Creativity as Educational Objectives: From a Meta-theoretical Heuristic to Domain-specific Creative Behaviours

The aim of this study was to explore the education expert and non-expert consensually rated nature of creativity operationalized as observable behaviour. When operationalized as observable behaviour akin to concrete educational objectives accessible to being taught, is creativity a construct valid both internationally and over time, and what are its distinguishing features? A representative sample of concretely stated behaviours descriptive of creativity displayed by children and adolescents was evaluated with high convergent validity by educational psychologists, specialists in gifted education, university students of teacher studies, and mathematics teachers (N = 208) on the level of creativity, and ten additional behaviour features. The results of the canonical correlation analysis suggest internationally and temporally stable and an educationally viable bridge between general creativity construct operationalization and measurement on the one hand, and the domain-specificity of creative behaviours and their features on the other. By viewing the general creativity construct as a meta-theoretical heuristic, and focusing on one group of domain-specific consensually rated creative behaviours and their progressive nature as educational objectives, the findings of this study are discussed in the context of general and gifted education.