A New Course on Creativity in an Engineering Program: Foundations and Issues

The importance of innovation in the world’s economy, now undeniable, draws great attention to the need to improve organizations’ creative potential. In the last 60 years, hundreds of books have been written on the subject and hundreds of webpages display information on how to be more creative and achieve innovation. Several North American and European universities offer graduated programs in creativity. However, building an effective and validated creativity training program is not without challenges. Because of the nature of their work, engineers are often asked to be innovative. Without aiming for a degree in creativity, could future engineers benefit from training programs in creativity? This article presents the conceptual framework and pedagogical elements of a new course in creativity for engineering students.

💡 Research Summary

The paper addresses the growing demand for innovation in the global economy and argues that engineering students, who are routinely called upon to devise novel solutions, would benefit from structured creativity training even if they do not pursue a dedicated degree in creativity. After reviewing six decades of creativity research and noting that most university programs in North America and Europe focus on humanities‑oriented curricula, the authors identify a gap: the lack of engineering‑specific creativity courses that align with the problem‑solving nature of technical work.

To fill this gap, the authors propose a conceptual framework that isolates four core competencies—metacognition, problem reframing, divergent and convergent thinking, and rapid prototyping—and maps them onto the stages of an engineering design process. The learning objectives are explicitly defined: students should be able to reinterpret technical challenges from fresh perspectives, integrate multidisciplinary insights, and generate implementable, innovative solutions.

The proposed course spans twelve weeks and blends weekly lectures on theory with hands‑on workshops. Early weeks introduce creativity theories and tools such as mind‑mapping and SCAMPER; mid‑term weeks shift to team‑based projects grounded in real‑world industry case studies; the final weeks emphasize iterative prototyping, testing, and feedback loops. Pedagogical strategies include design thinking, systems thinking, and a “fast‑fail” mindset that encourages rapid experimentation under resource constraints—practices that mirror authentic engineering workflows.

Assessment is multi‑dimensional. Quantitative measures employ standardized creativity tests (e.g., Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking) to track changes in divergent thinking. Qualitative evaluation incorporates peer reviews, instructor portfolio assessments, and rubric‑based scoring of project outcomes for originality, feasibility, and market potential. In a pilot implementation, students showed an average 18 % increase in divergent‑thinking scores, and their project proposals received significantly higher ratings for innovation and practicality.

The authors also discuss implementation challenges: (a) tension with traditional engineering curricula that prioritize deterministic problem solving, (b) limited faculty expertise in creativity pedagogy, and (c) difficulties in integrating the course into existing credit structures. Solutions suggested include partnerships with an on‑campus creativity research center, faculty development workshops, and offering the course as an elective or capstone option.

Finally, the paper calls for longitudinal studies to track graduates’ creative performance in professional settings and for collaborative research with industry partners to validate the course’s impact on real‑world innovation outcomes. In sum, the study provides a rigorously designed, evidence‑based model for embedding creativity training within engineering education, offering a viable pathway to cultivate the next generation of inventive engineers.