Assessing Creative Behavior in Music Majors Through Compositional Works Using a Many-Facet Rasch Model.

Assessing creativity in music education remains challenging because judgments of original musical work are influenced by subjective preferences, uneven interpretations of criteria, and differences in rater severity. In composition training, completed works can be treated as observable products that show how students generate, develop, transform, refine, and realize musical ideas. This study examined whether a structured composition-rating rubric, combined with many-facet Rasch measurement, could support a reproducible evaluation of creative behavior among undergraduate music majors. Original compositions from 80 music majors were independently scored by nine trained raters using a five-point rubric. The rubric included five related dimensions of compositional creative behavior: novelty, fluency, flexibility, precision, and feasibility. Rating data were analyzed using FACETS software, version 3.83.6, with students, criteria, and raters specified as separate facets within a common logit measurement structure. The rating design included 3,600 expected rating opportunities; 3,598 valid observed ratings were analyzed, with two missing. Overall model fit supported the interpretation of the rating design, and the ordered category structure indicated that the five-point scale functioned in the expected direction. Criterion estimates showed that novelty was relatively easier to demonstrate, whereas feasibility and flexibility were more difficult within completed compositions. Differences in rater score-use location were also observed, supporting the need to model rater effects rather than relying only on raw scores. Student separation was moderate, indicating that the instrument was better suited to broad performance stratification than to precise individual ranking. These findings suggest that a composition-based rubric combined with many-facet Rasch measurement can provide a transparent framework for evaluating creative behavior in higher music education.