Instructor approaches to creativity in engineering design education

Abstract

Creativity is essential in the engineering design process. Researchers, academics, educators, and engineering organisations all agree that further improvement is necessary in training methods for fostering creativity in engineering education. Even though studies exist about how creativity should be taught in engineering education, there is still limited research about the challenges of practical implementation. To address this gap, an action research project has been conducted in two undergraduate Mechanical Engineering design subjects at a prominent university in Australia with the aim of enhancing creativity during the problem-solving process. The study shows the many challenges that arose when enhancing creativity in engineering design education, and the issues that surrounded this implementation. Although teaching creativity to engineering students is a challenge, this study illuminates the difficulties of convincing the engineering instructors to embed creativity in the subjects they teach. Overall, the study found that instructors' understandings and beliefs about creativity influence their teaching approach and what they value. These influences were around four main areas: the instructors' focus on the design product being produced, their educational backgrounds and training, the subjective nature of creativity and their beliefs about it, and the performance mindset of the instructors. These findings suggest that enhancing creativity among engineering students is not possible until the engineering educators and practitioners understand and value creativity practice.

Creativity mindset as the organizational capability: the role of creativity-relevant processes, domain-relevant skills and intrinsic task motivation

“…There are studies in existence on how creativity needs to be taught and exercised for the education in the engineering realm. But, the number of research studies that looked deeply into the implications, challenges and details are still very limited (Tekmen-Araci and Mann, 2018). In the area of research regarding creativity, personal issues as well as contextual factors, have been studied (Paramithaa and Indartib, 2014).…”

“…Previous research indicates that there are challenges when there are attempts to foster creativity within the realm of engineering design education. The body of research also pinpoints the issues that arise from implementing those creative solutions (Tekmen-Araci and Mann, 2018).…”

“…A total of 87% of students who are currently studying an engineering major agreed that creativity is a necessary skill in the engineering realm as well (Charyton et al, 2011). Despite the fact that academician, alongside, educators, researchers and organizations focused on engineering are all in agreement that we need necessary improvements in engineering education regarding methods of training to help foster creativity (Tekmen-Araci and Mann, 2018), there is barely a concrete body of research that looked closely into creativity at that level. The aspect that has been neglected by many businesses is individuals and expanding creative mindsets (Amabile and Khaire, 2008).…”

Disruptive Engineering: Maximizing the Feedback Relationship between Industry 4.0 and the Nigerian Engineering Education Sector

“…Technology is able to evolve because of engineers who are creative, able to create concepts, theories, devices, systems and new ways of representing knowledge. Thus, flexible and creative approaches to engineering should be encouraged and cultivated during the training of engineers (Martínez et al, 2021;Tekmen-Araci & Mann, 2019). Modern engineers should look beyond being custodians of knowledge but at being creators and appliers of knowledge (Kozlo & Shemshurina, 2018).…”

An Exploratory Study of Student Perceptions of Creativity and Its Importance in their Leadership Development

“…The issues are often due to the instructors' understanding and beliefs about creativity, which influence their teaching approach and what they value in assessment. Tekmen-Araci and Mann [16] identify those challenges to be in four main areas: (1) the instructors' focus on the design product being created; (2) their educational background and training; (3) the subjective nature of creativity and their beliefs about it; (4) and the performance mindset of the instructors. These findings suggest that enhancing creativity among engineering students may not be possible until engineering educators and practitioners understand and value creativity in practice.…”