Assessing Creative Thinking
From a framework and research by OECD - Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
The OECD define creative thinking as “the competence to engage productively in the generation, evaluation, and improvement of ideas that can result in original and effective solutions, advances in knowledge, and impactful expressions of imagination”.
A fundamental role of education is to equip students with the competences they need to succeed in life and society. Being able to think creatively is a critical competence that young people need to develop – including in school – for several reasons:
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Creative thinking helps prepare young people to adapt to a rapidly changing world that demands flexible workers. Children today will be employed in jobs that do not yet exist, using new technologies to solve novel problems and emerging challenges. Developing creative thinking will help prepare young people to adapt, undertake work that cannot easily be replicated by machines, and address increasingly complex challenges with innovative solutions.
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Creative thinking helps students to discover and develop their potential. Schools play an important role in students’ development beyond preparing them for success in the labour market. Schools must also help young people to discover and develop their talents, including their creative talents.
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Creative thinking supports learning by helping students to interpret experiences and information in novel and personally meaningful ways, even in the context of formal learning goals. Student-centred pedagogies that engage with students’ creative potential and encourage exploration and discovery can also increase students’ motivation and interest in learning, particularly for those who struggle with rote learning and other teacher-centred schooling methods.
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Creative thinking is important in a range of subjects, from languages and the arts to the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) disciplines. Creative thinking helps students to be imaginative, develop original ideas, think outside the box, and solve problems
How can you measure and assess creativity? The OECD have extended their Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) to include a Creative Thinking Assessment alongside assessing knowledge and skills in reading, mathematics, science, problem solving, collaborative problem solving and global competence.
The Creative Thinking Assessment is designed to measure how well 15-year-old students can generate, evaluate and improve ideas in open-ended contexts. It reflects the OECD’s view that creative thinking is an increasingly important competence for young people living in a rapidly changing world shaped by technological change, automation and complex social challenges - applying knowledge in new and unfamiliar situations.
Many classrooms still focus heavily on reproducing learned knowledge rather than applying it creatively. The framework therefore presents assessment as a way to make creative thinking visible, comparable and actionable for education policy.
The research identifies several internal resources that support creative thinking. These include:
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Cognitive skills such as divergent thinking, which involves generating varied and unusual ideas, and convergent thinking, which involves evaluating and selecting useful ideas.
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Domain readiness, or prior knowledge and experience, helps students generate and judge ideas, although too much reliance on established routines can limit originality.
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Openness to experience and intellect.
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Persistence.
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Self-belief in ability to successfully execute specific tasks and achieve desired outcomes.
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Collaboration.
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Task motivation.
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Intrinsic motivation.
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The experience of “creative flow”.
Creative thinking is also shaped by social and educational environments. Cultural norms affect how creativity is understood and valued, while school systems can either encourage or discourage creative work. Standardised testing, narrow curricula and classroom climates that reward only one correct answer can suppress curiosity and originality. Teachers and school leaders therefore play a key role in creating environments where creative work is valued, students can ask questions, take responsibility, collaborate and develop their own ideas.
In the classroom, creative thinking appears in three broad forms:
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Creative expression includes verbal and non-verbal communication of imagination, such as writing, drawing, music, drama or design.
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Knowledge creation involves building, improving and iterating on ideas to advance understanding.
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Creative problem solving involves addressing ill-defined or unfamiliar problems where routine procedures are insufficient.
These forms can appear across subjects, including languages, the arts, social contexts and STEM disciplines.
The PISA creative thinking assessment is administered to 15-year-olds as part of a two-hour test that also includes reading, mathematics and science modules. Students receiving the creative thinking component spend up to 60 minutes on open-ended tasks. Questionnaires are also completed by students, teachers and school leaders to collect information about background, attitudes, school activities and support for creative thinking.
The test is built around three main facets: generating diverse ideas, generating creative ideas, and evaluating and improving ideas. The assessment rewards flexible thinking, originality and usefulness rather than simply right or wrong answers. Tasks are set in four domains: written expression, visual expression, social problem solving and scientific problem solving.
Because all items are open-ended, scoring relies on trained human coders using internationally validated rubrics and coding guides. Responses are judged for appropriateness, difference, originality and improvement depending on the item type.
So what were the international results of the PISA assessment of creative thinking among 15-year-olds, introduced in the 2022 cycle?
The results show that Singapore significantly outperformed all other participating countries and economies, scoring 41 out of 60 points compared with an OECD average of 33. Korea, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Estonia, Finland, Denmark, Latvia, Belgium, Poland and Portugal also performed above the OECD average. In general, systems that did well in creative thinking also tended to perform well in mathematics, reading and science, though the relationship was not perfect. Some countries performed better than expected in creativity relative to their academic results, suggesting that creative thinking is related to but distinct from traditional academic achievement.
A key finding is that academic excellence is not a prerequisite for creative excellence. Around half of students who excelled in creative thinking did not also excel academically. However, students below baseline proficiency in mathematics, reading or science rarely performed strongly in creative thinking, indicating that a minimum level of knowledge and skill supports creative performance.
The report highlights important equity patterns. Girls outperformed boys in creative thinking in every participating country or economy, scoring around three points higher on average across the OECD. This advantage was especially visible in written expression and tasks requiring students to build on others’ ideas. Girls also reported more positive beliefs about creativity and stronger traits linked to creative thinking, such as imagination, openness, curiosity, perspective taking and persistence.
Socio-economic background also mattered. Advantaged students outperformed disadvantaged students by an average of 9.5 points, although the link between socio-economic status and creative thinking was weaker than for mathematics, reading and science. Disadvantaged students may have been held back partly by weaker literacy skills and fewer opportunities for creative learning.
The research concludes that schools and teachers can make a meaningful difference. Students performed better where teachers valued creativity, allowed time for creative solutions and used activities encouraging new approaches to problems. The OECD recommends embedding creative thinking across curricula, supporting teachers with clear rubrics and progressions, creating opportunities for interdisciplinary creative work, and monitoring progress.
Overall, the research argues that creative thinking is a teachable skill, measurable and essential for future learning, work and citizenship.
Access the framework here.
Access the PISA results here.
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From a framework and research by OECD - Organisati, 23/09/2026