The Innovative-Adaptive Model of the TTCT Figural Is Invariant Across Ethnicity but Not Gender

Abstract

The Torrance Test of Creative Thinking-Figural (TTCT-F) is the most extensively used creativity measure in U.S. schools, especially for gifted identification. TTCT-F has been thought to be culturally fair across ethnicities and genders, although this belief has rarely been empirically tested. Our study examined the latent structure of the TTCT-F scales: Fluency, Originality, Elaboration, Abstractness of Titles (AT), and Resistance to Premature Closure (RPC), and then investigated measurement invariance across overrepresented and underrepresented ethnicities and across genders. Using data obtained from 379 U.S. elementary school students, we identified that the Innovative-Adaptive model, with an additional cross-loading for the RPC scale, was the best fit. We also found that this two-factor model was invariant across underrepresented and overrepresented ethnicities at configural, metric, and scalar levels. In contrast, even configural invariance did not hold across both boys and girls, suggesting that additional research is needed to understand creative thinking across gender.

Plain Language Summary

The Torrance Test of Creative Thinking-Figural measures two attributes of creative thinking, which can be understood and interpreted similarly across ethnic groups but not across genders

The Torrance Test of Creative Thinking-Figural is the most influential creativity measure in U.S. schools, especially for gifted identification. This test has been thought to be culturally fair across different ethnicities and genders, thus contributing to more equal representation in gifted and talented services. However, little is known about whether this test measures creative thinking similarly across different ethnicities and genders. So, our research team identified which attributes of creative thinking were measured through the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking-Figural, and whether they could be understood and interpreted in the same way across different subgroups among the U.S. elementary student population (n = 379). In our paper, we found that this test assessed two attributes of creative thinking, known as “Innovative” and “Adaptive” factors. Innovative capacity refers to the ability to generate original ideas quickly, whereas Adaptive skill is considered to be deep and detailed thinking. We also demonstrated that this test measures Innovative and Adaptive capacities similarly across ethnicities (White/European American and Asian students together as those who are overrepresented in U.S. gifted and talented programs; and Black/African American and Hispanic/Latinx students as those who are underrepresented), indicating creative thinking manifests similarly across these groups. However, we found that these two attributes of creative thinking are not assessed in the same way across boys and girls, implying differences in creative thinking patterns across different genders. Relatedly, there was a greater trade-off between the quantity and quality of ideas for boys than for girls. In addition, creating an imaginative and metaphorical title for each drawing was a distinct ability from generating many ideas in girls, while they were more interconnected in the boys’ group. Therefore, our team recommends that the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking-Figural scores not be directly compared between boys and girls.