3. Creativity is tucked away into various pockets of the
engineering curriculum.
Engineering Design Courses
Entrepreneurship Programs
Images from http://www.engr.psu.edu/future/WhyPSUEngr/ and
http://www.sedtapp.psu.edu/index.php.
4. Students express frustration at the lack of opportunities to
be creative in the curriculum.
“Most engineering classes are memorizing equations and solving
problems in a specific way that has been taught to you.”
“I’ve only had a few classes where I felt I was able to be creative
in my work.”
“Engineering classes are the place Creativity goes to die.”
5. The paper has three intended purposes:
1. Discuss the barriers to integrating the creative process into
engineering courses
2. Understand how creativity has been conceptualized in
engineering education
3. Generate ideas on how to implement the creative process
throughout the curriculum
6. There are several potential reasons why creativity is not
well integrated into engineering curricula.
1. Myths relating to creativity
2. Lack of ambiguity and opportunities for failure in most courses
3. Rewards structure in most courses
4. Difficulty assessing creative behaviors
5. Students’ perceptions regarding instructor’s value of creative
behavior
7. Kazerounian and Foley (2007) asked why creativity is not
central to the engineering curriculum.
1. Engineering students do not feel that instructors value
creativity.
2. Engineering instructors value creativity, but do not see it in
their students.
“Creativity is not valued in contemporary engineering education.”
8. Plucker, Beghetto, and Dow (2004) advocate for a
comprehensive definition of creativity to guide research.
“Creativity is the interaction between aptitude, process, and
environment by which an individual or group produces a
perceptible product that is both novel and useful as defined
within a social context.”
9. Following the methodology of Plucker, Beghetto, and Dow
(2004), we examined how creativity is conceptualized in
engineering education research.
Content analysis of articles from 2006-2011 with “creativity” or
“creative” in title
Major journals in engineering education
No conference papers
No engineering design or entrepreneurship journals
10. The questions guiding the content analysis were:
1. Does the article explicitly define creativity?
(i.e. “Creativity is…” or “Creative means…”)
2. How do the authors define/describe creativity?
11. Few articles were found that used the word “creativity” or
“creative” in the title.
Journal Number of Articles
Advances in Engineering Education 0
Australasian Journal of Engineering Education 0
European Journal of Engineering Education 4
International Journal of Engineering Education 10
Journal of Engineering Education 2
12. Over half of the articles explicitly defined “creativity.”
No Explicit
Explicit Definition
Definition 44%
56%
13. All articles related creativity to solving problems and
finding solutions.
Problem solving
Unique
Process
Product
Useful
Divergent thinking
Interactionist
Spiritual
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
14. Only three articles contained a complete definition similar
to the interactionist model of creativity.
Problem solving
Unique
Process
Product
Useful
Divergent thinking
Interactionist
Spiritual
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
15. Current efforts at PSU to integrate the creative process into
courses include workshops and funded projects.
16. Current efforts at PSU to integrate the creative process into
courses include workshops and funded projects.
17. Current efforts at PSU to integrate the creative process into
courses include workshops and funded projects.
18. We also try to include discussions of creativity in other
teaching-related workshops.
19. Faculty are more accepting of the “creative process” rather
than “creativity.”
“Creative process = Engineering”
“Creativity could be incorporated more broadly into
engineering curricula beyond the design-oriented
courses.”
20. Acknowledgements:
Thank you to co-authors, Tom Litzinger and Irene Mena of the
Leonhard Center for the Enhancement of Engineering
Education at Penn State.
Thank you also to the Leonhard Center for providing funding
for the creativity initiatives discussed in the paper.
Editor's Notes
Interestingly, creativity is not well researched in educational psychology. It is more in I/O psychology, with less emphasis on classroom application or information on how to integrate it. Plucker, Beghetto, and Dow did an extensive content analysis of education journals and found that there was not an agreed upon definition of creativity. We wanted to see if this is also the case in engineering education.
Interestingly, creativity is not well researched in educational psychology. It is more in I/O psychology, with less emphasis on classroom application or information on how to integrate it. Plucker, Beghetto, and Dow did an extensive content analysis of education journals and found that there was not an agreed upon definition of creativity. We wanted to see if this is also the case in engineering education.
Note: There were two articles written by the same authors in the same journal (IJEE) with the same literature review. We counted these as one since the lit review and definition were almost identical.
Conclusions:The number of peer-reviewed journal articles on creativity in primary engineering education journals is relatively small.There is no consistent definition of creativity used in engineering education research.Researchers primarily consider creativity in relation to problem-solving
