Assessing Creativity through Common Consensus
Conclusions
One colleague wrote,
"The set of criteria for the assessment will be varied according to the level of students, i.e. criteria to assess Diploma films are different from criteria to assess BFA3 films."
The opinion was supported by many others. However, another colleague held a different view,
"Creativity is creativity no matter what level one is at, so criteria should be the same."
As for my own opinion, it is not the levels but the objectives of the course that generate such projects that are important. If objectives are similar but just levels of creative ability are different, then the criteria, such as 'Innovation of content' or 'Innovation of form' can stay the same. It is the descriptions that state the levels of performance that should be adjusted.
This study was concerned with the assessment of creativity from the student's outcome (here for a short video), but not assessment for a specific course. Therefore, it did not take individual courses into consideration. However, if the rubric is adapted to a certain course, then alignment between the objectives and the criteria should be examined. In fact, a further study is worth undertaking to test the reliability of the rubric on outcomes produced by students of different levels or in different contexts.
I suggest those who are interested in developing a rubric to consider including students' opinions in the process. Will students have very different opinions from the teachers on the degree of creativity shown in their own work? This is another issue worth further study.
Due to the small sample size and a one-off experimental test, the study may not show validity and reliability. However, it certainly has achieved the intended purposes:
1. Making the definition of creativity explicit among teaching faculty.
2. Building consensus among teachers on criteria for assessing student's creative ability through film/video project work.
3. Developing an assessment rubric based on the arrived upon consensus and testing it through an assessment activity.
The results within the set context are consistent and the rubric developed from the Delphi has proved a useable tool for assessing creativity. Definitely, it is encouraging and worthy of further investigation with larger sample sizes, and application in different contexts.
