Creativity Crisis Update: America Follows Asia in Pursuing High Test Scores Over Learning

ABSTRACT Asian culture has been test-centric for over 1,400 years. U.S. education has been since the 1990s. Based on Kim’s creative Climates, Attitudes, and Thinking skills (CATs), creativity indicators were developed using the 2015 PISA questionnaires. Study I examined (a) relationships between students’ PISA science scores and CATs; (b) differences between Asian and U.S. students in PISA scores and CATs; and (c) relationships between teachers’ years of teaching and nurturing CATs. Study I found (a) negative relationships between students’ PISA scores and CATs, (b) Asian students demonstrating higher PISA scores but lower CATs than U.S. students, and (c) U.S. teachers decreasingly nurture CATs. Study II examined how U.S. CATs changed from 1990 through 2017 by analyzing TTCT norming data (N = 273,441) and found continued declines in CATs, especially in imagination and in young children.