Is Creativity Expressed at Home Related to Creativity Expressed at School? A Re-Examination of the Creativity Gap with Gifted and Nongifted Students

Abstract

Previous research suggests that environment can play an important role in encouraging or discouraging creative expression and productivity. Additional research has uncovered a discrepancy between the creativity students express at school and the creativity they express outside of school. The fact that, in previous research, students expressed more creativity outside of school than when in school implies that school discourages creativity. So far, the creativity gap has only been studied with nongifted students. One objective of the present investigation was to check for a similar discrepancy among gifted learners. Four hundred and eighty-seven middle school and high school students from the State of Kuwait (240 gifted and 247 nongifted) were recruited. The Creativity Activities and Accomplishment Checklist (CAAC) was administered to compare students' creative activities at home and school. The primary finding of this investigation was that the strength of the relationship between creativity at home and creativity at school differed in gifted and nongifted students. What was called a creativity gap existed in both groups, but it was smaller in the gifted group. A second finding was that gifted students expressed more creativity at school compared with the nongifted group, in particular CAAC domains. There were no differences between the gifted and the nongifted groups in the creativity expressed at home, except for one subscale, namely everyday creativity. Although gifted students expressed more creativity at school, compared with their nongifted peers, they were nonetheless more creative at home compared with school. Finally, hierarchical regression analyses indicated that measure of personality significantly moderated the relationship between creativity at home and creativity at school. Limitations and future directions are discussed.