EXPLORING THE RELATION BETWEEN HIGH CREATIVITY AND HIGH ACHIEVEMENT AMONG 8TH AND 11TH GRADERS

Abstract

This study explores the relationship between high creativity and high scholasticachievement in mathematics, reading, and science among 8th and 11th grade students. Aquantitative methodology was used in the study. Data were collected from 941 eighth-gradestudents and 605 eleventh-grade students at an independent public school district in Minnesota,a Midwestern State in the U.S.A. The data collection instruments included a general personalquestionnaire, the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT) Figural Form A, and theMinnesota Comprehensive Assessment Test (MCA). Correlations were computed and chisquare analyses were performed to address research questions. Grade-based standard scoreswere used in the measurement of creativity and academic achievement with the top 20% cutoffscores being used to identify students with high achievement and students with high creativity.The results indicated that the relation between high creativity and high academic achievementvaries among eighth and eleventh graders. High mathematics and high reading achievementare related to high creativity among both eighth- and eleventh-grade students, but with smalleffect sizes. High achievement in science is related to high creativity among eleventh-graders.Our results indicate that high creativity and high achievement in reading, mathematics, andscience achievement tend to be positively related, but those relationships are at best weak,indicating that there are substantial components to high creativity that are not shared by highachievement in mathematics, reading, and science and vice versa