Abstract
In much the same way that fashion trends and musical styles come and go, instructional approaches also fall in and out of favor. In the 35 years that I have been involved with education in the U.S., I have seen the pendulum swing from the so-called “open education ” model, to a “drill and kill ”/“back to basics ” mentality, to an age of high-stakes testing. In most U.S. states, high school students now have three opportunities to pass the last of a series of assessments that begin at grade three (age 8). If they do not pass, they do not receive a high school diploma. In addition, teachers often find that pay raises, promotions, and even their job security are tied to their students’ scores. We have moved from a model of educating the “whole child”, to a concern that young Americans perform as well as (if not better than) students in other countries, to the decision that it is the schools that can best be used as the vehicle to equalize opportunities for all. Markedly absent from these reforms has been a concern for the maintenance and growth of student intrinsic motivation and creativity.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
High-stakes tests get their name from the fact that scores on these assessments really do have significant consequences for students, teachers, individual schools and entire school districts. In most U.S. states, high school students now have three opportunities to pass the last of a series of assessments that begin at grade three (age 8). If they do not pass, they do not receive a high school diploma. In addition, teachers often find that pay raises, promotions, and even their job security are tied to their students’ scores (e.g., Fitzgerald 2008).
References
Alexander, P. A., & Murphy, P. K. (1994, April). The research base for APA’s learner-centered principles. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA.
Amabile, T. M. (1983). The social psychology of creativity. New York: Springer.
Amabile, T. M. (1996). Creativity in context. Boulder, CO: Westview.
Amabile, T. M., & Kramer, S. (2011). The progress principle: Using small wins to ignite joy, engagement, and creativity at work. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.
Amabile, T. M., & Stubbs, M. L. (Eds.). (1982). Psychological research in the classroom: Issues for educators and researchers. New York: Pergamon Press.
Bacon-Shone, J. H., & Hui, D. (2010). Design and construction of the Hong Kong creativity index. In E. Villalba (Ed.), Measuring creativity (pp. 91–102). Luxembourg: European Union.
Condry, J., & Chambers, J. (1978). Intrinsic motivation and the process of learning. In M. R. Lepper & D. Greene (Eds.), The hidden costs of reward (pp. 61–84). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum.
Cordova, D. L., & Lepper, M. R. (1996). Intrinsic motivation and the process of learning: Beneficial effects of contextualization, personalization and choice. Journal of Educational Psychology, 88, 715–730.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1993). Flow. New York: Harper Collins.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997). Creativity: Flow and the psychology of discovery and invention. New York: HarperCollins.
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York: Plenum.
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “what” and “why” of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11, 227–268.
Dewey, J. (1913). Interest and effort in education. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Falk-Krzesinski, H., Börner, K., Contractor, N., Fiore, S. M., Hall, K. L., Keyton, J., et al. (2010). Advancing the science of team science. Clinical and Translational Science, 3, 263–266.
Fitzgerald, J. (2008). No child left behind: The teachers’ voice. Retrieved from http://www.mn2020.org/issues-that-matter/education/no-child-left-behind-the-teachers-voice
Flink, C., Boggiano, A. K., & Main, D. S. (1992). Children’s achievement-related behaviors: The role of extrinsic and intrinsic motivational orientations. In A. K. Boggiano & T. S. Pittman (Eds.), Achievement and motivation: A social-developmental perspective (pp. 189–214). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Florida, R., Mellander, C., Stolarick, K., Silk, K., Matheson, Z., & Hopgood, M. (2011). Creativity and prosperity: The global creativity index. Retrieved from http://www.martinprosperity.org
Frankham, J., & Howes, A. (2006). Talk as action in ‘collaborative action research’: Making and taking apart teacher/researcher relationships. British Educational Research Journal, 32, 617–632.
Fraser, B. J. (1990). Individualized classroom environment questionnaire. Melbourne: Australian Council for Educational Research.
Fraser, D. (2010). Tension and challenge in collaborative school-university research. Waikato Journal of Education, 15, 55–67.
Galton, F. (1870). Hereditary genius. London: Macmillan, London, & Appleton.
Gottfried, A. E. (1990). Academic intrinsic motivation in young elementary children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 525–538.
Harter, S., & Jackson, B. K. (1992). Trait vs. nontrait conceptualizations of intrinsic/extrinsic motivational orientation. Motivation and Emotion, 16, 209–230.
Hennessey, B. A. (2003). The social psychology of creativity. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 47, 253–271.
Hennessey, B. A. (2010). Intrinsic motivation and creativity in the classroom: Have we come full circle? In R. A. Beghetto & J. C. Kaufman (Eds.), Nurturing creativity in the classroom (pp. 329–361). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Hennessey, B. A., Amabile, T. M., & Martinage, M. (1989). Immunizing children against the negative effects of reward. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 14, 212–227.
Hennessey, B. A., & Zbikowski, S. M. (1993). Immunizing children against the negative effects of reward: A further examination of intrinsic motivation training techniques. Creativity Research Journal, 6, 297–307.
Hidi, S. (1990). Interest and its contribution as a mental resource for learning. Review of Educational Research, 60, 549–571.
Johnson, B., Peters, J., & Williams, D. (1999). Academics working with schools: Revealing the tensions. Journal of Education for Teaching, 25, 123–133.
Lepper, M. R., & Cordova, D. I. (1992). A desire to be taught: Instructional consequences of intrinsic motivation. Motivation and Emotion, 16, 187–208.
Maehr, M. L., & Meyer, H. A. (1997). Understanding motivation and schooling: Where we’ve been, where we are, and where we need to go. Educational Psychology Review, 9, 371–409.
Mai, R. P. (1978). Open education: From ideology to orthodoxy. Peabody Journal of Education, 55, 231–237.
McGraw, K. O. (1978). The detrimental effects of reward on performance: A literature review and a prediction model. In M. Lepper & D. Greene (Eds.), The hidden costs of reward (pp. 33–60). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
McGraw, K. O., & McCullers, J. (1979). Evidence of a detrimental effect of extrinsic incentives on breaking a mental set. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 15, 285–294.
Moos, R. H., & Trickett, E. J. (1987). Classroom environment Scale manual (2nd ed.). Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.
National Commission on Excellence in Education (NCEE). (1983). A nation at risk: The imperative for educational reform. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.
Newell, A., Shaw, J., & Simon, H. (1962). The processes of creative thinking. In H. Gruber, G. Terrell, & M. Wertheimer (Eds.), Contemporary approaches to creative thinking (pp. 63–119). New York: Atherton.
Pittman, T. S., Emery, J., & Boggiano, A. K. (1982). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivational orientations: Reward-induced changes in preference for complexity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42, 789–797.
Robelen, E. W. (2012). Coming to schools: Creativity indexes. Education Week, 31, 12–13. Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/02/02/19creativity_ep.h31.html?qs=robelen
Simon, H. A. (1967). Motivational and emotional controls of cognition. Psychological Review, 74, 29–39.
Tobias, S. (1994). Interest, prior knowledge and learning. Review of Educational Research, 64, 37–54.
Torrance, E. P. (1974). Torrance tests of creative thinking: Norms-technical manual. Lexington, MA: Ginn.
Urban, W. J., & Wagoner, J. L, Jr. (2009). American education: A history (4th ed.). New York: Routledge.
Wallas, G. (1926). The art of thought. New York: Harcourt Brace.
West. (2003). No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001, 20 U.S.C.A. § 6301 et seq.
Wuchty, S., Jones, B. F., & Uzzi, B. (2007). The increasing dominance of teams in production of knowledge. Science, 316, 1036–1039.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hennessey, B.A. (2015). Assessing Schools on Creativity: A Toolbox for U.S. Teachers and Policymakers and a To-Do List for Researchers Worldwide. In: Tan, AG., Perleth, C. (eds) Creativity, Culture, and Development. Creativity in the Twenty First Century. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-636-2_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-636-2_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-287-635-5
Online ISBN: 978-981-287-636-2
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawEducation (R0)