Whether creativity is expressed or suppressed depends on the socio-cultural context, personality differences, and specific personal experiences such as
knowledge and skills. It is an important element in relation to education and societal growth.
2. Elements of Creativity
Hurlock 1981: 236 states some characteristic elements of creativity based on perspective, such as: 1 creativity is a process, not a product; 2 the process is
goal-directed, either for personal benefit of the social group; 3 it leads to the production of something new, different, and therefore, unique for the person
weather it be verbal or non verbal, concrete or abstract; 4 creativity comes from divergent thinking, while conformity and everyday problem solving comes from
convergent thinking; 5 it is a way of thinking, and it is not synonymous with intelligence, which includes mental abilities other than thinking; 6 the ability to
create depends on the acquisition of accepted knowledge; and 7 creativity is a form of controlled imagination that leads to some kinds of achievement.
Starko 2010: 55 – 56 proposes a Structure of the Intellect SOI model by
Guilford’s 1959, 1986, 1988. This model seems become the complex model of intelligence including, in its most recent form, 180 components. The components
are formed through combinations of types of content, operations, and product. Guilford’s SOI model includes divergent thinking, or thinking of many
possible responses to a given question, as one of the basic processes of intelligence. Guilford identified components of divergent production that have
formed the backbone of much research and assessment of creativity. They include fluency, flexibility, originality, elaboration, and redefinition as follows:
a. Divergent thinking operations
1
Fluency. Fluency is an ability to make number of interpretable,
meaningful, and relevant ideasanswers generated in response to the same given information stimulus in a limited time and quantity of
meaningful solutions 2
Flexibility. Flexibility is the ability to adapt, change and reform
different configurations of classes, relations, and systems. 3
Originality. Originality is the ability to generate a variety of
transformations or statistical rarity of the responses in the population to which the individual belongs
b. Evaluative thinking operations
Elaboration. Elaboration is the ability sensitivity of problems situations
in the evaluative mode to bring about improvement through the amount of detail in the responses
c. Convergent thinking operations
Redefinition. Redefinition is creative effort to the convergent thinking
mode in transforming of an ideasomething known into something not previously known. The product may become very general or simple or in
contrary very fantastic or enriched into details. Starko 2010: 290 also states that many standardized creativity tests are
based on the processes of divergent thinking identified by Guilford 1967. The
most widely researched and extensively used of these are the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking TTCT 1974 which were scored on four scales as follows:
a. Fluency: the total number of interpretable, meaningful, and relevant ideas
generated in response to the stimulus b.
Flexibility: the number of different categories of relevant responses c.
Originality: the statistical rarity of the responses d.
Elaboration: the amount of detail in the responses. The four scales of creativity thinking above are also used by Munandar’s
TKV Tes Kreativitas Verbal – Verbal Creativity Test created by Munandar. The
test has been used especially in Indonesia since 1977. Based on the references above, it can be concluded that there are several
elements of creativity. They are fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration. The four elements of creativity are also used to test the creativity as proposed by
Munandar in his TKV Tes Kreativitas Verbal – Verbal Creativity Test.
3. The Importance of Creativity in Education
