Consensual Assessment

B. A. Hennessey; J. S. Mueller; T. M. Amabile

Chapter | Encyclopedia of Creativity | 2020

Consensual Assessment

by B. A. Hennessey, J. S. Mueller and T. M. Amabile

Abstract

Over time, the field of creativity research has seen a gradual shift away from an almost exclusive emphasis on the creative person towards a more balanced inquiry that centers both on individual difference issues and questions about the nature of creative products and the conditions that facilitate the creation of those products. The consensual assessment technique (CAT) allows for the assessment of the relative creativity of products and is based on the assumption that a panel of independent raters, persons who have not had the opportunity to confer with one another and who have not been trained by the researcher, are best able to make such judgments. Over 40 years of research have clearly established that product creativity can be reliably and validly assessed based on the consensus of experts. Although creativity in a product may be difficult to characterize in terms of specific features, it is something that people can recognize and agree upon when they see it.

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Citation:

Hennessey, B. A., J. S. Mueller, and T. M. Amabile. "Consensual Assessment." In Encyclopedia of Creativity. 3rd ed. Edited by Mark A. Runco and Steven R. Pritzker, 199–205. Academic Press, 2020.

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Consensual Assessment

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