Creative Thinking Profile Inventory

Abstract

The Creative Thinking Profile, developed by Cromwell, Haase, and Vladova in 2023, is an instrument designed to measure individual preferences across three distinct creative thinking styles: divergent thinking, bricoleurgent thinking, and emergent thinking. This inventory/questionnaire draws upon theories of cognitive styles to assess preferred methods for generating novel and useful ideas during problem-solving. The scale’s content was developed through a comprehensive literature review and by considering prior measures. The resulting 15-item questionnaire was evaluated using an online sample of adult participants, with reported results for factor analysis, reliability, and validity.

Keywords

Bricoleurgent Thinking; Creative Thinking Styles; Divergent Thinking; Emergent Thinking; Idea Generation; Problem Solving

Authors

• Cromwell, Johnathan R.

• Haase, Jennifer

• Vladova, Gergana

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Purpose

The purpose of this instrument is to measure individual preferences for three different creative thinking styles, namely divergent thinking, bricoleurgent thinking, and emergent thinking, to assess preferred ways of generating both novel and useful ideas during problem-solving.

Validity

• Convergent Validity: All constructs hypothesized to have a positive correlation with divergent thinking (i.e., intrinsic motivation orientation, creative self-efficacy, creative personal identity, growth mindset, and social risk-taking) demonstrated positive and significant correlations, ranging from 0.41 to 0.73 (p < .001). Conversely, constructs expected to have a negative correlation with divergent thinking (i.e., need for structure and fixed mindset) also showed negative and significant correlations, ranging from 0.18 to 0.26 (p < .001). Results for bricoleurgent thinking were highly similar to those for divergent thinking, while emergent thinking displayed different outcomes.

• Predictive Validity: The authors found that each style became more dominant in predicting overall enjoyment, engagement, and creativity based on different underlying structures of a task.

Reliability

• Internal Consistency: Each construct demonstrated strong internal consistency, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranging from α=0.80 for emergent thinking to α=0.91 for both divergent and bricoleurgent thinking.

Factor Analysis

• Exploratory Factor Analysis: Three factors were obtained, explaining 19%, 12%, and 9% of the total variance, respectively.

• Confirmatory Factor Analysis: Results for confirmatory factor analyses indicated that the three-factor structure represented a strong statistical fit (χ2 =218.35, df =87, χ2/df =2.51, CFI =0.955, RMSEA =0.069, SRMR =0.063) (Hu & Bentler, 1999). Furthermore, one- and two-factor (combining divergent and emergent thinking) models were significantly worse than the three-factor model.

Instrument: Creative Thinking Profile

• Test Type: Original

• Format: The items are rated on a 7-point scale, where 1 = Not at all, 2 = Very little, 3 = A little, 4 = Moderately, 5 = Much, 6 = Very much, and 7 = An extreme amount.

• Language Available: English

• Population Group: Human (Male and Female)

• Age Group: Adulthood (18 yrs & older)

• Population Details: Respondents were adult participants.

• Test Methodology: Test Validity, Convergent Validity, Predictive Validity, Test Reliability, Internal Consistency, Factor Analysis, Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Exploratory Factor Analysis.

• Number of items: This is a 15-item scale.

• Subscales: Divergent Thinking; Bricoleurgent Thinking; Emergent Thinking.

• Administration Method: Electronic

• Test Items Available: No data is Available

Keywords

Bricoleurgent Thinking; Creative Thinking Styles; Divergent Thinking; Emergent Thinking; Idea Generation; Problem Solving

Authors

• Johnathan R. Cromwell

  • Affiliation: University of San Francisco, Department of Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Strategy, and International Business

  • Email address: [email protected]

  • Correspondence Address: [email protected]

  • Author ORCID Identifier: No data is Available

• Jennifer Haase

  • Affiliation: Weizenbaum Institute

  • Email address: No data is Available

  • Correspondence Address: No data is Available

  • Author ORCID Identifier: No data is Available

• Gergana Vladova

  • Affiliation: Weizenbaum Institute

  • Email address: No data is Available

  • Correspondence Address: No data is Available

  • Author ORCID Identifier: No data is Available

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

• Permissions: May use for Research/Teaching

• Fee: No

• Commercial: No

• Test Year: 2023

References

Cromwell, J. R., Haase, J., & Vladova, G. (2023). The creative thinking profile: Predicting intrinsic motivation based on preferences for different creative thinking styles. Personality and Individual Differences, 208, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2023.112205

Items of the Creative Thinking Profile

No data is Available