Self-perceived creativity: The perspective of design

In view of unclear previous findings about the validity of self-assessed creativity, the hypothesis guiding the present study was that validity would be proven if self-assessed creativity was examined with respect to a specific domain, specific product, specific aspects of creativity, and in terms of specific criteria. The participants were 52 architecture students. The experimental task was to design a small museum in a described context. After completing the task, the students self-assessed their creativity in designing with seven open-ended questions, the Self-Assessment of Creative Design questionnaire, and a list of seven items tapping affective metacognitive aspects of the designing process. Thus, 21 creativity indicators were formed. Four expert architects, working independently, assessed the designs on nine creativity indicators: fluency, flexibility, elaboration, functionality, innovation, fulfilling specified design requirements, considering context, mastery of skills concerning the esthetics of the design representation, and overall creativity. The agreement among the architects' evaluations was very high. The correlations between the nine corresponding indicators in students' assessment of their design and those of the experts were positive and significant with respect to three indicators: fluency, flexibility, and overall creativity. On the contrary, the correlations of the rest noncorresponding indicators with those of the experts were not significant. The findings support the validity of self-assessed creativity with specific restrictions.