Kandemirci, Birsu;
Beaty, Roger;
Johnson, Dan;
Oliver, Bonamy R;
Kovas, Yulia;
Toivainen, Teemu;
(2025)
What is creative in childhood writing? Computationally measured linguistic characteristics explain much of the variance in subjective human-rated creativity scores.
Learning and Individual Differences
(In press).
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Abstract
The present study investigated the extent to which linguistic features of children’s stories, analyzed using automated techniques, predicted human-rated Creative Expressiveness and Logic scores, both assessed with the Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT). A sample of 160 children (Mage = 8.99 years, SD = 0.3) wrote stories based on three pictures. Eleven linguistic characteristics were measured: Length, Grammar, Originality, Controlled Lexical Diversity, Uncontrolled Lexical Diversity, Divergent Semantic Integration (DSI), Referential Cohesion, Narrativity, Syntactic Simplicity, Word Concreteness and Deep Cohesion. The results showed that 51% of the variance in Creative Expressiveness was explained by Length, DSI, Originality, Grammar, and Controlled Lexical Diversity (sr² = .01 to .14). In comparison, 28% of the variance in Logic scores was accounted for by DSI, Grammar, Controlled Lexical, Syntactic Simplicity, and Narrativity (sr² = .01 to .06). These findings offer insights for educational practices by identifying the linguistic characteristics relevant to children’s creative writing as opposed to logical narration.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | What is creative in childhood writing? Computationally measured linguistic characteristics explain much of the variance in subjective human-rated creativity scores |
| Publisher version: | https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/learning-and... |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author-accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| Keywords: | Creativity, assessment, computational, narrative, development |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Psychology and Human Development |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10202986 |
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