Calvin W. Taylor

Biographical predictors of scientific performance.

The biographical approach to the identification of scientific talent has shown significant results in a variety of situations which included different laboratories, fields of specialization, and age groups. Much remains to be accomplished, however. The biographical approach needs to be validated in other organizational settings employing relevant criteria. Although this kind of research is being initiated, a number of studies are needed to define the advantages and limitations. The use of biographical information to identify the creative and other talents of executives, composers, administrators, and artists has been largely unexplored. Furthermore, the meaning of the biographical items has not been correlated with existing psychological theory and knowledge. All evidence to date indicates that the investigation of biographical information and its relationship to various criteria of performance and other psychological measures is a rapidly expanding area of investigation which will make further contributions to the identification of talent in a variety of fields.

Development and Application of Tests of Creativity

RESEARCH KNOWLEDGE about creativity is scanty. Some of the best research projects are large ones not yet published or still in process. Until a few years ago, the complexities of creativity discouraged research studies in this area. Recently, increased research activities in creativity, in which the subjects have most often been scientists, have been exploratory in nature; several have been very provocative. Many of the researchers have focused on understanding the nature of creativity and of the creative person, rather than hurriedly trying to build a creativity test to market for widespread use; consequently, a great variety of characteristics has been studied by means of several types of measuring instruments. Research has sometimes focused on a characteristic, such as independence, which has been measured by several separate devices; in other instances it has focused on possible measures of creative potential-for example, on highlevel aptitude-type tests as opposed to personality or motivation-type tests. Much of the research reported was directed toward finding concomitant characteristics of creativity that should eventually permit building tests of creativity potential. The over-all pattern of research measuring creative giftedness has not followed the pattern of research on intellectual giftedness. Moreover, some researchers will argue that the burgeoning research movement in creativity, with its broad approach and resistance to premature crystallization, is much healthier than was the intelligence-testing movement, especially for

Facilitating Lifetime Creative Processes—A Think Piece

There can be at least two &dquo;Golden Ages&dquo; in a lifetime: one the Golden Age of Youth; the second Golden Age can be the one of retirement, which is based upon a wealth of experience and a wealth of freedom and of time to think and to create. The American Medical Association has indicated that the American population is shifting towards the older age groups as the World War II baby boom cohorts move into their forties. The society has responded by postponing the age of mandatory retirement to 70. With the increase in life expectancy, Americans face years of non-job-centered existence in a work-and-consumer-oriented society. If older Americans lose the supervision, sense of community, and opportunity for self-fulfillment that a job provides, what inner resources can they mobilize in order to achieve the internal integration of personality that Ericson characterizes as the touchstone of maturity and self-sufficiency? Young persons who interact with gifted and talented teachers team to turn on their creative processes, and it is likely that they will become so habituated to creative thinking and living that they will use their creative processes throughout their entire life-an extreme example of this lifelong creativity was Picasso who focused a long and productive life on almost continually creating. However, if the creative potentials of young persons are neither challenged

Chapter VIII: Development and Application of Tests of Creativity*

IXESEARCH KNOWLEDGE about creativity is scanty. Some of the best research projects are large ones not yet published or still in process. Until a fewyears ago, the complexities of creativity discouraged research studies in this area. Recently, increased research activities in creativity, in which the subjects have most often been scientists, have been exploratory in nature; several have been very provocative. Many of the researchers have focused on understanding the nature of creativity and of the creative person, rather than hurriedly trying to build a creativity test to market for widespread use; consequently, a great variety of characteristics has been studied by means of several types of measuring instruments. Research has sometimes focused on a characteristic, such as independence, which has been measured by several separate devices; in other instances it has focused on possible measures of creative potential—for example, on highlevel aptitude-type tests as opposed to personality or motivation-type tests. Much of the research reported was directed toward finding concomitant characteristics of creativity that should eventually permit building tests of creativity potential. The over-all pattern of research measuring creative giftedness has not followed the pattern of research on intellectual giftedness. Moreover, some researchers will argue that the burgeoning research movement in creativity, with its broad approach and resistance to premature crystallization, is much healthier than was the intelligence-testing movement, especially for long-range research purposes and for avoiding similar pitfalls. Several relatively large and sustained research programs involving creativity have loosely co-ordinated their efforts through conferences (C. W. Taylor, 1956, 1958a, 1959). These research projects have been able to draw upon a considerable body of basic research findings about human characteristics, especially those findings that have emerged from factorial research studies on intelligence, personality, and motivation. Computers have facilitated the use of large and complex patterns of tests and have made possible large factor-analysis and multiple-correlation studies involving several individual criteria of creativity. Item-alternative analyses of relatively long psychological inventories against creative criteria are becoming relatively routine. But the task of selecting predictors for a particular study from the large number of potentially valid predictors of

Attributes of Excellence in Various Professions: Their Relevance to the Selection of Gifted/Talented Persons.

Grades will predict grades and the academic-type tests will predict grades but they have been found through research studies to be poor predictors or no predictors at all of who will be the best in professions. The troublesome answer generally is that professional schools do not select the persons who will become the best professionals in their fields, nor who will best keep up-to-date with new knowledge and techniques in their careers. The main exception to this general finding occurs in the field of professional athletics and in the entertainment and artistic fields. The example given comes from the Dallas Cowboys scouting data and outcome of potential football recruits in their professional careers. Their correlations are about .70 with career success, whereas predictors from professional schools range from zeros to about +.20 or slightly higher—such predictors from professional schools still miss over 90% or even over 95% of the target, i.e., what is involved in succeeding in each of the professions. Consequently, neither those chosen into most professions nor their future clients will be well served by such poor predictive procedures.

Developing Creative Excellence in Students: The Neglected History-Making Ingredient Which Would Keep our Nation From Being at Risk

For the past five years in Venezuela, Dr. Luis Alberto Machado has been a second minister (cabinet member) for education in the Venezuelan President’s cabinet. As the &dquo;Minister for the Development of Intelligence&dquo; (The Total Brainpower), he is the first person in the history of the world to hold such an assignment. Dr. Machado has written and spoken widely maintaining that his nation’s greatest

Searching for Student Talent Resources Relevant to Our USDE Types of Giftedness

&dquo;Our search for multiple talents should have higher priority than our search for natural resources, because the discovery and development of the latter are fully dependent upon the former.&dquo; Two years ago this statement was made by Walter D. Talbot, the long-time Utah State Superintendent of Public Instruction. The word &dquo;Gifted&dquo; as used herein is defined as being highly talented in one of the important types of talents or gifts, with an ultimate target focused upon those with the highest potentials to become gifted in their full career and life activities. For 25 years we have averaged over one biographical study per year, involving continual construction, validation, revision, and refinement of a series of 24 successive biographical inventories (see Taylor et al., 1958; Ellison, 1960, 1964). These 24 inventories have collectively included hundreds of multiple choice biographical’items. This approach has been described as yielding dynamic biographical inventories, not merely one static, stable one.’ This sustained measurement work, which has been well &dquo;ahead of its day,&dquo; has been focused upon searching for indicators of high-level talents, especially creative talents initially. We have used these newly constructed, &dquo;fresh start&dquo; measures as change agents or improvement agents in leading toward better identification and educational cultivation of high level talents. The Form U Biographical Inventory was designed specifically and produced in 1976 for elementary and secondary schools. The Form U Inventory yields four scores: Academic Performance, Creativity, Leadership and Artistic Potential. This Inventory and its scores are based upon sustained research across numerous studies, focused mainly on adults. The biographical items from these earlier inventories have been retooled for use at earlier school

A factor analysis of mental abilities and personality traits

The relationship between measures of verbal fluency and certain personality traits is examined by factor techniques. From a matrix of eight factor scores derived from mental tests plus five personality scores, six factors were obtained. An oblique solution lends limited support to the hypothesized relationship between the two domains.

Maximizing predictive efficiency for a fixed total testing time

For any fixed total time of testing it is possible, through proper item-and-time allotment, to combine tests into a battery so that the multiple correlation with a pre-assigned criterion will be maximized. By holding constant the ratio of the length in number of items to the time length for each test, a set of general equations has been derived which will yield this maximum value of the multipleR and will enable one to determine, in any given case, the optimal fraction of total testing time that should be devoted to each type of test under consideration. The set of general equations is applied to a two-test-battery problem to obtain the optimal length of each type of test for one hour total testing time. If two other tests had been selected for the two-test sample problem, different subdivisions of the total time would generally occur. The manner in which the results would change when using other tests with different initial reliability, validity, and intercorrelation values is briefly presented. Some general implications of this method of battery development are also discussed.

The Highest Talent Potentials of Man1

If a composer were asked to create a new tune using only eight notes or keys on the piano or if an accomplished pianist were asked to perform on only eight notes, they could both undoubtedly do a respectable job. But consider how much less restricted they would be and how much better they could do if they were allowed to use all 88 keys or notes covered by the piano. This analogy holds for the extent to which we are now having students use all their known talent powers in classes. Both we as teacher and they as students could do considerably better if we would deliberately try to have them use all of their known talents or all of the keys of their mind.