Assessing Creative Potential World-wide: The First Cross-cultural Application of the Test for Creative Thinking—Drawing Production (TCT-DP)

TLDR

Stereotypical thinking is cross‑cultural, and the TCT‑DP items, while sometimes becoming culture‑specific stereotypes, hold clinical value for diagnostic and educational purposes. The study applied the TCT‑DP to 569 elementary‑school children from eleven culturally diverse countries to evaluate its culture‑fairness, culture‑sensitivity, and gender‑fairness. The TCT‑DP proved culture‑fair, culture‑sensitive, and gender‑fair, with total scores varying across countries and significant differences among its eleven variables and four sub‑variables.

Abstract

This first cross-cultural application of the TCT-DP (Test for Creative Thinking-Drawing Production) assessed low, average, and high creative potential of 569 subjects tested in eleven countries. The eleven cultural samples came from distinctly different political, economic, and educational systems in order to verify the culture-fairness, culture-sensitivity, and gender-fairness as well as the sensitivity of this instrument. All subjects tested were elementary school-aged children representing an almost equal percentage of boys and girls. The TCT-DP was discovered to be culture-fair, culture-sensitive, and gender-fair/sensitive. Total scores differed quantitatively between the various samples. Major differences existed also between the eleven variables and four sub-variables utilized as evaluation criteria for the TCT-DP. Stereotypical thinking tends to be cross-cultural. Non-stereotypical interpretations might be seen as such, but in a culture-specific context, some of these unique and novel utilizations of TCT-DP-fragments became stereotypical in nature. Many of the items collected have clinical value or potential for further diagnostic and prescriptive work in the psychological and educational arena of human service delivery.