The Talented Student (1969).

Still Useful After all These Years: A Review of Wallach & Kogan's Modes of Thinking in Young Children (1965) and Wallach & Wing's The Talented Student (1969)

One commonly used tactic for being creative involves the use of metaphor or analogy. Apparently the steam engine and Velcro were both discovered in this way. In a very general sense, metaphors and analogies transfer meaning from one domain to another. In this sense of use of metaphors and analogies parallels a second useful and common strategy, namely one that might be summarized as "borrow, adapt, or steal" (Runco, 1999). In the sciences this tactic can be seen in the theories of Freud, who borrowed from physiology in developing his model of the psyche; Piaget, who borrowed from biology and logic in his model of cognitive development; and Darwin, who borrowed from geology in his theory of biological evolution.

In creative studies these two related tactics are often used. Just to name one example, evolutionary theory, originally a part of the biological life sciences, has been used by several individuals to describe creative thinking in the creative process (Campbell, 1960: Simonton, 1999). Scientific progress as a whole, certainly a creative effort, also has been described in evolutionary terms. Traditionally, however, it is Darwin's evolutionary theory, which is used to describe scientific progress. One distinguishing premise of Darwin's theory is that progress is slow and gradual and relies on variation and then selection.

An alternative view of evolution involves "punctuated equilibrium." Here progress is at times quick and at other times gradual or stagnant. This theory of evolution might also be used to describe scientific progress. As a matter of fact, this view applies very directly to the field that may be called creative studies. There have been a number of key moments in history of creative studies, and after each has been a period of rapid progress. One of the most significant events in the history of creative studies was the publication of Wallach and Kogan's (1965) Modes of Thinking in Young Children Wallach and Wing (1969) followed with another critical volume, The Talented Student, which may be the more overlooked of the two.

Modes of Thinking is a particularly rich investigation of creative process and of the creative potential of school-age children. Wallach and Kogan covered a wide range of topics in their volume; the most important are no doubt the relationship between creativity and intelligence and the impact of testing environment. There are other interesting topics in their volume (e.g., relationships with other predictors of talent, physiognomic potential) but the psychometric work is what contributed the most to rapid growth of the field in the late 1960's. In fact, their work may have been the most important of the decade. This is especially true because they corrected an earlier position, presented by Getzels and Jackson (1962), concerning the lack of discriminant validity of divergent thinking tests. Getzels and Jackson found divergent thinking test scores to be moderately correlated with various indices of convergent thinking and traditional intelligence. If this finding held up there would be no real reason to treat creativity as distinct and unique. Educators could strengthen the convergent thinking skills and traditional intelligence of their students and safely assume that the creative potentials of those same students would be simultaneously fulfilled. Similarly, assessments could focus on traditional intelligence and ignore creativity because creativity would be so strongly related to intelligence that if you knew about one you would know about the other. If divergent thinking tests (and other indicators of creative potential) lacked discriminant validity, there would be no need for educators, researchers, or anyone to specialize in creativity.

Wallach and Kogan contradicted the earlier findings, which showed a lack of discriminative validity, in a convincing fashion. They also presented a convincing explanation for the lack of discriminative validity, and this explanation says something about the creative process itself. In essence, they demonstrated that students completing creativity tasks would tend to treat the tasks as standard tests (of intelligence or academic aptitude) and think very convergently if the testing environment suggested that this was appropriate. When Wallach and Kogan presented their measures of creative potential in a more permissive and game-like atmosphere, with more permissive instructions, results supported the discriminant validity of the measures. As I recall, examinees were explicitly told that the tasks were not tests and would not be graded nor awarded points. They were told that there were no incorrect answers, and that they should give as many ideas as they could. Every effort was made to insure that the students would not think of the creativity tasks as academic tests (and worry about grades, spelling, or speed) but instead would be able to think in an original and divergent fashion. Under these conditions, creativity test scores were largely unrelated to the various measures of academic aptitude and traditional intelligence. The discriminant validity of the creativity tests was clearly supported.

This is a very significant finding because it suggests that educators and psychometricians need to look specifically at creativity if they want to understand creativity. They cannot assume much about creative potentials if they only concentrate on traditional intelligence. Think of it this way: If you rely on measures of intelligence or academic aptitude, you are likely to overlook students who have outstanding talents-talents that are only apparent with divergent thinking tests or some measure of creative potential. Surely, from the educational perspective, there is nothing worse than overlooked and neglected potential.

Wallach (1976) made a point of distinguishing between creativity and divergent thinking. It is vital for us to continue to do so. Just as creativity is not synonymous with intelligence, so too is divergent thinking not synonymous with creative thinking. Creative thinking may often involve divergent thinking, but sometimes it may not, and even when it does there is probably more to it. Perhaps the best way of looking at it is that divergent thinking contributes to the potential for creative thought (Runco, 1992). An alternative and useful way to look at it is that divergent tests are predictors of potential for creative performance; but divergent thinking performance is not a criteria of actual creativity.

This brings us directly to the second very important work from the 1960's, namely that of Wallach and Wing (1969). Their research extended that of Wallach and Kogan to an older age group. Wallach and Wing also explored the issue suggested above by the distinction between predictors and criteria. In psychometric terms they examined predictive validity of divergent thinking tests. Predictive validity is extremely important because it checks the importance of the predictors, in this case divergent thinking test scores. Certainly good tests must be reliable; and they must show discriminant validity; but this isn't enough. Something can be reliable and distinct but unimportant. This is where predictive validity comes in, because if a predictor is associated with important criteria it takes on great importance itself.

Wallach and Wing (1969) found that divergent thinking test scores not only predicted various indices of creative activity; they also demonstrated that divergent thinking scores were better predictors of certain achievements in the natural environment than were measures of traditional intelligence. The latter did predict performance in school, but extracurricular achievement was related much more strongly to divergent thinking. In a sense this suggests that not only do we need to treat divergent thinking differently from traditional intelligence; it also suggests that we should treat divergent thinking as something very special and important. Although education is hugely important, it would be easy to argue that performance in the natural environment is of more consequence in the long run than performance in school.

There are two other virtues of the research of Wallach and Wing (1969). First, they were careful to separate the different domains of creative performance. This is one of emphases in the current creativity research (see Baer, 1998; Plucker, 1998; Runco, 1987), but was recognized 30 years ago. (In fact, it was recognized by Barron and others at IPAR in the 1950s.) The final virtue of The Talented Student is that it stimulated a great deal of subsequent research. A large amount of research has, for example, demonstrated that divergent thinking not only predicts the quantity of activity and achievement in the natural environment; it also predicts, in certain domains, the quality of those achievements and activities (Runco, 1986).

As a matter of fact, the work of Wallach and Kogan (1965) and Wallach and Wing (1969) stimulated and justified all subsequent research on divergent thinking. Without their demonstrations of its reliability and predictive validity there would have been no reason to conduct the multitude of students that have been since conducted. I would highly recommend that anyone interested in creative and divergent thinking read the Modes of Thinking in Young Children and The Talented Student.

(1) A "Chronology of Events and Significant ideas and Works on Creativity" can be found in the Encyclopedia of Creativity (Runco, 1999); and Albert and Runco (1999) also present a detailed history of the field.

REFERENCES

Albert, R. S., & Runco, M. A. (1999). A history of creativity research. In R. S. Sternberg (Ed.), Handbook of human creativity (pp. 16-31). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Baer, J. (1998). The case for domain specificity of creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 11, 173-178.

Campbell, D. T. (1960). Blind variation and selective retentions in creative thought as in other knowledge processes. Psychological Review, 67, 380-400

Getzels, J., & Jackson, P. (1962). Creativity and intelligence. New York: Wiley.

Plucker, J. A. (1998). Beware of simple conclusions: The case for content generality of creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 11, 179-182.

Runco, M. A. (1986). Divergent thinking and creative performance in gifted and nongifted children. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 46, 375-384.

Runco, M. A. (1987). The generality of creative performance in gifted and nongifted children. Gifted Child Quarterly, 31, 121-125.

Runco, M. A. (1992). Children's divergent thinking and creative ideation. Developmental Review, 12, 233-264.

Runco, M. A. (1999). Chronology of significant events in the history of creativity research. In M. A. Runco & Steven Pritzker (Eds.), Encyclopedia of creativity. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Simonton, D. K. (1999). Origins of genius: Darwinian perspectives on creativity. New York: Oxford University Press.

Wallach, M. A., & Kogan, N. (1965). Modes of thinking in young children. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Wallach, M. A., & Wing, C. (1969). The talented student. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Reviewed by Mark A. Runco, a professor at California State University, Fullerton.