The Torrance Test

The Torrance Test of Creative Thinking was developed by Ellis Paul Torrance, an American psychologist in 2003. This test uses benchmarking to measure creativity. The full test involves simple tests of divergent and lateral thinking and other problem solving skills. They were scored on four things: fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration.

In Chapter 1 of the Graphic Innovation Guide, I used one part of the Torrance Test to expand on these four scales. I asked participants to write down as many uses for a tin can that they could think of. When the Torrance test measures your creativity in terms of fluency, it is measuring the number of ideas you are able to think of in a given period of time. Flexibility measures the range of categories for the ideas you come up with. Originality measures the rarity of the idea, or if it is a new, original idea. Finally, elaboration was not mentioned in Chapter 1, however; it measures the amount of detail used in your responses.

This test and the scales that it measures can be very insightful. We have talked about why innovation is so important to the success of a business. Innovation allows you to come up with breakthrough solutions. So if your goal is innovation, then it is important to know that we should increase our focus on all of these four scales. We must brainstorm ideas that have fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration.  The Torrance Test is agreat way to do that.   If you would like more information on this, email me at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

About the Author

Rick Boersma

Rick has been in the field of education and training since 1985 working with dozens of Fortune 500 corporations, as well as hundreds of smaller companies, designing and facilitating experiential training programs. Rick's energetic personality and contagious enthusiasm will leave audiences inspired and mezmerized.