This research explores creativity and critical thinking skills in undergraduate engineering stude... more This research explores creativity and critical thinking skills in undergraduate engineering students. The study undertook two experiments in order to gather a better understanding of several factors regarding the interactions between students' creative abilities and the effects of the undergraduate engineering curriculum. Experiment 1 focused on the differences in creative and critical thinking skills in freshman versus senior undergraduate engineering students. Experiment 2 centered on the variation in the effects of long-term versus short-term creativity training on senior engineering students. Creative skill was measured using the Test for Creative Thinking-Drawing Production (TCT-DP) developed by Urban and Jellen (2010). Measurements for critical thinking utilized the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Assessment
The goal of an undergraduate engineering education is to provide students with the necessary know... more The goal of an undergraduate engineering education is to provide students with the necessary knowledge and skills needed to solve real world problems. Creativity and critical thinking are two abilities essential for success in the workplace, and are highly sought after by employers. However, there is evidence of decreasing creativity and critical thinking in senior engineering students. This study sought to understand if freshman engineering students are measurably more creative, but less capable of critical thinking, than senior undergraduate engineering students. Creativity and critical thinking were measured using the Test for Creative Thinking-Drawing Production (TCT-DP) and the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (WGCTA), respectively. The data suggest that freshman engineering students were significantly more creative than senior engineering students. However, senior engineering students were found to be no better at critical thinking than their freshman counterparts. When compared to normative data, the senior engineering students underperformed significantly compared to the general population of senior college students. With study limitations in mind, these findings may suggest that senior engineering students are not only less creative, but also less capable of critical thinking, than when they started their engineering program. If this is indeed the appropriate conclusion, then there is a need to understand the underlying issues driving the decline of creativity and critical thinking in engineering undergraduate students.
This research explores creativity and critical thinking skills in undergraduate engineering stude... more This research explores creativity and critical thinking skills in undergraduate engineering students. The study undertook two experiments in order to gather a better understanding of several factors regarding the interactions between students' creative abilities and the effects of the undergraduate engineering curriculum. Experiment 1 focused on the differences in creative and critical thinking skills in freshman versus senior undergraduate engineering students. Experiment 2 centered on the variation in the effects of long-term versus short-term creativity training on senior engineering students. Creative skill was measured using the Test for Creative Thinking-Drawing Production (TCT-DP) developed by Urban and Jellen (2010). Measurements for critical thinking utilized the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Assessment
The goal of an undergraduate engineering education is to provide students with the necessary know... more The goal of an undergraduate engineering education is to provide students with the necessary knowledge and skills needed to solve real world problems. Creativity and critical thinking are two abilities essential for success in the workplace, and are highly sought after by employers. However, there is evidence of decreasing creativity and critical thinking in senior engineering students. This study sought to understand if freshman engineering students are measurably more creative, but less capable of critical thinking, than senior undergraduate engineering students. Creativity and critical thinking were measured using the Test for Creative Thinking-Drawing Production (TCT-DP) and the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (WGCTA), respectively. The data suggest that freshman engineering students were significantly more creative than senior engineering students. However, senior engineering students were found to be no better at critical thinking than their freshman counterparts. When compared to normative data, the senior engineering students underperformed significantly compared to the general population of senior college students. With study limitations in mind, these findings may suggest that senior engineering students are not only less creative, but also less capable of critical thinking, than when they started their engineering program. If this is indeed the appropriate conclusion, then there is a need to understand the underlying issues driving the decline of creativity and critical thinking in engineering undergraduate students.
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