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Creativity is only partly recognised in education. A recent meta-analysis estimated a correlation of r = 0.22 between creativity and educational achievement across many international student samples of all educational levels. In the meta-analysis, creativity was measured with a variety of measures, including divergent thinking and remote association tasks. The differences in the measures influenced the strength of the relationship between creativity and educational achievement. More research is needed to establish reliable measures of creativity, especially in primary school children, whose creativity remains poorly evaluated. The present study measured creativity in written stories in children at age 9 using the Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT). The study employed a longitudinal design, using CAT creativity scores as a predictor of educational achievement at age 16. Each of the stories from 59 children were coded by 6 different judges for 10 dimensions, including creativity. The inter-rater reliabilities between the judges for the 10 dimensions were high (α = .76 -.95). Among the dimensions, a factor analysis revealed two factors: Creative Expressiveness and Logic. The Creative Expressiveness factor explained an additional 7 % of variance in English grades, but not in Maths, beyond intelligence, previous achievement and personality traits associated with creativity. Overall, the study showed that CAT is a robust and reliable measure to detect verbal creativity in childhood. The results also suggest that early creativity predicts later academic achievement, calling for more attention to early creativity assessment and development.

The Remote Associates Test (RAT) is a measure of associative ability, which is often regarded as essential for creative thinking. The most commonly used version of the test is the compound RAT. However, many RAT items do not translate directly in different languages. Additionally, a linguistic measure cannot be used to measure visual associative ability. A visual measure for associative ability that is similar to the RAT would be a useful tool for cross-cultural investigations of creativity. The present study investigated the relationship between the linguistic and a newly developed visual version of RAT in Russian and Finnish native speakers (for both samples n = 67). Both linguistic and visual measures showed good internal reliabilities in both samples (Cronbach’s α = 0.73–0.84). The mean score in the visual task was slightly higher for the Finnish sample. The correlation between the two measures was stronger in the Russian sample ( r = 0.56) compared to the Finnish sample ( r = 0.28). These results are discussed in relation to linguistic and cultural differences between the samples.

The most consistent sex differences in cognition are found for spatial ability, in which males, on average, outperform females. Utilizing a twin design, two studies have shown that females with male co-twins perform better than females with female co-twins on a mental rotation task. According to the Twin Testosterone Transfer hypothesis (TTT) this advantage is due to in-uterine transmission of testosterone from males to females. The present study tested the TTT across 14 different spatial ability measures, including mental rotation tasks, in a large sample of 19–21-year-old twins. Males performed significantly better than females on all spatial tasks, with effect sizes ranging from η2 = 0.02 to η2 = 0.16. Females with a male co-twin outperformed females with a female co-twin in two of the tasks. The effect sizes for both differences were negligible (η2 < 0.02). Contrary to the previous studies, our results gave no indication that prenatally transferred testosterone, from a male to a female twin, influences sex differences in spatial ability.

Background. Spatial ability (SA) is a robust predictor of academic and occupational achievement. The present study investigated the psychometric properties of 10 tests for measuring of SA in a sample of talented schoolchildren. Objective. Our purpose was to identify the most suitable measurements for SA for the purpose of talent identification, educational assessment, and support. Design. Our sample consisted of 1479 schoolchildren who had demonstrated high achievement in Science, Arts, or Sports. Several criteria were applied to evaluate the measurements, including an absence of floor and ceiling effects, low redundancy, high reliability, and external validity. Results. Based on these criteria, we included the following four tests in an Online Short Spatial Ability Battery “OSSAB”: Pattern Assembly; Mechanical Reasoning; Paper Folding; and Shape Rotation. Further analysis found differences in spatial ability across the three groups of gifted adolescents. The Science track showed the highest results in all four tests. Conclusion. Overall, the study suggested that the Online Short Spatial Ability Battery (OSSAB) can be used for talent identification, educational assessment, and support. The analysis showed a unifactorial structure of spatial abilities. Future research is needed to evaluate the use of this battery with other specific samples and unselected populations.