Creativity Assessment

Test Number	14
Title	Comprehensive Ability Battery
Author	Hakstain, R. A.; Cattell, R. B.
Category	Test
Copyright Date	1982
Availability	Contact publisher
Restrictions
Age/Grade Level	Age 15-adult
Cost	As of 1999: $22 per 10 test booklets; $15 per 50 answer sheets. Other costs listed.
Forms	Foreign language editions available
Source	Institute for Personality and Ability Testing
Address	1602 Coronado Drive, P. O. Box 188 Champaign, IL 61820
Phone
Fax
web or e-mail
Definition	Among the constructs measured are: spontaneous, flexibility, ideational fluency, word fluency, and originality.
Purposes	Designed to provide a broad battery of short tests, so as to provide investigators with an economical vehicle for assessing a wide range of important ability constructs. There are 20 tests, test 5 is concerned with creativity.
Characteristics	Generating Ideas

Manual
Good	The manual discusses the instrument’s history and development as well as: its definition and purposes, theoretical rational, and validity and reliability evidence. Norms are discussed with little information about the normative group of over 2000 high sch

Validity
Fair	Only a discussion of face validity is offered. Little evidence is given for the validity of the subtests. Correlations with grades is .63.

Reliability
Fair	Reliabilities are variable on CAB-5 .43 to .87. There is some indication of inflation on several CAB sub-tests.

Utility
Fair	CAB-5 can be administered by any professional to groups. It is timed and takes about 1 hour with instructions. It is scored locally by hand. Answers are placed in the test book. Items call for verbal and drawing responses. Scoring instructions are confused.

Interpretation
Fair	Standard Errors of Measure are reported but other score interpretation information is lacking.

Propriety
Poor	Not addressed in the manual.

Reviews & Related Lit

TiP V, 1999; MMY #9, 1985: Nichols, R C. states that the manual is greatly in need of revision. White, K. R. “ From the data that are available, some of the subtests included in the CAB are not well established ...most reliability estimates are inappropriate for speeded tests ... and validity data are sparse and sometimes logically inconsistent. If additional data were collected, many of these problems might be solved.”