The Reliability of Three Groups of Judges' Assessments of Creativity Under Three Conditions

Most rationales of teaching and learning music cite the development of creativity as an important component. Amabile?s (1996) consensual assessment technique is useful for exploring the relationship between creativity and other aspects of teaching and learning. Using this technique 21 non-music majors, 66 elementary music specialists, and 69 instrumental music teachers completed a consensual creativity assessment of 5 compositions. The elementary specialists and the instrumental teachers completed the assessment in one of three conditions: Audio only (AO), Score only (SO), and Audio and Score (A&S). The college students completed the assessment in the AO condition. The elementary specialists and the instrumental teachers were most consistent when judging in the AO condition and least reliable in the SO condition. Using the means of the judges? ratings, highly significant (p< .01) correlations were found among creativity, craftsmanship, personal preference, expressiveness, rhythmic interest, and melodic interest in the AO condition. In the SO condition, rhythmic interest was noticeably not significant (r = .39 by the instrumental teachers and r = .76 by the elementary specialists).