Creative Scientific Ability Test (C-SAT): A New Measure of Scientific Creativity

Abstract

The assessment of creativity has been a controversial issue in the studies of creativity. Contrary to old paradigms, contemporary researchers support the use of domain-specific tests to measure creativity. The purpose of this study was to investigate some psychometric properties of the Creative Scientific Ability Test (C-SAT), a domain-specific test of scientific creativity. The C-SAT was developed based on the Scientific Discovery as Dual Search model and pioneering works on divergent thinking. The test is composed of five subtests and measures fluency, flexibility and creativity and hypothesis generation, hypothesis testing and evidence evaluation in five areas of science. In the study, the C-SAT was administered to 288 sixth grade students in a city in the mid part of Turkey. Factor validity analysis revealed the presence of one component and concurrent validity analysis showed that mathematically talented students scored significantly higher on the C-SAT than did average students. Reliability values of the C-SAT ranged from good (.85) to excellent (.96) and all of the item discrimination correlations were medium or large. Research findings show that the C-SAT can be used as an objective measure of scientific creativity.