Assessing Creativity in Secondary Schools: A Focus on the Impact of an Arts‐based Intervention

Abstract

As programs aimed at fostering creativity in educational settings become more widespread, assessing their impact becomes increasingly important. This article responds to calls for evidence‐based policy in this field by assessing the impact on creativity of a government‐funded arts‐based educational program in Malta (European Union). A quasi‐experimental design was adopted and data was collected pre‐ and post‐intervention from a test group and a control group of students across nine secondary schools (n = 400 pre‐intervention and n = 259 post‐intervention). Students undertook a total of four Divergent Thinking tests, which culminated in indices comprising ideational fluency, flexibility, originality, novelty, relevance, and elaboration. Ordinary Least Squares models of creativity were estimated revealing a strong positive association between creativity scores and participation in the program. Difference‐in‐Differences analyzes with matched pre‐ and post‐intervention responses (n = 380), further confirmed that participation in the program positively impacts creativity scores, particularly among students who did not self‐select into the project and who had low prior exposure to creative experiences. We also observe an overall decline in creativity between the start and end of the scholastic year. These results suggest that arts‐based programs can be effective in enhancing (at worst, preserving) students’ creativity.

Young Creators: Perceptions of Creativity by Primary School Students in Malta

“…To see overall effects, a regression was run with all three types of school entered in the model as independent variables. This decision is based on findings by Briguglio et al ( 2022 ) who looked into creativity in relation to different school types in the Maltese school context as well and found church schools to be negatively related to students’ creativity.…”

Are STEM Students Creative Thinkers?

“…OLS regressions were performed to identify whether changes in creativity scores may be attributed to the study of STEM subjects. The variables included in the OLS models were selected on the basis of past research, including Briguglio et al ( 2022 ). The multiple regression employed the creativity (PCA scores) as the main dependent variable in order to provide a general view of the effect of STEM subjects on overall creativity.…”

“…To address the research question, this study performed a statistical analysis of pre-existing survey data that were gathered in 2016 as part of a larger research project commissioned by the Arts Council Malta (see also Briguglio et al 2022 ). Although a few years have elapsed since the data were gathered, there have been no major changes to the curriculum related to STEM or creativity since then.…”

“…Which is your favourite?’ (to measure enjoyment of STEM subjects). The questionnaire also gathered data related to the participants’ background, such as age, gender, and parental education, as these were identified in the previous research as relevant co-determinants of creative outcomes ( Briguglio et al 2022 ; Shah and Gustafsson 2020 ). As a further control to understand the diversity in creativity, the questionnaire also asked students about their participation in school-based and extra-curricular creative activities.…”

“…A number of studies focus on nurturing creativity in educational contexts. For instance, Briguglio et al ( 2022 ) identify the impact of a school-based educational programme in secondary-school contexts, finding that, while creativity levels generally decreased between the start and end of the school year, students exposed to a programme with creative practitioners fared better. The same study also found that parental education has a positive effect on creativity.…”