Creative Atmosphere Scale

Abstract

The Creative Atmosphere Scale (CA Scale), developed by Cheng and Chen in 2023, is a 23-item psychometric instrument specifically designed to quantify the perception of a creative atmosphere within the domain of Creative Tourism. The scale’s development followed a rigorous methodology, beginning with extensive in-depth interviews and content analysis that generated an initial pool of 324 items. These items were initially grouped into eight conceptual categories: novelty, uniqueness, aesthetics, relevance, pleasure, feeling, hedonism, and authenticity.

These initial concepts were subsequently refined and classified into four major theoretical dimensions: products, environment, activities, and people. After initial validity assessments and item refinement, the scale was tested on adult participants visiting creative tourism destinations in Taiwan. Subsequent item and Factor Analysis confirmed a robust 5-factor structure, resulting in the final 23-item scale. The CA Scale provides managers in the tourism and leisure industry with a reliable, objective tool to measure tourists’ subjective experiences of the creative atmosphere, thereby aiding in destination enhancement and optimization.

Keywords

Creative Atmosphere, Creative Tourism, Artistic Atmosphere, Distinctive Atmosphere, Hedonic Atmosphere, Novel Atmosphere, Joyful Atmosphere, Composite Reliability, Squared Multiple Correlation, Cross-Validation, Measurement Invariance, Tourist Behavior, Consumer Attitudes, Travel Environments

Authors

Cheng, Tien-Ming, Chen, Mei-Tsun

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Creative Atmosphere Scale (CA Scale) is to serve as a comprehensive, multidimensional measurement tool for assessing the creative atmosphere specifically within the context of the tourism and leisure industry. It moves beyond generic satisfaction measures to capture the nuanced environmental and experiential elements that define creativity in a travel setting.

Functionally, the scale is intended as a practical diagnostic instrument for destination managers and policymakers. By providing an objective measure of how tourists perceive and experience the creative atmosphere, the CA Scale facilitates data-driven decisions aimed at optimizing tourist experiences, enhancing destination appeal, and improving overall management effectiveness in real-world creative settings.

Construct

The Creative Atmosphere Scale is built upon a multidimensional construct conceptualizing the atmosphere of a creative tourism destination. The foundational conceptualization involved classifying the creative environment based on eight core experiential characteristics: novelty, uniqueness, aesthetics, relevance, pleasure, feeling, hedonism, and authenticity.

These characteristics were theoretically integrated into four main conceptual dimensions: the creativity inherent in the destination’s products, the creativity of the destination environment, the creativity of activities offered, and the creativity of the people (staff and fellow tourists). Statistical validation through Factor Analysis ultimately supported a more refined, parsimonious 5-factor structure underlying the final 23-item scale, suggesting that the perception of creative atmosphere is a complex, interacting psychological phenomenon.

Validity

The CA Scale demonstrates strong evidence across multiple facets of validity, confirming its ability to measure the intended construct accurately.

• Convergent Validity: Strong convergent validity was established, as indicated by the Average Variance Extracted (AVE) values for the five factors, which ranged significantly from 0.65 to 0.86.

• Discriminant Validity: Adequate discriminant validity was confirmed by comparing the square root of the AVE for each construct (lowest value of 0.78) against the largest correlation coefficient found between any two constructs (0.72). Since the square root of the AVE exceeded the inter-construct correlation, the factors are deemed statistically distinct from each other.

• Criterion-Related Validity: The scale exhibited strong criterion-related validity when tested against tourists’ expressed willingness to revisit the destination. Pearson correlation coefficients between the overall CA construct and its five individual factors ranged from 0.532 to 0.707 (p < .001), demonstrating a statistically significant and strong relationship between perceived creative atmosphere and future behavioral intentions.

• Cross-Validation and Measurement Invariance: Assessment of five nested models revealed an acceptable fit, and the non-significant p-values of Δχ2 (all exceeding 0.05) confirmed the property of Measurement Invariance. This suggests that the scale’s measurement properties (weights, intercepts, covariances, and residuals) are consistent across different groups of respondents.

Reliability

The internal consistency and reliability of the Creative Atmosphere Scale were rigorously assessed using advanced statistical metrics.

The scale demonstrated high internal consistency through its Composite Reliability (CR) values. The CR for the five factors of the CA scale ranged from 0.80 to 0.89, which is well above the commonly accepted threshold of 0.70, indicating excellent reliability for each distinct factor. Furthermore, the Squared Multiple Correlation (SMC) values for all individual measurement items surpassed established psychometric standards, confirming that the items possess strong explanatory power within their respective factors.

Factor Analysis

The final 23-item structure was derived and validated through a sequential process involving item analysis, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA).

The initial item analysis phase involved the removal of eight items whose total correlations fell below the 0.3 threshold, ensuring that the remaining 23 items were sufficiently correlated with the overall scale and non-collinear. Subsequently, an EFA utilizing principal component analysis with varimax rotation was conducted. The EFA results indicated that the extracted structure accounted for 61.82% of the total explanatory variation, with five distinct factors possessing eigenvalues greater than 1 being retained.

Finally, a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) using the maximum likelihood method was performed to verify the proposed 5-factor structure. The results confirmed the model fit, as evidenced by factor loadings ranging significantly from 0.58 to 0.85, and all key metrics, including SMC, CR, and AVE, conforming to established standard statistical values.

Instrument

Test Type: Original

Format: Items are rated on a 7-point Likert scale. Scores range from 1 to 7, where a score of “1” represents “strong disagreement” and a score of “7” represents “strong agreement.”

Language Available: No data is Available

Population Group: Human; Male; Female

Age Group: Adulthood (18 years and older); Young Adulthood (18-29 years); Thirties (30-39 years); Middle Age (40-64 years)

Population Details: Respondents were adults located in Taiwan, specifically visiting three different creative tourism destinations.

Test Methodology: Test Validity; Construct Validity; Content Validity; Convergent Validity; Criterion Validity; Discriminant Validity; Test Reliability; Internal Consistency; Factor Analysis; Confirmatory Factor Analysis; Exploratory Factor Analysis; Measurement Invariance

Keywords

Creativity Measurement, Consumer Attitudes, Environment Perception, Stimulus Novelty, Tourism Psychology, Consumer Measures, Tourist Behavior, Psychometric Scale Development

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: No data is Available

Affiliation Email addresses:

• Cheng, Tien-Ming (National Chiayi University): [email protected]

• Chen, Mei-Tsun (Shu-Te University): [email protected]

Correspondence Address: Cheng, Tien-Ming: [email protected]

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Permissions: Contact Corresponding Author

Fee: No

Test Year: 2023

Reference’s

Cheng, T.-M., & Chen, M.-T. (2023). Creative atmosphere in creative tourism destinations: Conceptualizing and scale development. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 47(3), 590–615. https://doi.org/10.1177/10963480211012459

Items of the Creative Atmosphere Scale

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

No data is Available