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We argue that the future of creativity research should focus on the dual goals of the development of individuals with great creative genius as well as the enhancement of creative activity in society in general. To achieve these goals, we need basic research that will help us better understand the fundamental nature of creativity. We describe an approach to creativity that emphasizes novelty over utility.

The authors assert that U.S. educators, struggling under the accountability requirements of the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act, might have a hard time imagining an assessment program driven by teachers' need for formative information about student learning instead of by high-stakes accountability demands. However, they say, for New Zealand educators, it is an integral part of a comprehensive assessment program designed to help teachers enhance students' literacy skills. They explain that New Zealand assesses the learning progress of elementary and middle-level students through the National Educational Monitoring Project, which offers an innovative approach to understanding student achievement in language arts. The article explores the frameworks and distinctive qualities of the program.

This study examined whether the presence of a label and the length of viewing time affect the perception of art. Participants were 152 undergraduate students at an urban university in central New Jersey. A computer program randomly assigned participants to viewing 4 paintings under a label or no label condition and a 1-s, 5-s, 30-s, or 60-s time condition. The paintings were Cezanne's Still Life With Apples, Mondrian's Composition with Red, Yellow and Blue, Monet's Garden at Sainte-Adresse, and Davis' Report from Rockport. After viewing each painting, participants completed a rating scale of 24 adjective pairs. Multivariate analyses of variance indicated little support for the hypotheses that the label condition will lead to different ratings of the art as compared to the non-label condition and that length of viewing time will affect ratings of the art. The reliability coefficients for the rating scale were fairly strong. Results are discussed in terms of how ratings of art are dependent largely on the work of art itself.

The relations between consequence of test scores and motivation, anxiety, and test performance were studied with 112 persons in four undergraduate educational psychology courses. Students were given two versions of an hourly course examination that varied in consequence, with one counting for part of their grade and the other not counting. Each student completed the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory prior to taking the examination. Afterwards students completed a measure of test anxiety and test motivation specific to the examination they had just taken. Significant main effects were found for consequence of test with scores for test anxiety, test performance, and test motivation. Also, the subscales showed a consistent pattern of relations with test performance and test anxiety across the two conditions, but not for test motivation for which few relations were found under the condition with no consequence.

Conventional wisdom among museum professionals is that art museum visitors do not spend much time viewing works of art. The purpose of this study was to empirically investigate that question as well as to look at the relationship that age, gender, and group size have on viewing times. Visitors to The Metropolitan Museum of Art were observed as they looked at six masterpieces in the Museum's collection. A total of 150 individuals looking at six paintings comprised the sample for the study. The observations were of naturally occurring stops at the works of art. The gender, group size, estimated age, and time spent at the work of art were recorded for each encounter. The mean time spent viewing a work of art was found to be 27.2 seconds, with a median time of 17.0 seconds. Viewing time was not related to gender or age, but was strongly related to group size, with larger groups spending more time. There were also significant differences among paintings. Results are discussed in terms of how different types of looking patterns may be related to the amount of time spent in front of works of art.

In this study we investigated differences in reading performance between 30 students in a suburban school district identified as having a learning disability and 30 students without a learning disability matched on the basis of grade and gender. All participants were in the third or fourth grade and were tested using the Woodcock Diagnostic Reading Battery(WDRB). Results indicated that all but three of the 10 subtests of the WDRB produced significant differences between the groups. The three subtests that did not reach significance were Oral Vocabulary, Listening Comprehension, and Memory for Sentences, all of which address oral language rather than letters or symbols. Results are discussed in terms of practical applications of the WDRB with students diagnosed with learning disabilities, as well as with other noncognitive indicators of reading performance.

This study extends previous research on the expectancy construct of the expectancy-value theory of motivation developed by Pintrich. In addition to value and expectancy for success, it is proposed that people take into account how much effort is required to complete a task. A 2 × 2 × 2 analysis of variance design was used to investigate the relationship of Difficulty, Consequence, and Required Effort on the willingness of participants to complete a task. The dependent variable was the score obtained from completing statistical problems that varied in difficulty and effort required to complete. 128 students at a public university were participants. Analysis showed significant main effects and an interaction for difficulty and required effort, but no main effect for consequence. Results are discussed in terms of creating optimal motivation for classroom tasks and for both classroom and standardized examinations. Implications for students in subject pools are also discussed.