American Eighth Grade Students and the KAI

By Edwin C. Selby

Originally appeared in the International Creativity Network Newsletter, volume 4, number 2, 1994, page 2.

Matching learning style with instructional style has been shown to be academically effective (Treffinger and Selby, 1993). However, educational research has given little attention to individual style in creativity instruction. Creativity instruction, cooperative learning, and learning styles instruction might all be enhanced if teachers had an understanding of student style along the adaptive-innovative continuum.

As part of my doctoral program, I studied the applicability of the Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory (KAI) with American eighth grade students in order to increase the research base leading to the KAI's eventual adaptation for use in diagnosing early adolescents' creativity styles (Selby, 1992).

Eighty-six eighth grade students at a rural New Jersey middle school, their parents, and some of their teachers took part in the study. The students took the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills (CTBS) and later responded about themselves on the KAI to describe individual student behavior. A student retest with the KAI followed one month later.

The mean for the first administration of the KAI to the students was 100. 66. The retest mean was 101. 58. The student test/retest correlation was . 79. Student KAI and CTBS scores correlated . 28 and . 34 indicating a possible moderate correlation between level and style, however this result could have been a function of the process through which students were selected for the study. The internal reliability coefficients for the test and retest conditions, respectively, were . 74 and . 78. The item-whole correlation for 12 items on the test and 11 on the retest were below . 20. Six items had item-whole correlation below . 20 on both test administrations.

No significant difference was found at the . 05 level between student scores and parent ratings. The correlation between these scores and ratings was . 63. Limited results of a qualitative survey also tended to support the parents' ability to describe their children's A-I style as reported by the students themselves using the KAI.

The correlation between student and teacher ratings was . 46. Significant findings for educators were that some teacher observations agreed with student self-descriptions more closely than those of the child's parents. Others were off by more than a standard deviation. No teacher was able to accurately rate the behavior of all the students observed by that teacher. Concluded signs indicate that while many teachers can diagnose every student's style through observation alone, all teachers should exercise caution in their judgments concerning the personalities of their students.

Findings in this study indicate that the KAI is reliable, stable, and valid when administered to American early adolescents and seems to have the potential for middle school application. However, before widespread use of the KAI is attempted with this age group, adjustments involving some specific items may be necessary.

In order to nurture each student's creative abilities, educators must design a climate that recognizes and responds appropriately to individual learning needs. The needs cannot be assessed by observation alone. Proven diagnostic tools, working in concert with skilled caring observation, are vital if the full potential of each student is to be realized. The KAI seems to have potential to becoming such a tool.

References

Selby, E. (1992). The Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory as a tool for assessing problem solving styles in eighth grade students. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Walden University, Minneapolis, MN.

Selby, E. , Treffinger, D. , Isaksen S. and Powers, S. (1993). Use of the Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory with Middle School Students. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 27(4) 223-225.

Treffinger, D. and Selby, E. (1993). Giftedness, creativity and learning style: Exploring the connections. In R. Milgram, R. Dunn, and G. Price, (Eds. ). Teaching and counseling gifted and talented learners for learning styles: An international perspective. Westport, CT: Praeger.