Constructing and validating the museum product creativity measurement (MPCM): dimensions for creativity assessment of souvenir products in Chinese urban historical museums

The paper addresses the need for an objective, rigorous, and systematic way to assess the creativity of museum souvenir products, particularly within Chinese urban historical museums. It situates museums’ evolving roles—from collection and classification to public education, community engagement, inclusivity, and sustainability—under the updated ICOM definition (2022). In China, museums are strongly tied to national education, cultural identity, and creative industries, with state-driven development and significant emphasis on patriotic education, leisure tourism, and cultural innovation. The urban museum product market has rapidly expanded both offline and online, creating demand for reliable creativity evaluation tools. Prior creativity measures (CAT, CPSS, PCMI) are not fully suitable for museum products; prior testing showed Affect outweighed Novelty and that Resolution and Importance were less central. The study’s purpose is to build and validate a contextual measurement model (MPCM) for assessing museum product creativity as perceived by consumers familiar with Chinese urban historical museum products, focusing on dimensions relevant to cultural translation into modern artifacts and consumer behavior.

The literature frames museum products through culture and design models: the Spatial Perspective of Culture (tangible, behavioral, intangible layers) and Norman’s Three Levels of Design (visceral, behavioral, reflective), yielding an attributes model with Aesthetics (including Affect) as the outer layer, Creativity in the middle, and Culture as the inner layer. Aesthetics denotes appealing appearance and the emotions it elicits, a primary factor drawing attention and influencing purchase. Creativity is multifaceted: beyond Novelty, dimensions like Usefulness (functionality/resolution), Importance (relevance), Affect, and Aesthetics are also cited; in museum contexts it involves innovative translation and dissemination of cultural elements while serving museums’ social missions. Culture underpins uniqueness and meaning, enabling cultural awareness, museum inclusiveness, and encouragement of innovation; products that fail to convey culture are considered unsuccessful. The study proposes dimensions and hypotheses: Cultural Values (cultural awareness, innovation encouragement, museum inclusiveness) are expected to positively impact Creativity and Importance (later refined to Usefulness), Novelty to positively impact Creativity, Resolution to positively impact Creativity, Importance to affect Creativity and Resolution, Affect to affect Creativity, Aesthetics to affect both Creativity and Affect, and Educational Level to moderate the Cultural Values–Creativity link. The authors note prior debates: novelty’s role is context-dependent and not always dominant; Resolution/Importance may overlap; Affect can be a key driver; and aesthetics often ties to both emotion and novelty.

Design: Cross-sectional online survey to construct and validate a museum product creativity measurement model (MPCM) for Chinese urban historical museums. The instrument began with six dimensions and 28 indicators from CPSS and PCMI literature and museum design research, all rated on 7-point Likert scales (1=strongly disagree to 7=strongly agree). Indicators: Novelty (Infrequent, Rare, Surprising), Resolution (Efficient, Resourceful, Fitting, Functional), Affect (Pleased, Delighted, Appealed, Stimulated, Favourable, Appealing, Attractive, Ideal, Desirable), Importance (Relevant, Important, Crucial), Aesthetics (Complex, Elegant, Expressive, Organic, Well-Crafted, Polished), Cultural Values (Cultural Awareness, Innovation Encouraging, Museum Inclusiveness). Sampling and procedure: Hosted on Wenjuan.com with a prior pilot; quality controls included three lie detectors and restrictions on IPs, phone numbers, and system accounts to prevent duplicates. Recruitment via Weibo targeted ads (followers of museum accounts, online museum shops, cultural creativity interests) and WeChat professional groups; respondents received a subsidy. Participants rated their overall impression of Chinese urban museum products (with example images to unify understanding), not specific items. Sample: N=931 total; 708 valid (those with purchase experience), valid rate reported as 74.97% in text (708/931 ≈ 76.05%). Demographics: 54.10% male; 49.15% consumers and 50.85% experts; ages concentrated in 25–30 (34.46%) and 31–40 (32.20%); education: 22.74% associate or below, 53.81% bachelor’s, 23.45% master’s+. Controlled variables: age, gender, educational level, professional degree (customer vs expert), purchase experience (all dummy-coded). Analytic strategy: Reliability and validity testing with SPSS/SPSSPRO: Cronbach’s alpha, KMO, EFA, CFA; then PLS-SEM (SmartPLS v4.0.8.7) due to exploratory nature, a formative construct (Creativity), and non-normal data. Measurement model: Creativity was modeled as a formative latent variable; other constructs reflective. Fornell-Larcker criterion used for discriminant validity. Inner model: Assessed VIF for collinearity; initial high VIF led to merging Importance indicators into Resolution and renaming the construct Usefulness (supported by literature and EFA), revising hypotheses accordingly (H2b, H4). Model fit assessed via SRMR. Mediating and moderating effects were tested (Aesthetics→Affect→Creativity; Cultural Values→Usefulness→Creativity; moderation by Educational Level on Cultural Values→Creativity).

- Sample: 931 invited; 708 valid responses (76.05% valid rate reported in abstract); overall survey reliability Cronbach’s α = 0.96. - Construct reliability/validity (initial tests): Cronbach’s α generally > 0.7 except Resolution (~0.62). KMO overall = 0.976; Novelty’s KMO low (0.593). Novelty showed low CR and AVE (<0.7, <0.5), indicating weak validity in this context. EFA suggested Resolution and Importance overlap; retained separately initially but later combined to reduce collinearity. - PLS-SEM revisions: Importance indicators moved to Resolution and the construct renamed Usefulness; H2 revised to H2b (Cultural Values → Usefulness), H4 to Usefulness → Creativity. - Path coefficients (significance p < 0.05 unless noted): Affect → Creativity = 0.448*; Aesthetics → Affect = 0.777*; Usefulness → Creativity = 0.292*; Aesthetics → Creativity = 0.167*; Cultural Values → Creativity = 0.139*; Cultural Values → Usefulness = 0.457*; Novelty → Creativity = 0.009 (ns). - Explained variance: R^2 Creativity = 0.893; R^2 Affect = 0.603; R^2 Usefulness = 0.209. Model fit: SRMR = 0.059. - Effect sizes (f^2): Large for Affect → Creativity (0.389) and Aesthetics → Affect (1.520); medium for Usefulness → Creativity (0.199), Cultural Values → Usefulness (0.263); small for Aesthetics → Creativity (0.076), Cultural Values → Creativity (0.106); none for Novelty → Creativity (0.000). - Mediation: Affect partially mediates Aesthetics → Creativity (VAF 67.57%); Usefulness partially mediates Cultural Values → Creativity (VAF 48.90%). - Moderation: Educational Level negatively moderates Cultural Values → Creativity (interaction β = -0.047, T = 3.840, p < 0.05). - Final validated instrument: Five dimensions—Affect, Usefulness, Aesthetics, Cultural Values, and Novelty—with 21 indicators total. Affect and Aesthetics are central, with Aesthetics strongly triggering Affect; Novelty was statistically insignificant in this study but retained in the instrument with one indicator (Surprising).

The study establishes a contextualized MPCM for evaluating the creativity of museum souvenir products in Chinese urban historical museums. Findings demonstrate that creativity perceptions are driven primarily by affective responses and product aesthetics, with Aesthetics exerting a strong influence on Affect, which in turn strongly predicts overall Creativity. Cultural Values positively influence both Creativity and Usefulness, and Usefulness itself contributes to Creativity, indicating that perceived functionality and relevance remain important alongside emotive and aesthetic factors. The moderation analysis shows that higher educational attainment reduces the strength of Cultural Values’ impact on Creativity, suggesting more educated consumers may be more critical or require clearer, more concrete cultural cues. Novelty did not show a significant direct effect on Creativity in this context, challenging the traditional centrality of Novelty in creativity assessments and underscoring the domain-specific nature of creativity evaluation. The model thus aligns creativity assessment with museum missions—cultural dissemination, inclusivity, and visitor engagement—while grounding it in consumer perception dynamics (aesthetics and affect), offering a robust framework for design and evaluation.

The research constructs and validates the Museum Product Creativity Measurement (MPCM) tailored to Chinese urban historical museums, comprising five dimensions—Affect, Usefulness, Aesthetics, Cultural Values, and Novelty—measured by 21 indicators. The model reveals that aesthetics-triggered affect is the dominant pathway to perceived creativity, while cultural values operate both directly and through usefulness. Educational level negatively moderates the cultural values–creativity link. The MPCM offers practitioners a structured assessment tool to guide product development toward emotionally engaging, aesthetically appealing, functionally relevant, and culturally meaningful designs. Future research will refine Novelty indicators (and reconsider the reflective/formative nature of Creativity), incorporate objective physiological measures (e.g., EDS, EEG, eye tracking), expand to cross-cultural samples, and re-examine consumer characteristics (purchase experience, age, gender). Integrating sustainability considerations—materials, consumption, resource management—within Usefulness is also proposed to broaden the model’s applicability.

- Novelty indicators (e.g., Surprising) may be ill-suited for museum products; the dimension had weak CR/AVE and non-significant effects. The structure of Creativity as a formative construct may need reconsideration. - Reliance on subjective self-reports; objective measures (EDS, EEG, eye tracking) are planned to enhance validity. - No cross-cultural comparison; results are specific to Chinese urban historical museum consumers during a specific period. - Potential influences of purchase experience, age, and gender were not conclusively established in PLS-SEM and require re-testing. - Initial overlap between Resolution and Importance required construct revision (merged into Usefulness), indicating prior measurement ambiguity.