Creativity Research Journal

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An Empirical Review of Research Methodologies

and Methods in Creativity Studies (2003–2012)

Haiying Long

To cite this article: Haiying Long (2014) An Empirical Review of Research Methodologies and
Methods in Creativity Studies (2003–2012), Creativity Research Journal, 26:4, 427-438, DOI:
10.1080/10400419.2014.961781

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CREATIVITY RESEARCH JOURNAL, 26(4), 427–438, 2014
Published with license by Taylor & Francis
ISSN: 1040-0419 print=1532-6934 online
DOI: 10.1080/10400419.2014.961781

An Empirical Review of Research Methodologies and

Methods in Creativity Studies (2003–2012)
Haiying Long
Florida International University

Based on the data collected from 5 prestigious creativity journals, research methodologies
and methods of 612 empirical studies on creativity, published between 2003 and 2012,
were reviewed and compared to those in gifted education. Major findings included:
(a) Creativity research was predominantly quantitative and psychometrics and experi-
ment were the most frequently utilized quantitative methodologies, (b) judges were
employed frequently to assess creativity and correlational techniques were utilized most
widely to analyze quantitative data, (c) case study was the most frequently used
qualitative methodology, (d) most mixed-methods studies were rooted in quantitative
methodology, and (e) both creativity and gifted education research were dominated
by quantitative methodologies, but there were less qualitative studies and slightly more
mixed-methods studies on creativity. Implications of these findings were further
discussed and future research directions were suggested.

Around 15 years ago, Mayer (1999) summarized six
methodologies employed by creativity researchers:
psychometric, experimental, biographical, biological,
computational, and contextual. According to him, each
methodology entailed a unique viewpoint and a research
procedure. Researchers who use psychometric method-
ology believe that creativity is a measurable mental trait,
thus they administer creativity tests or questionnaires to
assess individuals’ creativity. Experimental researchers
view creativity as a cognitive process and require
participants to solve problems in controlled settings.
Biographical methodologists study creativity with life
stories and employ methods such as case studies and
# Haiying Long
This is an Open Access article. Non-commercial re-use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original
work is properly attributed, cited, and is not altered, transformed, or
built upon in any way, is permitted. The moral rights of the named
author(s) have been asserted.
An earlier version of this article was presented at 2011 annual
meeting of the American Psychological Association in Washington,
D.C. Publication of this article was funded in part by Florida
International University Open Access Publishing Fund. I thank Linda
Bliss for her constructive feedback and her help with editing.
Correspondence should be sent to Haiying Long, Department of
Leadership and Professional Studies, Florida International University,
11200 SW 8th Street, Miami, FL 33199. E-mail: haiying.long@fiu.edu
historiometry. Researchers using biological methodology
examine neurological and physiological traits of indivi-
duals during the process of creative problem solving
and describe EEG and PET results of the brain activities.
Individuals using computational methodology use the
principles of artificial intelligence and perceive the process
of creative problem solving to be a computer program.
Finally, scholars using contextual methodology detect
social, cultural and evolutionary influences on creativity.
In addition to Mayer’s (1999) synthesis, two more
articles also examined research methodologies of
creativity studies along with other aspects of research.
One was conducted by Wehner, Csikszentmihalyi, and
Magyari-Beck (1991). This study analyzed 100 disser-
tation abstracts published in 1986 on the basis of a
conceptual matrix, which incorporated three aspects of
creativity (i.e., traits, processes, and products), four
social levels of investigation (i.e., culture, organization,
group, and individual), two research methodologies
(i.e., quantitative and qualitative), and the nature of
the study (i.e., empirical and theoretical). The authors
found that qualitative studies accounted for 64% of
the dissertations, which was higher than the percentage
of quantitative studies (i.e., 36%). Using the same con-
ceptual matrix, Kahl, da Fonseca, and Witte (2009)
reviewed another 100 dissertation abstracts published
428 LONG
between 2005 and 2007. They reported that there were
slightly more quantitative (51%) than qualitative studies
(42%) in this period of time but the difference was not
statistically significant. They also observed a significant
increase in the number of quantitative studies and a
decrease in the number of qualitative studies, compared
with the results in Wehner et al.’s (1991) study,
v2(3) ¼ 10.54, p ¼ .01, e ¼ 0.05.
These reviews provided profound insights to research
methodologies that are employed to study creativity.
But there are a few issues worth noting. First, these
reviews focused on either the synthesis of the literature
or dissertation abstracts. For one thing, the review rely-
ing on literature was not well supported by empirical
data. For another thing, although dissertations were a
good source of empirical data, they were not representa-
tive of all types of publications in a field. Second,
Mayer’s (1999) synthesis presented a thorough overview
of different ways of studying creativity; however, his
classification of the methodologies seemed to be
grounded in a mixture of research methodologies and
substantive contents, hence, resulting in some inconsist-
ency. For example, psychometric and experimental
methodologies are two quantitative methodologies.
Biographical methodology focuses on people’s life
stories, but it includes case study and psychometrics,
where the former one is a qualitative methodology and
the latter is a quantitative methodology. A single focus
in the classification of methodologies is needed. Third,
these reviews were limited in the breadth and depth of
the analyses. Questions such as what specific methodol-
ogies and methods are distributed in creativity studies
were not addressed. Fourth, mixed-methods
research was not addressed in Wehner et al. (1991) study
and was not analyzed in Kahl et al. (2009) study due to
its small number. But as a quickly growing mode of
inquiry in social sciences, not considering this method-
ology fails to provide a complete picture of the develop-
ment of creativity research. Fifth, these reviews only
examined research methodologies in creativity research.
Yet they were not compared with those of another
similar field.
This review examined the distributions of research
methodologies and methods in the articles published on
five key creativity journals between 2003 and 2012, and
further compared them with those in gifted education
research, which is a closely-related field of creativity in edu-
cation. The purpose of this review was primarily descrip-
tive. It will help creativity researchers identify the latest
trends of the development in creativity research and will
further support the findings generated from previous
literature reviews with the empirical data. The comparison
with another field will also assist researchers in identifying
the strengths and weaknesses of creativity research and lay
a foundation for the future research of the field.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND METHOD
Although research articles were often categorized by
methods (e.g., Dai, Swanson, & Cheng, 2011; Hart,
Smith, Swars, & Smith, 2009), the analysis in this review
was based on both methodology and method. For this
reason, it is necessary to make a distinction between
these two concepts. Methodology refers to ‘‘the general
logic and theoretical perspective’’ (Bogdan & Biklen,
2007, p. 35) of a study, whereas methods only refer to
specific strategies, procedures, and techniques of analyz-
ing and interpreting data (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007;
Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Merriam, 2002). It is generally
agreed that there are three research methodologies:
quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods (Cohen,
Manion, & Morrison, 2011; Creswell, 2014). Each meth-
odology reflects a set of ontological and epistemological
assumptions. When conducting quantitative studies,
researchers assume that there is a social reality external
to the knower and knowledge is objective and tangible.
Therefore, they view their role as observers and endea-
vor to detect universal laws about the relationships
and regularities of the factors selected (i.e., variables)
in their studies. In contrast, qualitative researchers
assume that social reality exists independent of the
knower and knowledge is subjective and personal.
Therefore, they regard themselves as insiders and aim
at interpreting individual experience in a unique social
context. Mixed-methods researchers mostly espouse
‘‘pragmatism of the middle’’ (Johnson, Onwuegbuzi, &
Turner, 2007, p. 125) as their primary research para-
digm. This stance is rooted in pluralism that provides
legitimacy for combining multiple epistemological per-
spectives and methods in a single study (Greene, 2007;
Johnson, 2012; Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004).
Research methodology is significant not only because
it embodies philosophical assumptions, but also because
it guides the selection of research methods. Quantitative
researchers tend to employ measurement, experiment,
and statistical analysis to answer their research ques-
tions, and qualitative researchers prefer observations,
interviews, and content analysis. Because mixed-
methods research represents a middle ground between
quantitative and qualitative methodology, it ‘‘combines
elements of qualitative and quantitative research
approaches (e.g., use of qualitative and quantitative
viewpoints, data collection, analysis, inference techni-
ques) for the broad purposes of breadth and depth of
understanding and corroboration’’ (Johnson et al.,
2007, p, 123). However, whether a study is quantitative,
qualitative, or mixed-methods depends on the method-
ology, rather than the methods. For instance, some
researchers employ observation and protocol analysis
to collect data. But if they determine operational defini-
tions of the behaviors before conducting research and

Journal Comparative Correlational
CRJ 79 (28%) 80
JCB 34 (31%) 40
GCQ 3 (21%) 2 (14%)
TSC 11 (29%) 9 (24%)
PACA 8 (13%) 24
Total 135 (27%) 155
Note. Percentages in parentheses are relative to the total number of studies in the last column. CRJ ¼ Creativity Research Journal. JCB ¼ Journal
of Creative Behavior. GCQ ¼ Gifted Child Quarterly. TSC ¼ Thinking Skills and Creativity. PACA ¼ Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts.
are only interested in the frequency of the behaviors, the
differences between two groups of participants, and the
effects of one variable on other variables, this study is
just an instance of quantitative methodology, rather
than that of qualitative methodology. Furthermore,
studies that use quantitative and qualitative methods
in the stage of data collection but later code themes or
categories generated from qualitative methods as num-
bers are also examples of quantitative methodology,
but not an example of mixed-methods research.
In contrast to methodology that embodies the nature
of a study, research methods are the actual ways of con-
ducting a study and the information obtained from the
analysis of the methods is still beneficial to understand-
ing creativity research. For this reason, this study
reviewed research methods, especially those in quanti-
tative methodology, and classified them into three cate-
gories: methods of collecting data in terms of time point
(i.e., cross-sectional vs. longitudinal), methods of asses-
sing creativity, and methods of analyzing data. With
regard to methods of data analysis, quantitative data
were analyzed by three types of statistical techniques:
one focuses on mean differences and uses comparative
techniques, such as t-test, ANOVA, MANOVA; one
that emphasizes relationships between variables and
uses correlational techniques, such as correlation and
regression; another one that examines characteristics
of measurement tools. As research becomes increasingly
complex, a great deal of studies employed more than one
type of techniques to analyze data, for example, ANOVA
and regression, they were considered combined studies
(see Table 1).
METHOD
Data Sources
Five creativity journals were selected as data sources.
Creativity Research Journal (CRJ) and Journal of
Creative Behavior (JCB) were selected because they
published the most studies on creativity and were cited
REVIEW OF RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES AND METHODS 429
TABLE 1
Methods of Data Analysis
Combined Measurement Total
(29%) 77 (28%) 43 (15%) 279
(36%) 33 (30%) 3 (3%) 110
5 (36%) 4 (29%) 14
13 (34%) 5 (13%) 38
(40%) 24 (40%) 4 (7%) 60
(31%) 152 (30%) 59 (12%) 501
most in the field (Long, Plucker, Yu, Ding, & Kaufman,
2014). Gifted Child Quarterly (GCQ) was selected
because the journal is one of the oldest educational
journals that are most likely to publish creativity studies.
Thinking Skills and Creativity (TSC) and Psychology of
Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts (PACA) began to
publish in 2006. As two new additions to the field, their
impact on the field has been increasing (Long et al.,
2014). These five journals differ in their scopes and aims.
JCB focuses on topics in general areas of creativity,
intelligence, and problem solving (Bristol, 1967). CRJ
publishes creativity articles from different perspectives,
including behavioral, clinical, cognitive, cross-cultural,
developmental, educational, genetic, organizational,
psychoanalytic, psychometric, and social (Runco, 1988).
PACA accepts empirical studies, literature reviews, and
critical analyses that are related to the psychology of
aesthetics, creativity, and the arts (Smith, Smith, &
Kaufman, 2006). By contrast, GCQ publishes articles
about giftedness and talent development in various
contexts, such as school and home.
The study period of time was chosen to be from 2003
to 2012 because it represents the most recent 10 years
and the rapid advances in research methodologies and
methods take place in this period of time. In addition,
this review only focused on empirical or evidence-based
research, which was defined as ‘‘a systematic attempt
to collect information about an identified problem or
question, the analysis of that information, and the
application of the evidence to confirm or refute some
prior statement(s) about the problem or question under
study’’ (Callahan & Moon, 2007, p. 307).
Procedure
There were three steps in the process of collecting data.
To start with, a coding scheme was generated based on
the broad categories of quantitative, qualitative, and
mixed-methods studies. Psychometric, experimental,
historiometric methodologies were grouped under
quantitative methodology, whereas case study and
phenomenological studies were under qualitative. Next,
430 LONG
the author read each article in the five journals to
determine whether it was an empirical study and whether
it was about creativity. The unit of analysis was study
(i.e., there might be more than one study in an article).
Only empirical studies on creativity were included and
other types of studies, such as literature review,
theoretical discussion, and commentary, and studies
on other topics, such as, aesthetics, art, and thinking
skills, were excluded.
In the course of coding the first 100 articles on CRJ,
the coding scheme was revised for a few times. For
instance, meta-analysis was later included in the coding
scheme when it was found in the journal. Because this
method is different from other quantitative method-
ology in its logic and research design, it was counted
as another quantitative methodology. In addition,
quasi-experimental studies employ procedures that are
similar to experiments; therefore, they were coded as
one type of experimental methodology. At last, there
were four methodologies categorized as quantitative,
including psychometrics, experiment, historiometry,
and meta-analysis. Furthermore, studies that did not
specifically introduce methodology but followed similar
procedures and analyses were grouped together. For
instance, Kaufman’s (2005) article on creativity and
mental illness was coded under historiometric method-
ology because it used procedures and analyses that were
identical to historiometry although the author did not
use that label in the article. What’s more, studies that
used more than one quantitative methodology were
coded based on the main methodology. For example,
participants were required to complete demographic
and personality questionnaires in most experimental
studies, but they were still coded as studies using experi-
mental methodology.
In coding qualitative studies, it was noticed that some
studies only indicated the use of methods, such as, inter-
view, observation, and text analysis, but they did not
describe methodology. According to Merriam (2002),
these could be categorized as basic interpretive qualitat-
ive studies in which ‘‘the researcher is interested in
understanding how participants make meaning of a situ-
ation or phenomenon, this meaning is mediated through
the researcher as instrument, the strategy is inductive,
and the outcome is descriptive’’ (p. 6). Therefore, it
was added as another qualitative methodology. Besides,
because there were very few phenomenological studies,
they were coded as other qualitative methodologies
along with the methodologies used infrequently. In the
final coding scheme, qualitative methodologies included
case study, basic qualitative study, grounded theory,
and other qualitative methodologies.
After the author completed coding, 50 studies were
randomly selected and coded by a graduate student in
curriculum and instruction program. The two coders
reached agreement on categorizing 92% of the studies
reviewed. The discrepancies were further discussed until
ultimate agreement was achieved. Lastly, research meth-
odologies of creativity research were compared with
those in gifted education based on Dai et al.’s (2011)
review article. This article and the current study were
somewhat different in the focus, scope, and coding;
therefore, only the data that matched between two stu-
dies were used. The field of gifted education was selected
due to the following three reasons. First, historically,
creativity and gifted education were closely related. This
was evidenced by the fact that Gifted Child Quarterly is
one of a few educational journals that published
creativity studies as early as 1965. Second, theoretically,
analytical giftedness and creativity are two components
of successful intelligence (Sternberg, 1985). Creative
ability is also an important part of giftedness (Renzulli,
1978). Third, Dai et al.’s article was one of very few
reviews with regard to research methodologies or
methods in other psychological or educational fields.
RESULTS
Empirical Studies in Five Journals
A total of 1,127 studies published in five journals from
2003 to 2012 were reviewed (see Table 2). Excluding
studies on other topics and non-empirical studies, about
half (n ¼ 612) of the studies were empirical creativity
studies. Half of these studies were published in CRJ
(n ¼ 317) and 21% in JCB (n ¼ 129). Around the same
number of studies were published in TSC (n ¼ 72) and
PACA (n ¼ 78) but only a small number (n ¼ 16) in
GCQ. Furthermore, over 75% of the studies in CRJ
and JCB and 60% in TSC were empirical creativity stu-
dies, whereas over a third of the publications in PACA
and only 7% in GCQ were the same type of studies.
Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Methodologies
On the whole, an overwhelming majority (n ¼ 510, 83%)
of the 612 empirical studies on creativity published dur-
ing the last 10 years were quantitative studies and 13%
(n ¼ 80) were qualitative. Less than 5% (n ¼ 22) of the
studies employed mixed methods (see Table 2). More-
over, in all the five journals, the predominant research
methodology was quantitative, followed by qualitative
and mixed methods. In particular, half of the creativity
studies published in TSC were quantitative whereas
about 80% of the studies in each of the remaining four
journals were quantitative (see Table 2). Qualitative stu-
dies made around 10% of the total studies in CRJ, JCB,
and GCQ and 20% in PACA; qualitative studies
accounted for a third (n ¼ 26) of all the studies published
 REVIEW OF RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES AND METHODS 431

TABLE 2
Empirical Studies in Five Journals

QUAN QUAL
Studies Total MIX
Journal Year Revi. Emp. Sur. Exp. His. Met. Total CS Ba. Gro. OQ Total Total

Creativity Research Journal (CRJ) 2003– 414 317 168 97 14 5 284 10 7 2 5 24 9

2012 (90%) (7%) (3%)
Journal of Creative Behavior (JCB) 2003– 159 129 72 31 7 2 112 9 1 0 3 13 4
2012 (87%) (10%) (3%)
Gifted Child Quarterly (GCQ) 2003– 232 16 11 2 1 0 14 1 1 0 0 2 0
2012 (88%) (12%)
Thinking Skills and Creativity 2006– 118 72 27 11 0 0 38 8 9 3 6 26 8
(TSC) 2012 (53%) (36%) (11%)
Psychology of Aesthetics, 2006– 204 78 36 17 7 2 62 8 3 2 2 15 1
Creativity, 2012 (79%) (20%) (1%)
and the Arts (PACA)
Total 1,127 612 314 158 29 9 510 36 21 7 16 80 22
(62%) (31%) (6%) (2%) (83%) (45%) (26%) (9%) (20%) (13%) (4%)

Note. Percentages of the total number of studies using different quantitative and qualitative methodologies are relative to the total number of
quantitative and qualitative studies in the Total column. Percentages of total number of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods studies in
the parentheses are relative to the total number of empirical studies in the fourth column (Total Emp.). Studies Revi. ¼ total number of studies
reviewed; Total Emp. ¼ total number of empirical studies on creativity; QUAN ¼ quantitative methodology; QUAL ¼ qualitative methodology;

in TSC. About 10% of the studies in TSC were
mixed-methods research and only around 3% in CRJ
and JCB. In contrast, PACA only published one
mixed-methods study and GCQ did none.
The percentages of the three types of studies were
further analyzed by year. A consistent pattern was
shown in all the 10 years—far more quantitative studies
were published than the other two types of studies. The
dominance of quantitative studies was especially promi-
nent in 2004 and in the four most recent years (i.e., from
2009 to 2012). Overall, more qualitative studies were
published than mixed-methods research in all the years
except in 2006 when the percentages of the two types
of studies were equal. Although a slight increase was
observed in the percentages of qualitative studies in
2007 and 2008, this trend reversed soon in 2009.
Additionally, the percentages of mixed methods were
especially small in 2004, 2008, and 2010.
Quantitative Methodologies
Table 2 indicated that of 510 quantitative studies,
psychometric methodology was used most frequently
(n ¼ 314, 62%) in the five journals, followed by experi-
ment (n ¼ 158, 31%). Historiometry and meta-analysis
combined only accounted for 8% (n ¼ 38) of all the
quantitative studies. Comparatively speaking, there
were more historiometric studies (n ¼ 29, 6%) than meta-
analysis (n ¼ 9, 2%). Quantitative studies published in
GCQ and TSC showed fewer variations than those in
the other three journals. More specifically, 11 out of
14 quantitative studies in GCQ used psychometric
methodology and no studies employed meta-analysis.
Quantitative studies in TSC used either psychometric
or experimental methodology.
Methods of collecting data. Only 11 longitudinal
studies were identified in the five journals, making 2%
of all the quantitative studies. The rest of the studies
were cross-sectional. Six of the longitudinal studies were
published in CRJ, 4 in JCB, and 1 in PACA. These stu-
dies examined creativity in different domains, for
instance, motor development (Pagona & Costas, 2008),
visual arts (Furst, Ghisletta, & Lubart, 2012), and child
development (Mullineaux & Dilalla, 2009). Interest-
ingly, these studies also varied by their research pur-
poses. Although a few aimed to map developmental
trend of children’s creativity, such as Claxton, Pannells,
and Rhoads’ (2005) work, some explored the predictive
validity of creativity tests, such as Torrance Tests of
Creative Thinking (Runco, Millar, Acar, & Cramond,
2010). Others investigated the effects of creativity train-
ing or intervention. For example, Moore and Russ (2008)
reported a follow-up study on a pretend play interven-
tion and its effect on play, creativity, and emotional
processes among first and second grade children.
Methods of assessing creativity. Methods of how
creativity was assessed in quantitative studies and the
quantitative part of mixed-methods studies (n ¼ 532)
are reported in this section. In over half of these studies
(n ¼ 314, 59%), researchers relied heavily on divergent
thinking tests and problem solving tasks or products
432 LONG
to measure creativity, particularly general creative abil-
ity. Divergent thinking tests (n ¼ 202) were the primary
method of assessing creativity, followed by products or
tasks (n ¼ 112). A few notable trends about creativity
assessment were observed in the studies examined.
First, besides relying on traditional divergent think-
ing tasks, many researchers created their own tasks or
problems to address research questions. For example,
Mumford and his colleagues asked participants to
assume the role of a manager in an advertising agency
and develop new marketing campaigns (Licuanan,
Dailey, & Mumford, 2007) or respond to ethical
decision-making scenarios (Mumford et al., 2010).
Second, human judges and their consensus were
widely used to score participants’ creativity. Studies
employing judges account for a third (n ¼ 105) of the
total studies (n ¼ 314) that utilized divergent thinking
tests and products to assess creativity. Of the 105 studies
that relied on judges, about 60% (n ¼ 64) clearly
indicated the use of Consensual Assessment Technique
(CAT; Amabile, 1982) and 40% (n ¼ 41) only mentioned
the use of judges (e.g., Friedrich & Mumford, 2009;
Palmiero, Cardi, & Belardinelli, 2011). CAT was also
applied to score responses to divergent thinking
tests in several studies (n ¼ 16, 8%; e.g., Dollinger,
2003; Friedman, 2009; Friedman, Forster, & Denzler,
2007; Kousoulas, 2010).
Third, researchers reformed CAT procedure to serve
their research purposes. For instance, some researchers
(e.g., Hui & Lau, 2006; Paletz & Peng, 2009) provided
rating criteria for their judges; others asked novice
people as judges (e.g., Kaufman, Baer, & Cole, 2009;
Kaufman, Gentile, & Baer, 2005). Barbot, Orriols, and
Pouyade (2008–2010) computerized CAT procedure
and programmed Consensual Assessment Technique-
Interface (CAT-i) in which products were presented in
a random order and a 7-point rating scale was provided
for all the judges (Botella, Zenasni, & Lubart, 2011).
Horng and Lin (2009) constructed a Creative Culinary
Product Criteria Matrix based on CAT. Cropley and
Kaufman (2012) created the Creative Solution Diag-
nosis Scale (CSDS) to measure functional creativity.
Fourth, several new inventories (n ¼ 10) have been
created during the past 10 years and their reliability
and validity were also supported in the literature. For
example, vDiffer scale was built on the concept of inno-
vation motivation and assessed ‘‘the self-attributed
value of behavioral variation’’ (Joy, 2004, p. 313). Cre-
ative Achievement Questionnaire (Carson, Peterson, &
Higgins, 2005) was a self-report questionnaire measur-
ing achievement across 10 domains. In addition, four
new questionnaires were constructed to measure creativ-
ity in teaching. The Creativity Checklist (Proctor &
Burnette, 2004) measured cognitive and dispositional
characteristics of creativity among elementary students;
Fostering Creativity Questionnaire (Teo & Waugh,
2010) assessed fostering creativity in teaching students
of higher education; Teacher Observation Form (Peters
& Gates, 2010) evaluated characteristics of gifted
and talented students, creativity included; Teachers’
Conceptions of Creativity Questionnaire (Kampylis,
Berki, & Saariluoma, 2009) examined teachers’ concep-
tions of creativity.
Fifth, it was not uncommon for the researchers to use
multiple methods to assess creativity. For instance, to
examine college students’ creativity and its relationship
with their academic achievement, Cheung, Rudowicz,
Yue, and Kwan (2003) required participants to complete
five divergent thinking tasks, which consisted of the
Alternate Uses Test (Christensen, Guilford, Merrifield, &
Wilson, 1960), two tasks adapted from Sternberg (1990)
and Sternberg and Lubart’s (1992) work, and two from
Wallach and Kogan (1965) creativity tests. Armstrong
(2012) assessed different aspects of creativity by a single
product improvement task selected from TTCT, an
updated Remote Association Task, a creative problem
solving task adapted from Redmond, Mumford, and
Teach (1993), and a self-report Lifetime Creativity Scales
(LCS; Richards, Kinney, Benet, & Merzel, 1988).
Methods of analyzing data. In examining methods of
data analysis, meta-analysis (n ¼ 9) was excluded because
all meta-analysis studies use a uniform way to analyze
data and there is no need for further breakdown.
As shown in Table 1, about a third (n ¼ 155) of all the stu-
dies (n ¼ 501) used correlation techniques. This number
was identical to that of combined studies or studies using
both comparative and correlational techniques (n ¼ 152,
30%) and was slightly more than that of comparative
studies (n ¼ 135, 27%). The number of measurement
studies was relatively small (n ¼ 59, 12%). These techni-
ques were further examined in each of the five journals.
In CRJ, there were almost equal numbers of comparative,
correlational, and combined studies. In contrast, in JCB,
slightly more correlational studies were published than
comparative and combined ones. In GCQ and TSC, there
were more combined studies than comparative studies,
which in turn were more than the number of
correlational studies. In PACA, there were equal numbers
of correlational and combined studies, which were each
much more than that of comparative studies.
In an effort to understand the usage of advanced stat-
istical analysis methods, such as multilevel modeling,
latent variable analysis, hierarchical regression, mediat-
ing, moderating analysis, and Rasch analysis, psycho-
metric, experimental, and historiometric studies was
further examined. Over a quarter (n ¼ 135, 27%) of the
501 studies used these advanced techniques. Hierarchi-
cal regression and SEM were used most frequently and
these two methods combined accounted for 41%
 REVIEW OF RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES AND METHODS
(n ¼ 56) of all the studies employed advanced methods
(n ¼ 135). The total number of studies with advanced
statistical analysis increased from 22% (n ¼ 43) of
quantitative studies between 2003 and 2007 to 31%
(n ¼ 92) between 2008 and 2012.
Qualitative Methodologies
Overall, case study, basic qualitative methodology, and
grounded theory were three widely used quantitative
methodologies in creativity studies (see Table 2). The
largest share of qualitative studies came from case studies
(n ¼ 36, 45%), which was followed by basic methodology
(n ¼ 21, 26%). In contrast, the number of grounded theory
studies (n ¼ 7, 9%) was relatively small. Some examples
of other qualitative methodologies (n ¼ 16, 20%) were
phenomenological studies (e.g., Trotman, 2008), critical
visual methodology (e.g., Hall & Mitchell, 2008), and
a self-study approach (e.g., Reilly, 2008).
Of the five journals, TSC published most qualitative
studies (n ¼ 26, see Table 2). The number accounted
for a third of the total number (n ¼ 80) of qualitative
studies reviewed. These studies published in TSC
also demonstrated a few interesting characteristics.
First, unlike the qualitative studies published on other
journals, those in TSC discussed methodology as well
as validity issue, reflecting more methodological rigor.
For instance, in Kokotsaki’s (2011) study examining
student teachers’ conceptions of creativity in the second-
ary music classroom, the author discussed the aim of the
study, the rationale for the selection of participants, and
the methods of collecting data. She indicated,
Phenomenography has been chosen as the most
appropriate research method for the study as it provides
useful analytic tools for describing awareness or ways
of experiencing a particular phenomenon (Marton
& Booth, 1997). In line with the main premise of
phenomenography, the aim of the study was to enter
the student teachers’ lifeworld and understand the
various meanings they would ascribe to the concept of
creativity in its implementation in the secondary music
classroom. (p. 103)
A few qualitative studies explicitly discussed validity
(e.g., Vass, 2007), trustworthiness (e.g., Reilley, 2008),
and ethics and rigor (e.g., Craft, McConnon, &
Matthews, 2012). For example, Vass (2007) stated, ‘‘In
order to minimize subjective misunderstanding—such
as the over-interpretation or misrepresentation of
data—I engaged in a continuous discussion with research
colleagues regarding the selection and interpretation of
episodes’’ (p. 111). Second, qualitative studies in TSC
showed more variations in the methodologies employed.
There were four different types of case studies, including
433
Stenhouse’s (1985) multi-case educational case study
(Chappell, 2007), Meador, Hunsaker, and Kearney’s
(1999) instrumental case study (Reilly, 2008), Yin’s
(2003) descriptive case study (Lin, 2010), and Yin’s
(1984) collaborative case study (Craft et al., 2012). Third,
most studies were conducted by European scholars,
especially those from the United Kingdom.
Mixed-Methods Research
There were only 22 mixed-methods studies published in the
five journals. Most of the studies (n ¼ 17) were in CRJ and
TSC. According to Creswell and Tashakkori (2007),
mixed-methods research is understood from four perspec-
tives: methods, practice, methodology, and paradigm.
Researchers taking the perspectives of methods and prac-
tice focus on two separate or related research questions
and collect two types of data, which are further interpreted
in the results. But they do not explicitly discus method-
ology or paradigm. In contrast, scholars who take the per-
spectives of methodology and of paradigm consider
philosophical assumptions as well as research design.
In the present review, most of the 22 mixed-methods
studies employed quantitative and qualitative research
from methods and practice perspective. Although
no researchers explicitly discussed methodology or
paradigm, a few studies elaborated on the purposes of
employing both quantitative and qualitative data, show-
ing their understanding of the logic of mixed methods
(e.g., Barak & Mesika, 2007; Cheng, 2011; Metzl,
2009; Williamson, 2011). For instance, Barak and
Mesika (2007) investigated teaching methods of inven-
tive problem-solving among junior high school students
and pointed out that the purpose of using mixed-
methods research was to provide complementary data
for their research questions. They noted, ‘‘The study
combined quantitative and qualitative paradigms aimed
at collecting as much information as possible on pupils’
learning, their approaches to problem-solving and
inventiveness, and the social processes in the class (Guba
& Lincoln, 1994; Patton, 1990)’’ (p. 23). In a study
examining the role of creative thinking in resilience after
Hurricane Katrina, Metzl (2009) conducted interviews
with 17 participants about their personal experiences
in addition to providing questionnaires to 80 survivors.
The author argued, ‘‘Interviews of willing participants
would supplement quantitative measures, providing tri-
angulation and augmenting understanding of creativity
within New Orleans’ context’’ (p. 114). Likewise, Cheng
(2011) remarked in her study on students’ creativity
in Hong Kong that the use of mixed methods aims,
‘‘to offset the weakness inherent within one method with
the strengths of the other method (Creswell & Plano-
Clark, 2007). Findings in this study were validated by
triangulation of these two methods’’ (p. 71).
434 LONG
Comparison With Gifted Education
Research methodologies and methods used in creativity
were compared with those in gifted education based on
Dai et al.’s (2011) review article. Their article reviewed
1,234 empirical studies on giftedness, gifted education,
and creativity, and focused on research methods as well
as topics. Research methods reported in our review and
Dai et al.’s review showed similar patterns. Research in
gifted education and creativity was both dominated by
quantitative methodologies and methods. However,
qualitative methods were used less frequently (13% vs.
25%) in creativity research than in gifted education
whereas the percentages of mixed methods were very
close in the two fields (4% vs. 3%). With respect to
quantitative methodologies, surveys and experiments
were used much more frequently in creativity research:
62% of quantitative studies used psychometric method-
ology and 31% were experimental in creativity research.
In contrast, there were 15% psychometric studies
and 10% experimental studies in gifted education. In
addition, there were slightly fewer longitudinal creativity
studies than gifted education research (2% vs. 5%). Case
studies and interviews were used more extensively in the
two fields whereas interviews were used comparatively
less often in creativity studies (38% vs. 26%).
DISCUSSION
The present review examined research methodologies
and methods of empirical creativity studies published
in five major creativity journals between 2003 and
2012. It indicated that creativity researchers have been
keeping pace with recent developments of research
methodologies in social sciences. For instance, meta-
analysis and grounded theory began to make their
contributions to understanding creativity even though
they have not yet exerted a major influence. What’s
more, resonate with Plucker and Renzulli’s (1999) call
for the use of advanced statistical techniques, sophisti-
cated statistical methods, including multilevel modeling,
latent growth modeling, and Item Response Theory,
were used in over a quarter of the quantitative studies
published in the five journals. These methods provide
more powerful tools to study the aspects of creativity
that could not be understood otherwise. For example,
Rasche modeling analyzed rater effects in assessing
creativity performance that were mostly examined by
interrater reliability in previous studies (Hung, Chen,
& Chen, 2012). In addition, TSC and PACA, as two
new journals, not only published more qualitative and
mixed-methods studies but also showed more methodo-
logical rigor in these studies. Furthermore, unlike the
earlier psychometric methodology that was criticized
for its overreliance on divergent thinking tests and its
scoring criteria (Sternberg & Lubart, 1999), the psycho-
metric studies reviewed were more diverse. Divergent
thinking tests were not the only way to assess creativity
and they were combined with questionnaires and creative
tasks in many studies. Judges and their consensus
became an important alternative assessment approach.
What’s more, researchers also produced a good deal of
novel questionnaires and made useful adaptations of
the existent assessment methods.
However, contrary to these advances, this review also
provides empirical evidence for a long-standing issue in
the field: creativity research is dominated by quantitative
methodology. Although gifted education researchers
believe that ‘‘qualitative methods have made inroads’’
(Dai et al., 2010, p.130), creativity researchers cannot
make the same claim given that qualitative studies
accounted for only 13% of all the empirical studies.
This dominance of quantitative methodology has been
persistent in all the 10 years and in the five journals.
Besides the prevalence of quantitative methodology
in the field, creativity researchers still relied heavily
on psychometric and experimental methodologies and
cross-sectional studies. Undoubtedly, this overreliance
on just a few methodologies will probably lead to
a shallow understanding of creativity.
This situation is closely relevant to the debate of what
constitute scientifically based research in social sciences
that has been going on for one decade or so. Although
some researchers believed that experiment and other
quantitative methodologies are the gold standards for
science (e.g., Slavin, 2002), others (e.g., Berliner, 2002;
Eisenhart & Towne, 2003; Erickson & Gutierrez, 2002;
St. Pierre, 2002) contended that the dominance of quan-
titative methods is unacceptable and the use of a wide
range of research methodologies should be encouraged.
Creativity researchers also maintained the same point of
view. For instance, Hilscher (2009) argued,
In the realm of aesthetics, creativity, and the arts, the
need to practice a balanced science is pressing because
artistic, aesthetic and creative experiences are intimately
tied to the development of self, but can also be defined
in terms of conditions and outcomes. Furthermore, the
use of mixed methodology is not out of context given
that ‘‘social order . . . exists independently of social scien-
tific inquiry’’ (Beach, 1990, p. 217). (p. 15)
As discussed earlier, research methodologies reflect
different social truth. The perceptions shown in qualita-
tive or mixed-methods research could not be revealed by
quantitative methodologies. As a case in point,
Reynolds and his colleagues (i.e., Reynolds, 2003,
2004; Reynolds, Lim, & Prior, 2008) interpreted per-
sonal experiences of women living with cancer and other
 REVIEW OF RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES AND METHODS
chronic illnesses when they were creating artwork as
leisure. The focuses of these studies were on meanings,
inspirations, and subjective significance shown in the
process of making the artwork, which cannot be com-
prehended only by using questionnaires and universally
defined constructs. Therefore, progress can only be
made in the field when we achieve a balanced employ-
ment of diverse methodologies.
Although creativity research is in a great need of
methodological diversity, it also needs methodological
rigor, or more discussion of methodological issues. For
instance, the authors of most qualitative studies pub-
lished in CRJ, JCB, GCQ, and PACA claimed that their
studies were qualitative just because they used methods
such as interviews or observations. However, if the
study does not aim ‘‘to make sense of, or interpret,
phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to
them’’ (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005, p. 3), it is not qualitat-
ive in nature. In the same vein, little mixed-methods
research paid attention to methodological issues. In
addition, most mixed-methods research relied on ques-
tionnaires or surveys through which both quantitative
and qualitative data were collected, hence making them
lean toward quantitative methodology. Howe (2004) cri-
ticized this type of mixed-methods research as ‘‘mixed
methods experimentalism’’ and contended that it
marginalized qualitative methodologies and was not
consistent with the epistemological assumptions of
mixed-methods research. He noted,
It [mixed-methods experimentalism] elevates quantitative-
experimental methods to the top of the methodological
hierarchy and constrains qualitative methods to a largely
auxiliary role in pursuit of the technocratic aim of accumu-
lating knowledge of ‘‘what works’’. It is not that qualitative
methods can never be fruitfully and appropriately used in
this way, but their natural home is within an interpretivist
framework with the democratic aim of seeking to under-
stand and give voice to the insider’s perspective regarding
various educational policies and practices. (Emphasis in
original, pp. 53–54)
In addition to the needs of methodological diversity
and rigor, creativity researchers also need to combine
diverse research efforts together so that converging
evidence of creativity is accumulated. During the past
decade, despite the existence of disagreements on many
key issues in the field, a great number of researchers
believed that creativity is best studied from multiple
components, including social, cultural, and personal fac-
tors. This underlying belief was a key assumption for
many influential approaches and theories in the field,
such as confluence approach (Sternberg & Lubart,
1999), systems theory (Csikszentmihalyi, 1988), contex-
tual methodology (Mayer, 1999), and social psychology
435
of creativity (Amabile, 1996). However, the field seems
not ready for this endeavor of convergence. How could
this endeavor affect the development of the field? How
could creativity studies differ from other fields if instilled
with more convergence? These questions definitely
deserve increasing attention.
This review also identified several new research areas
and topics to explore in the future. For instance,
researchers studied creativity in new domains such as
culinary (e.g., Horng & Hu, 2008, 2009; Horng & Lin,
2009), negotiation (e.g., De Pauw, Venter, & Neethling,
2011), sports (e.g., Blanchette, Ramocki, O’del, &
Casey, 2006), dealing with trauma (e.g., Metzel, 2009;
Thomson, Keehn, & Gumpel, 2009), and therapeutic
intervention (e.g., Fodor & Laird, 2004). Continued
efforts on these domains will yield more fruitful findings.
Creativity in different cultures is also an emerging topic.
Various facets of creativity were examined in countries
such as United Kingdom, Spain, Brazil, Korea, China,
Israel, and Turkey, but creativity has seldom been stud-
ied in other countries, especially in African and other
American countries, and cross-cultural studies were only
limited to comparing United States and a few Asian
countries, mainly China and Korea. As a popular quali-
tative methodology, ethnography aims to explore
cultural phenomena and it will provide an in-depth
understanding of creative process, individuals, and
environment in other cultures. Furthermore, as judges
or raters become an indispensable part in assessing
creativity, what individual characteristics affect their
evaluative ability are crucial issues. CAT was adapted
for various research purposes, but how these adaptions
affect the reliability and validity of CAT is also a worthy
topic to investigate. In the future, it is also interesting to
review the interactions among research methodologies,
substantive topics, and other perspectives of creativity
research. The comparisons between creativity research
and other fields in psychology and education will also
benefit the field.
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