Customers from North & South America:

Dr. Kari McCluskey,

Regional Director, ICIE-Canada,

Box 111, Domain, Manitoba, R0G 0M0, Canada.

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Other customers:

Dr. Sandra K. Linke,

Director, ICIE-Germany,

Postfach 12 40, D-89002, Ulm, Germany.

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Evaluation of Potential Creativity (EPoC)

What is EPoC?
This instrument, the Evaluation of Potential Creativity (EPoC 2009), is a new battery that allows creative giftedness to be measured. It includes verbal and graphic subtests that measure the two key modes of creative cognition—divergent-exploratory thinking and convergent-integrative thinking—in elementary and middle-school students. The instrument can be used as an efficient diagnostic tool to identify creative potential and to monitor progress, using pre-tests and post-tests, in educational programs designed to enhance creativity. Easy to use by psychologists and educators, this instrument can, for example, help school psychologists to identify, in regular schools, children with creative potential. An original, internet-based scoring system that enhances inter-rater reliability is integrated in the battery. Initially developed in France, this instrument will be available in 2010 in other languages with local norms for different cultures.
 
The Role of Creativity: Why is it Important?
Creativity plays an increasingly important role in modern society which requires original, innovative thinking and creative problem solving to face unexpected challenges in all aspects of life.  The economic importance of creativity as an engine for societal growth in both cultural and industrial sectors has been often recognized (for example the European Union has declared 2009 to be the European Year of Creativity and Innovation).  Creativity can be defined as a capacity to produce work that is both original (novel) and adaptive with respect to the constraints of a task or a situation.
 
A New Battery: How Does EPoC Work?
In the educational sector, there is a great demand for instruments to detect creative potential and to monitor its’ development.  Part of the interest in creative potential concerns the detection of children who may benefit from specific educational programs. For this reason, “creative giftedness” is often evoked as a capacity that is complementary to classic intellectual potential (often measured by IQ tests). For both conceptual and practical reasons, existing measures of creativity have come under criticism recently in the scientific literature. First, numerous recent studies indicate that creativity is mainly domain specific and it is probably best to measure creativity in each domain of activity because the mental processes may not be very general in nature. Second, it has become clear that a simplified and continuously up-to-date scoring system is needed: Over time, the originality of ideas evolves; ideas that were original last year may now In the educational sector, there is a great demand for instruments to detect creative potential and to monitor its’ development. Part of the interest in creative potential concerns the detection of children who may benefit from specific educational programs. For this reason, “creative giftedness” is often evoked as a capacity that is complementary to classic intellectual potential (often measured by IQ tests). For both conceptual and practical reasons, existing measures of creativity have come under criticism recently in the scientific literature. First, numerous recent studies indicate that creativity is mainly domain specific and it is probably best to measure creativity in each domain of activity because the mental processes may not be very general in nature. Second, it has become clear that a simplified and continuously up-to-date scoring system is needed: Over time, the originality of ideas evolves; ideas that were original last year may now be common. Thus, test norms based on tables with the statistical rarity of ideas can become quickly outdated. In most cases, norms for creativity tests were created years ago. Also, the scoring of creativity involves, inherently, some social judgement of the relative novelty of the work, with respect to an individual’s peer group.

EPoC Measures Creativity
The new battery that we have developed, EPoC, represents a synthesis and extension of several traditions in creativity measurement. EPoC evaluates creativity in several domains (currently, artistic and literary, with others to be developed such as music, social problem solving, scientific invention, etc). In each domain, two basic kinds are thinking are measured because they come into play in each creative act. The first is divergent exploration. The second is convergent synthesis and integration. These two modes are widely viewed as the basis of the creative process and relate to numerous pedagogical programmes to train creativity.  Results show good psychometric qualities, with a factor structure indicating 4 factors, as expected: Verbal convergent integrative, verbal divergent exploratory, Graphic-artistic convergent, graphic artistic divergent. No particular gender-related differences are observed. There are developmental trends across school-grade levels.

The Evaluation of Creative Potential
EPoC consists of two parallel forms (A, B) that can allow for evolution of creative potential to be measured over time (or before and after an educational activity).  Each form consists of eight tasks that concern the graphic–artistic and verbal-literary domains, and call for divergent and convergent modes of thought.
 
Measures in the EPoC battery

International Evaluation Tool
EPoC is a comprehensive evaluation tool that combines an approach to creativity by domain and by mode of thought, allowing a profile of creative potential to be assessed. The EPoC system provides opportunities to add additional domains to the assessment (such as the musical domain, currently under development). EPoC includes a training program for evaluators to facilitate test use and scoring.

This project involves a partnership between Editions Hogrefe France, the International Centre for Innovation in Education (ICIE-Germany) and the Individual Differences research group at the Institute of Psychology, Université Paris Descartes.  The ICIE will collaborate and coordinate with a large number of local partners to conduct the cross cultural studies.
 
What else does ICIE offer Educators and Psychologists?
The International Centre for Innovation in Education (ICIE) offers two training workshops. The first will enable teachers and psychologists to employ effectively EPoC to measure creative potential. The second workshop will qualify teachers to develop new activities and to employ resources in developing productive thinking skills.

The ICIE's services are related to the following fields:
(1) All types of educational consultation;
(2) Teachers' and Staff Development (training and academic qualifications, including: Masters and Ph.D.);
(3) Developing Curricula and Instructional Materials;
(4) Establishing schools and Universities;
(5) Developing e-learning system for both Universities and Schools;
(6) Conducting evaluation studies and research;
(7) Publishing books, handbooks, journals, newsletters and other materials; and
(8) Organizing conferences and semi-conferences.

In addition, the ICIE is willing to offer high quality workshops to qualify teachers for Excellence in Education and Gifted Education. Every 5-day workshop will be conducted by well-known scholars who are working with the ICIE. It is proposed that we organize one workshop every month. Contact the ICIE if you are interested in any workshop listed in this website, taking into consideration the following:
◙  ICIE will conduct (12) workshops/ Year;
◙  This is the first list of workshops. This list will be updated frequently;
◙  Other workshops could be developed upon your request;
◙  Teachers from all schools in your country and the region are welcome to take part in our workshops;
◙  Workshops could be conducted in any city in the region;
◙  The minimum number of participants recommended is (25) persons;
◙  The Maximum number of participants is (100) persons;
◙ Certificates will be issued by ICIE;
◙ Every person complete (12) workshops will be asked to make a project and then get ICIE Diploma-Excellence in Education;
◙  The ICIE will contract conductors; prepare the training materials; and cover all the expenses of the conductors (including tickets, accommodation, living expenses and honorarium); and
◙ The proposed dates for conducting any of the proposed workshops will be agreed upon in coordination with the conductors and you.
 

• The University of Winnipeg; Winnipeg – Canada.
• Ulm University; Ulm; Baden-Württemberg; Germany.
• The Webster Center for Creativity and Innovation (WCCI); Webster University; Geneva - Switzerland
• The Minority Achievement, Creativity, and High-Ability Center (MACH-III); Prairie View A&M University; Texas - USA.
• Renzulli Center for Creativity, Gifted Education, and Talent Development; University of Connecticut; USA.
• College of Education and Human Services; Rider University; New Jersey; USA.
• School of Education; Durham University; England.
• Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore; Milan; Italy.
• School of Education and Communication; Jönköping University; Jönköping in Småland; Sweden.
• Institute of Education; University of Minho; Braga; Portugal.
• Education University; Pädagogische Hochschule Schwäbisch Gmünd; Schwäbisch Gmünd; Germany.
• Faculty of Education; Yıldız Technical University; İstanbul, Türkiye.
• The Institute of Lifelong Learning and Guidance; University of Luxembourg (Université du Luxembourg); Luxembourg.
• Faculty of Teacher Education; Rijeka University; Croatia.
• Osnovna škola Milan Brozović; Kastav – Croatia.
• Faculty of Political Sciences; University of Banja Luka; Republic of Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
• The National Youth Commission (NYC); Sultanate of Oman.

Visit the following websites belonging to a number of our partners: