PISA 2022 Creative Thinking Assessment: A Landmark Opportunity for School and System Leaders to Put Creativity at the Heart of Students' Learning

Abstract

The PISA 2022 Creative Thinking (CT) assessment is a watershed moment for the status of CT in schools, providing leadership opportunities for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers. This extensive new data set reminds educators of the challenges faced by anyone trying to change a system predicated on individual subject disciplines and their largely content-based assessments. It also helpfully further debunks some surprisingly long-held myths about creativity—that it is vague, undermines scholarship, cannot be taught, and cannot be assessed in schools. This paper moves beyond the important ‘event’ of the PISA test to the important ongoing processes of formative assessments in classrooms which could be taking place today. Examples are offered from the author's own research with schools which expand on the PISA data and possible next steps are identified for school and system leaders who wish to seize the opportunities presented by the PISA CT Test.