then the results of their work are compared.
When conducting a study at a school, experts may be several subject teachers who will evaluate the creativity of their students. The data obtained will allow us to understand which of them has a high and very high level of creativity.
Interpretation
Based on the data in the table, the expert can identify what level of creativity a person has. The following information is used to interpret the results:
- Very tall. A person has a wide range of interests, can independently offer innovative ideas and solutions to problems, has flexible thinking, quickly makes decisions and switches from one type of activity to another. I am confident in my actions.
- Tall. He solves creative problems quickly enough, finds non-standard ways out of situations, problems, but the range of interests is somewhat narrower, there may be some self-doubt.
- Medium, normal. Creativity is manifested only in certain types of activities, in other situations, the person acts as a standard.
- Low. The range of interests is very limited, activity and efficiency are selective, the solution of creative problems causes significant difficulties. Knowledge and experience in an unusual situation are used with great difficulty.
- Very low. Skills for solving a problem-problem are practically absent, there are no interests, any type of activity, both productive and educational, does not prompt this person to work actively.
Reviews
Check out the Johnson Creativity Questionnaire. Researchers note its simplicity, the possibility of conducting two types of research at once - diagnostics and self-diagnostics - on the same blocks of questions, insignificant time costs.
The convenience of comparative studies is also noted, for example, the level of creative abilities of students of technical and humanitarian universities in a comparative aspect. It is convenient and interesting. However, some shortcomings are also highlighted, in particular, the large role of subjectivity, personal assessment, which is why it is recommended to use the answers of several researchers at once, their average indicator.