Longitudinal Consistency of Elaboration Scores
IN THE DEVELOPMENT of measures of di ve r gent thinking ability information relating to the con sistency or reliability of measures over time is im portant. We know that some children continue to de velop their creative and divergent thinking abilities consistently while others experience significant dec rements at various points along the chronological continuum and particularly at about third or fourth grade. The evidence available suggests that these decrements are a function of environment1 and may be, in part at least, caused by the schooling proc ess. The discovery of unique features in a sample provides opportunities for investigation of selected factors. This study was undertaken to investigate the longitudinal consistency of a sample of grade one and two children who displayed significantly high scores for elaboration when initially tested with the Picture Construction Test. The results suggested that the elaboration score of the sample possessed characteristics that would cause elaborative ability to be maintained through the grade three and four stage where significant decreases usually occur. The study was designed to investigate this aspect and to test the hypothesis that if high elaboration scores at grade one and two level, possess certain distinctive characteristics, growth is maintained without d?c r?mentai stages throughout the primary school years. In this case the specific characteristic was exceptionally high ability to add details related to but not physically attached to the stimulus figure. This constitutes ability to produce a complete picture rather than elaborate only the central idea or main feature.