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Teachers' assessments and pupils performance in intelligence and creativity test: A cross-cultural study
Studies in EducationalEvaluation. Vol. 9, pp. 377-378, 1983
0191-491X/83 $0.00 + .50 Copyright ,%" 1984 Pergamon Press Ltd.
Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved.
EVALUATION ABSTRACT T E A C H E R S ' A S S E S S M E N T S A N D PUPILS P E R F O R M A N C E IN INTELLIGENCE A N D C R E A T I V I T Y TEST: A C R O S S - C U L T U R A L S T U D Y Nduka Okoh Department of Educational Psychology, University of Benin, Nigeria
INTRODUCTION
creativity and/or intelligence tests. This study was therefore aimed at testing the hypothesis that a positive and significant relationship will exist between actual scores of pupils in verbal intelligence and verbal creativity tests, and the assessments of these abilities by their teachers.
Class teachers are usually regarded as being in a better position than most to evaluate a child's cognitive abilities in terms of predicting future attainment. This feeling is based on the face-validity assumption that (i) teachers have, by definition, professional competence in making such evaluations, and (2) that if these teachers have taught the said pupils over a sufficiently long period of time (e.g. one year and over), the resulting personal knowledge of the pupils should enable class teachers to assess with a relatively high level of accuracy the individual differences between their pupils. If this hypothesis and the underlying assumptions are correct, then there should be a significant measure of correlation between teachers' assessments of pupils' abilities and pupils' actual performance in objective tests of such abilities.
METHOD To test the hypothesis, a sample of 289 primary school pupils in ten classes in Nigeria and Wales (mean age: 10.7) were given tests of verbal intelligence and verbal creativity. The verbal intelligence tests, for the Nigerian sample utilized the University of Ibadan Verbal Intelligence Test - a specially developed and standarised test which takes account of local cultural conditions in Nigeria (including, importantly, language use) was used. For the Welsh sample population, the well known Thorndike-Hagen Cognitive Abilities Test, Verbal Battery, Levels A-B (9-11 age group) was used.
There is, in fact, a large body and variety of studies on how well teachers' assessments of their pupils are accurately reflected in objective attainment tests scores of these pupils, particularly in school subjects. But very few of these studies relate specifically to
The verbal were an adapted Torrance Tests of 377
creativity tests version of the Creative Thinking
378
N. Okoh
(TTCT), Verbal Form B; and the battery for this study consisted of (I) Word Meanings, (2) Uses of Objects, (3) Instances Tests. These three verbal creativity tests were each scored for fluency, flexibility, and originality following closely Torrance's guidelines in the TTCT manual.
although the Nigerian teachers tended consistently to rate their pupils significantly higher than did their counterpart Welsh teachers (t-ratios of 3.92 and 8.84 for verbal I.Q. and Verbal creativity respectively).
DISCUSSION The teachers of the ten classes of pupils who participated in the study were requested to rate each of their pupils for verbal intelligence and for verbal creativity on a broad, five-band scale.
RESULTS The results showed that the relationship between the two verbal creativity indices - i.e. total verbal creativity (VCT3) and verbal originality (VCOT) - and teachers' assessments of their pupils' verbal creativity (TVC) was negative and significant in every case - the level of significance being higher in the Welsh sample. Similarly, the correlation coefficients between teachers' assessments of the verbal IQ of pupils (TVIQ) and the actual performance of pupils in the verbal IQ test (VIQ) was one of consistently negative and highly significant relationship. These results therefore do not support the hypothesis of the study but instead indicate a wide and significant disparity between teachers' judgments of their pupils (in terms of convergent and divergent thinking) and the pupils' actual performance in tests of these aptitudes -
Four possible explanations for this finding, in increasing order of presumed importance, were posited and discussed: (a) the unreliability of the test instruments; (b) inadequate motivation of the pupils; (c) problems of rating procedures, and (d) the problem of incongruent rationale used by teachers and the experimenter in assessing the pupils (e.g. teachers were not given the more sophisticated and demanding task of breaking down their assessment of pupils' creativity in terms of 'fluency', 'flexibility' and 'originality'). A replication study on more rigorous lines is at present being conducted by the author to see if the present findings will be confirmed or modified.
THE AUTHOR NDUKA OKOH is Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University, Benin City, Nigeria. He studied economics, education and psychology at the Universities of Strathclyde, Glasgow and Wales in the United Kingdom, and is a Member of the British and Nigerian Psychological Societies.
0191-491X/83 $0.00 + .50 Copyright ,%" 1984 Pergamon Press Ltd.
Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved.
EVALUATION ABSTRACT T E A C H E R S ' A S S E S S M E N T S A N D PUPILS P E R F O R M A N C E IN INTELLIGENCE A N D C R E A T I V I T Y TEST: A C R O S S - C U L T U R A L S T U D Y Nduka Okoh Department of Educational Psychology, University of Benin, Nigeria
INTRODUCTION
creativity and/or intelligence tests. This study was therefore aimed at testing the hypothesis that a positive and significant relationship will exist between actual scores of pupils in verbal intelligence and verbal creativity tests, and the assessments of these abilities by their teachers.
Class teachers are usually regarded as being in a better position than most to evaluate a child's cognitive abilities in terms of predicting future attainment. This feeling is based on the face-validity assumption that (i) teachers have, by definition, professional competence in making such evaluations, and (2) that if these teachers have taught the said pupils over a sufficiently long period of time (e.g. one year and over), the resulting personal knowledge of the pupils should enable class teachers to assess with a relatively high level of accuracy the individual differences between their pupils. If this hypothesis and the underlying assumptions are correct, then there should be a significant measure of correlation between teachers' assessments of pupils' abilities and pupils' actual performance in objective tests of such abilities.
METHOD To test the hypothesis, a sample of 289 primary school pupils in ten classes in Nigeria and Wales (mean age: 10.7) were given tests of verbal intelligence and verbal creativity. The verbal intelligence tests, for the Nigerian sample utilized the University of Ibadan Verbal Intelligence Test - a specially developed and standarised test which takes account of local cultural conditions in Nigeria (including, importantly, language use) was used. For the Welsh sample population, the well known Thorndike-Hagen Cognitive Abilities Test, Verbal Battery, Levels A-B (9-11 age group) was used.
There is, in fact, a large body and variety of studies on how well teachers' assessments of their pupils are accurately reflected in objective attainment tests scores of these pupils, particularly in school subjects. But very few of these studies relate specifically to
The verbal were an adapted Torrance Tests of 377
creativity tests version of the Creative Thinking
378
N. Okoh
(TTCT), Verbal Form B; and the battery for this study consisted of (I) Word Meanings, (2) Uses of Objects, (3) Instances Tests. These three verbal creativity tests were each scored for fluency, flexibility, and originality following closely Torrance's guidelines in the TTCT manual.
although the Nigerian teachers tended consistently to rate their pupils significantly higher than did their counterpart Welsh teachers (t-ratios of 3.92 and 8.84 for verbal I.Q. and Verbal creativity respectively).
DISCUSSION The teachers of the ten classes of pupils who participated in the study were requested to rate each of their pupils for verbal intelligence and for verbal creativity on a broad, five-band scale.
RESULTS The results showed that the relationship between the two verbal creativity indices - i.e. total verbal creativity (VCT3) and verbal originality (VCOT) - and teachers' assessments of their pupils' verbal creativity (TVC) was negative and significant in every case - the level of significance being higher in the Welsh sample. Similarly, the correlation coefficients between teachers' assessments of the verbal IQ of pupils (TVIQ) and the actual performance of pupils in the verbal IQ test (VIQ) was one of consistently negative and highly significant relationship. These results therefore do not support the hypothesis of the study but instead indicate a wide and significant disparity between teachers' judgments of their pupils (in terms of convergent and divergent thinking) and the pupils' actual performance in tests of these aptitudes -
Four possible explanations for this finding, in increasing order of presumed importance, were posited and discussed: (a) the unreliability of the test instruments; (b) inadequate motivation of the pupils; (c) problems of rating procedures, and (d) the problem of incongruent rationale used by teachers and the experimenter in assessing the pupils (e.g. teachers were not given the more sophisticated and demanding task of breaking down their assessment of pupils' creativity in terms of 'fluency', 'flexibility' and 'originality'). A replication study on more rigorous lines is at present being conducted by the author to see if the present findings will be confirmed or modified.
THE AUTHOR NDUKA OKOH is Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University, Benin City, Nigeria. He studied economics, education and psychology at the Universities of Strathclyde, Glasgow and Wales in the United Kingdom, and is a Member of the British and Nigerian Psychological Societies.