ERIC Number: EJ1404651
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2023
Pages: 32
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1932-202X
EISSN: EISSN-2162-9536
Measuring Creativity in Academic Writing: An Analysis of Essays in Advanced Placement Language and Composition
Journal of Advanced Academics, v34 n3-4 p183-214 2023
The demand for a creative workforce has never been higher, yet schools struggle to teach and assess creativity among students efficiently. Compositions are an effective way to incorporate creativity across the curriculum; however, essays are time consuming to evaluate for quality or creativity. This study explored (a) if high creativity scores are related to high quality and sophistication in academic writing, and (b) if extant text-mining tools effectively identify quality, sophistication, and creativity in academic essays. Four teacher raters analyzed quality, sophistication, and creativity of 230 essays written by students aged 15-17 for Advanced Placement Language and Composition. We also used text-mining tools (e.g., semantic distance, Shannon's entropy, idea density) to score these essays. Teacher-rated creativity scores correlated with quality and sophistication scores, as well as with some of the text-mining tools, suggesting that these tools can capture quality and sophistication in addition to creativity. Implications for educational practice are discussed.
Descriptors: Creativity, Academic Language, Writing (Composition), Advanced Placement, Essays, Information Retrieval, Data Analysis, High School Students
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: High Schools; Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A