Measuring Creativity in Music Composition - A comparison of teacher and student raters using the Consensual Assessment Technique
Description
This study investigates the suitability of the Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT) in measuring creativity in the General Certificate of Secondary Education music compositions of student’s aged 15–16. For a music teacher, a key element of assessment is soliciting creative responses (products), which are authentic representations of musical creativity. The method of assessing music creativity here is categorized as summative assessment and is one of the most widely used and accepted methods of judging creative acts in situ. This project builds on empirical research regarding CAT’s use in music education. The CAT has become a standard research method in assessing creative products; however, it is not applied consistently across the field. This study examines whether music teachers (experts) and students (gifted novices) can use CAT to achieve an appropriate level of inter-rater agreement when judging a heuristic music composition for creativity. CAT has not been previously used to measure self and peer assessment with secondary school students in music composition. This study found music teachers and students to be highly reliable. This further supports music teachers’ as appropriate judges of student creativity and also acknowledges students who have received adequate support in creativity assessment to be reliable raters. Keywords: Music Composition, Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT), Self-Assessment, Peer Assessment, Creativity.