The assignment
The contribution of surveys to our understanding of how personality traits might be related to creativity – For this assignment you should write an essay.
- Method 2: For students conducting a survey project: Drawing on material from Chapter 1 Critical, creative and credible and Chapter 6 Measuring differences in people, critically evaluate the contribution of surveys to our understanding of how personality traits might be related to creativity.
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Word limit: 1500 words (excluding references, the title and any appendices). Write the word count at the end of your essay.
To help with this you should read a chapter that explores your particular method. Then, using that information along with the relevant section of Chapter 1, you should write your essay.
Learning outcomes
TMA 01 addresses the following learning outcomes:
- Knowledge of the core areas of psychology:
- cognitive psychology
- individual differences
- social psychology and qualitative methods.
- Demonstration of a critical appreciation of the types of evidence and research methods used in psychology.
- The ability to construct arguments with appropriate use of psychological concepts, theories and evidence.
- The ability to interpret and evaluate the contributions of different kinds of evidence and research methods.
- The ability to select, summarise, synthesise and reference appropriately information from different psychological sources, including primary texts.
- The ability to present written material in a coherently organised form, with arguments and information in logical sequence and communicated effectively in a variety of formats.
- The ability to employ evidence-based reasoning and to critically examine practical, theoretical and ethical issues.
the contribution of surveys to our understanding of how personality traits might be related to creativity
Student notes for students undertaking survey projects
Title: Drawing on material from Chapter 1 Critical, creative and credible and Chapter 6 Measuring differences in people, critically evaluate the contribution of surveys to our understanding of how personality traits might be related to creativity.
Word limit: 1500 words (excluding references, the title and any appendices). Write the word count at the end of your essay.
This essay question covers surveys, so the principal sources are Chapter 1 and Chapter 6 of the DE300 textbook. While both chapters explore survey and psychometric methodologies, Chapter 6 is particularly relevant in relation to the question of how psychometric surveys contribute to an understanding of creativity. Bear in mind a definition of what is meant by ‘psychometric survey’ is going to be useful in deciding what material to select to answer this question.
Section 2 of Chapter 6 covers reliability and validity – two important psychometric characteristics of surveys that are often used to evaluate the quality of survey instruments.
Material in Section 3 of Chapter 6 covers assessment of creativity. Some of the methods reviewed are psychometric tests that are not strictly speaking surveys, although many could be added to a survey instrument to collect data together with other variables. Some of the measures discussed in Section 3.4 clearly do fall under the heading of surveys. Surveys are self-report measures (see definitions in Chapter 1) and so can include psychometric scales, or psychometric tests, provided they can be adapted to a format that lends itself to being distributed as a survey.
Sections 4.1 and 4.2 of Chapter 6 cover personality and creativity specifically, however there is other material on surveys in Chapter 6.
Your task is to ‘critically evaluate’, meaning that you must make a judgement about the contribution of psychometric survey methodology to research and understanding of creativity. The judgement should be about the strengths, weaknesses and worth of the contribution specifically to understanding the relationships between personality and creativity, as well as to an understanding of creativity.
Your arguments must be based on evidence and reasoning. You will need to consider the debates around survey methodology and creativity, but it is not necessary to include long lists of studies and their findings. Note that the question is asking about the contribution to research, which suggests a discussion not only of theories but also of methodology will be required for a balanced and evaluative answer.
The question has been deliberately left open to allow you to draw on a wider range of materials. Remember you only have 1500 words at your disposal, so you will not be able to cover every issue in the depth that it is covered in the textbook. However, at the same time, you also need to critically evaluate the evidence from survey studies and what they tell us about creativity. This will require you to assess whether such evidence supports the theoretical conclusions of the studies you are using in your answer. In order to evaluate effectively, ask yourself if alternative interpretations of the findings are possible. What weaknesses or limitations do the studies have that might suggest alternative interpretations are possible? What do different approaches to assessing and theorising from surveys tell us about the origins, processes or mechanisms of creativity? How do the questions used in surveys or the analysis of data shape the type of findings produced?
As well as drawing on material from Chapter 6, you should also draw on material from Chapter 1. Chapter 1 is a more general introduction to methods, with the relevant section here being Section 3, which discusses the uses and limitations of the survey approach. You may need to know this in order to develop your critical evaluation of the material in Chapter 6. Section 3 in Chapter 1 is fairly eclectic theoretically but serves as a good introduction to survey methodology and its strengths and limitations. Some of the general discussions in Sections 1 and 5 may be relevant to help you situate and contrast survey methods within the context of other methods. You will have to give some thought to how you can make this material directly relevant to the essay question. Perhaps you can take the methodological issues highlighted in Section 3 and explore their implications for studies that explore personality and creativity?
You may find it useful to access primary source material referred to in Chapter 6, or indeed other academic source material. To locate additional relevant materials, you could start with one of the primary references in Chapter 6 Section 4 (for example studies that have used the NEO or HEXACO tests) and look for relevant articles that have cited these primary sources, narrowing it down to creativity. Further information about how to find relevant primary source material can be found in the Week 1 library activities referred to in the Study Guide. Please bear in mind that the main material for the TMA should be from Chapter 6. Therefore, while you do need to devote a paragraph or two to Section 3 of Chapter 1, most of your essay will be taken up with relevant material from Chapter 6, particularly from Section 4.