Assessing Creativity in Engineering Students

Session T4F

Assessing Creativity in Engineering Students Susan Amato-Henderson, Amber Kemppainen, and Gretchen Hein Michigan Technological University, [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract - Creativity has been studied extensively since 1956 when the NSF sponsored the first national research conference on creativity (Taylor, 1962). Within engineering education, one often hears the call for the development of creativity in engineering students. As part of the IDEAS grant (DUE-0836861), we examined the relationship between domain specific hypothetical challenges and opportunities, and engineering students’ self-reported attitudes and behavioral intentions designed to measure creative self-efficacy in engineering. Our concept of creative self-efficacy in engineering was designed to assess one’s confidence in their ability to be creative within the engineering domain. Using factors analysis procedures, we have identified four factors that appear to be novel indicators of creative self-efficacy in engineering: Cognitive Approaches, Cognitive Challenges, Cognitive Preparedness, and Impulsivity in problem solving. Index Terms – Creativity, Critical Thinking, Design Projects, Engineering Education. BACKGROUND As part of the NSF Funded IDEAS grant (DUE – 0836861), one goal was the development of creativity through the completion of integrated “real-world” design projects. As the projects were developed, we realized that, while one often hears the call for improving creativity in engineers, the definition of engineering creativity and a valid or reliable measure of such a construct remains elusive. For example, Charyton and colleagues, who are continuing work on an assessment tool to measure creative engineering design, state “More recently, creativity has received greater attention as a necessity, rather than an accessory in engineering design.” [1]. Noting the plethora of research, and numerous instruments designed to measure creative “traits” or creativity in products, Charyton emphasized the need for an instrument to measure creativity as a domain-specific construct (i.e., within the engineering domain) [1]. In the field of psychology, the construct of creativity has been the focus of much research and vigorous debate for well over 50 years. In addition to numerous definitions of creativity, other factors contributing to this debate include: whether creativity is a stable personality characteristic or a skill that can be learned; whether creativity is a general state present across domains or a domain-specific characteristic; and whether creativity is best understood by studying an individual’s creative behavior, creative intentions, the products of the creative process, or social and situational

characteristics necessary for creativity to be demonstrated. Many creativity tests have resulted from the psychological research; however, most are not useful or applicable to assessing the impact of educational initiatives on and individual’s creative ability. The importance of creativity in engineering education is clear – one need only look at the many ASEE paper titles from the preceding years as a gauge of the interest and focus on creativity in engineering education. There is a clear and warranted demand for pedagogical techniques in engineering education that enhance creativity. However, very few of those attempting to design curriculum to enhance creativity provide a replicable, empirical assessment of the outcomes from such efforts. This is likely not due to a lack of improvement in creative ability of students, but instead is driven by the inability to find a measure designed to assess these changes in the pre and post test methodology required to assess the impact of curricular changes on creative abilities. In other words, a valid method of measuring the impact of educational programs on the creative ability of engineering students is needed. A majority of the psychologically-based creativity research approach creativity as a personality trait. Traits, by definition, are long-term and relatively stable characteristics of individuals that are not learned. From the trait perspective, one cannot alter or enhance creativity in any appreciable way. Like the construct of intelligence, people fall somewhere on the continuum of creativity and the goal of research is to identify and describe personality differences between those at varying points on the continuum. This focus on creativity is in conflict with the cognitive-ability focus within Engineering Education. This paper examines the creation of a tool in an effort to identify factors associated with the cognitive ability of creativity, or more specifically creative self-efficacy, in engineering students. Our creativity tool may provide a measurement of novel indicators of creativity, not yet examined within the domain of engineering education. We are particularly interested in how the implementation of “real-world” design projects (Wind Energy, Aquaculture, and Biomechanics) affects creativity. ASSESSMENT OF CREATIVITY

As part of the IDEAS Project, we examined the relationship between domain specific hypothetical challenges and opportunities, and engineering students’ self-reported attitudes and behavioral intentions designed to measure creative self-efficacy in engineering. This was done using a pre-post survey. According to Bandura (i.e., 1977, 1997), self-efficacy refers to one’s beliefs in their abilities within a 978-1-61284-469-5/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE October 12 - 15, 2011, Rapid City, SD 41st ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference T4F-1

Session T4F given situation, and is an important antecedent to successful behavior within the situation [2, 3]. Thus, our concept of creative self-efficacy in engineering was designed to assess one’s confidence in their ability to be creative within the engineering domain. Global creativity was assessed using a combination of Oreg’s Resistance to Change Scale [4] and the Curiosity and Exploration Inventory [5] with a selection of questions created by our project team. See Table I for a description of the included scales, along with descriptions of the subscales. This entire set of 45 questions (hereafter referred to as the IDEAS Creativity Scale), along with the measures for CT described above were administered to 105 students over the course of the 2009-2010 academic year. TABLE I ASSESSMENT SCALES USED Resistance to Change Scale dispositional inclination to resist (RTC) change Routine Seeking

extent to which one seeks out stable routines

Emotional Reaction

response to imposed change – whether excited or anxious

Short-term focus

whether one focuses on the short term hassle or long term benefit of change

Cognitive rigidity

tendency to hold strongly to his/her views

Curiosity and Exploration Inventory (CEI)

disposition to curiosity

Exploration subscale Absorption subscale Zampetakis & Moustakis Scale (Z & M scale)

disposition to activity seek out novel and challenging situations tendency to get fully engaged with novel/ challenging situations Designed scale to understand relationship between creativity and entrepreneurial intentions one’s attitude regarding their own creativity one’s attitudes toward a university environment that promotes creativity whether creativity was promoted in one’s family. attitude towards pursuing entrepreneurial activities

Own Creativity University Creativity Family Creativity Entrepreneurial Intentions

RESULTS Using the IDEAS Creativity Scale, we assessed several factors thought to be associated with creativity in Engineering. In addition to the scale we designed, we also assessed domain-specific creativity with a tool designed by Zampetakis and Moustakis (referred to as the Z & M scale below) [6]. This 11-item Likert-type scale was designed to measure the following constructs: attitudes toward personal creativity; attitudes regarding the creative environment promoted within the University Environment ; attitudes regarding the family’s promotion of creativity; and Entrepreneurial Intentions. Zampetakis and Moustakis reported a statistically significant 4-factor model of creativity, and found that individuals who perceived

themselves as creative also reported high entrepreneurial intentions [6]. Analysis of the pre-Modules Implementation cohort revealed no significant increases in creativity or CT between pre and post assessments. We did not anticipate finding significant differences within this cohort. We did, however, provide some validity for our scale by finding significant positive correlations between factors identified on our scale and those measured on the Z & M scale (described above). In addition, we believe our scale goes beyond other scales by measuring something we refer to as “engineering creativity self-efficacy”, or the belief in one’s ability to be creative within the field of engineering. Using exploratory factor analysis procedures (Principal Components Analysis, Varimax rotation), we have identified four factors that appear to be novel indicators of creative self-efficacy in engineering:  Cognitive Approaches (confidence in preferred problem solving tactics such as “thinking outside the box”, visualizing, etc.);  Cognitive Challenges (the enjoyment of experiences that challenge viewpoints, present abstract concepts, and require deep thought);  Cognitive Preparedness (anxiety or frustration experienced with ill-defined problems or situations in which one feels unprepared, negatively associated with creative self efficacy); and  Impulsivity in problem solving (confidence in ability to solve problems without being impulsive) Together, the four components accounted for approximately 60% of the variance in the data. Cognitive Challenges, accounting for 21.8% of the variance, had significant positive correlations with the Curiosity and Exploration Inventory (CEI) subscales of Exploration (r = .451, p < .000) and Absorption (r = .243, p = .013). Positive correlations were also found with the Z & M subscales of Individual Creativity (r = .349, p < .000), Creativity within the University (r = .359, p < .000), Creativity within the family (r = .298, p - .001) and Entrepreneurial Intentions (r - .302, p = .001). These positive correlations support the validity of this sub-component of creative self-efficacy – confidence in abilities for dealing with Cognitive Challenges. The Cognitive Approaches subscale of creative selfefficacy accounted for 15.8% of the variability, and was also positivity correlated with several of the other measures of creativity, including the Z & M Individual Creativity subscale (r = .575, p < .000) and the CEI subscales of Exploration (r = .438, P < .000) and Absorption (r = .399, p = .000). As expected, a negative correlation existed between Cognitive Approaches and Oreg’s Resistance to Change Scale (r = -.232, p = .014) and the CEI subscale of Routine Seeking (r = -.242, p = .010), both of which are thought to be negatively associated with creativity. The Cognitive Preparedness factor (accounting for 12.7% of the variance), presumably inversely correlated with creative self-efficacy, was positively correlated with the Resistance to Change

978-1-61284-469-5/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE October 12 - 15, 2011, Rapid City, SD 41st ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference T4F-2

Session T4F Scale score (r = .366, p < .000). Impulsivity (accounting for 9.7% of the variance), was also positively correlated with many of the same variables as the Cognitive Challenges and Cognitive Approaches scales. Further evidence of the possible utility of these new factors underlying engineering creativity self-efficacy are seen through the findings of significant differences on the Cognitive Approaches and Cognitive Challenges subscales between students who self-report that they expect to make novel contributions to the field of engineering, and those that don’t. Students who anticipated novel contributions enjoyed cognitive challenges and unique problem solving tactics. CONCLUSION In sum, we have identified 4 factors that we believe underlie one’s self-efficacy for creativity within the engineering domain. We have attempted to establish the validity of these factors through examining correlations with other known measures of creativity. While not a direct measure of creativity (most measures of creativity are NOT direct measures), there is evidence that one’s self efficacy is predictive of actual ability in domains outside of creativity. We are unaware of any other scales designed to measure self-efficacy for creativity, much less for engineering creativity. The value of such a concept and instrument, once further testing is completed to assess reliability, could have a large impact of the numerous attempts to study and understand creativity within the engineering domain. ACKNOWLEDGMENT This work is funded through an NSF grant (DUE – 0836861).

REFERENCES [1]

Charyton, C, Jagacinski, R, J., Merrill, J, A., “CEDA: A research instrument for creative engineering design assessment”, Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, Vol 2(3), Aug 2008, 147-154.

[2]

Bandura, A, “Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change”, Psychological Review, Vol 84, 1977, pp. 191215. 1977

[3]

Bandura, A, “Self –efficacy: the exercise of control”, 1997 New York: W.H. Freeman.

[4]

Oreg, S, “Resistance to Change: Developing an Individual Differences Measure”, Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(4), 2003, pp. 680-693.

[5]

Kashdan, T, Rose, P, and Fincham, F, “Curiosity and Exploration: Facilitating Positive Subjective Experiences and Personal Growth Opportunities”, Journal of Personality Assessment, 82, 3, 2004, pp. 291–305.

[6]

Zampetakis , L, A, and Vassilis Moustakis L“Linking creativity with entrepreneurial intentions: A structural approach”, , Entrepreneurship Mgt, 2, 2006, pp. 413–428.

AUTHOR INFORMATION Susan Amato-Henderson, Associate Professor, Department of Cognitive and Learning Sciences, Michigan Technological University, [email protected]. Amber Kemppainen, Senior Lecturer, Department of Engineering Fundamentals, Michigan Technological University, [email protected]. Gretchen Hein, Senior Lecturer, Department of Engineering Fundamentals Michigan Technological University, [email protected].

978-1-61284-469-5/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE October 12 - 15, 2011, Rapid City, SD 41st ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference T4F-3