Utilizing the Consensual Assessment Technique to Compare Creativity in Drama Spaces

Objective: This study examines the validity of Amabile’s (1982) consensual assessment technique in measuring creativity in a warm-up activity in fourth-grade drama classrooms and compares the scores between warm-ups occurring in a blackbox theater setting (experimental) vs. a traditional classroom (control). Method: Four professional actors viewed 60 clips of children’s drama warm-ups and scored for creativity, using a 5-point scale. After establishing sufficient inter-rater reliability (IRR), we used the average scores of the raters to compare creativity between the experimental and control groups. Results: The raters demonstrated high agreement, with a coefficient alpha estimate of .819. An independent samples t-test between the experimental and control groups was significant at p < .001, with the experimental group receiving higher scores. Conclusions: The results suggested that creativity was significantly higher in the experimental group, and the context correlated with creativity, despite neither group having yet received drama instruction at that time. This paper presents discussions about validity, opinions of the raters, possible implications for the activity itself, and possible effect of setting on creativity.