Beyond Imagination: Developing and Validating the Young Children's Inventory of Creative Activities

ABSTRACT This study developed and validated a parent‐report scale to assess preschoolers' everyday creativity in two samples from urban areas of eastern China. In Study 1, 551 parents (children's M age = 4.76 years, SD = 1.21; 245 girls) of preschoolers completed the Young Children's Inventory of Creative Activities (YCICA). Item analysis, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, and reliability testing supported the scale's structure and internal consistency. Study 2 involved 128 preschoolers ( M age = 4.40 years; 59 girls) and their parents from a different region. Parents completed the YCICA and a creative personality scale, while children completed tasks assessing verbal intelligence, divergent thinking, and executive function. Structural equation modeling indicated that creative personality and divergent thinking were significant predictors of everyday creative activities, whereas verbal intelligence and executive function were not significant predictors. These findings suggest that the YCICA is a psychometrically supported tool for assessing and monitoring preschoolers' creativity and may inform educational practice.