Creativity as a Factor in Persistence and Academic Achievement of Engineering Undergraduates

Abstract

Background To date, there has been little research to establish how creativity relates to engineering student persistence and academic achievement. Purpose This study used creativity to predict engineering student persistence and achievement relative to demographics, academic aptitude, and personality. It further evaluated those predictors for consistency throughout the undergraduate engineering program. Design/Method Participants were entering first‐year engineering students in 2011 and 2012. Academic aptitude was measured by high school rank and SAT scores. Personality was characterized using the Big Five inventory, which measures the traits of Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness. Creativity was assessed using student artifacts on three tasks and a modified creativity questionnaire. Outcome measures were students' persistence and GPA over four years. Multinomic logistic regression and multivariate regression were used to model the relationship between predictor variables and persistence and achievement. Results SAT math, high school rank, and Conscientiousness were predictors of persistence and achievement. Creativity measures did not predict GPA, and creative self‐efficacy was negatively related to engineering student persistence in the major. Conclusions Our results suggest that creativity is not appropriately taught or rewarded in some engineering curricula, and those engineering students who view themselves as highly creative are less likely to graduate in engineering.

Divergent thinking and academic performance of students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder characteristics in engineering

“…Given that some symptoms measured by the ADHD scale are also characteristic of certain normative intellectual styles (i.e., individual differences in the way one approaches tasks and processes information; see Zhang & Sternberg, 2005), the benefits of providing a greater focus on divergent thinking and creativity in engineering education may not be limited to those diagnosed with ADHD. Although engineering GPA was not a significant predictor of divergent thinking in the current study (possibly due to low power), recent research suggests that creativity is not encouraged nor rewarded in traditional engineering programs (e.g., Atwood & Pretz, 2016;Kazerounian & Foley, 2007;Nazzal, 2015).…”

“…Traditional, post-secondary engineering education programs, however, do not seem to reward creative efforts (Atwood & Pretz, 2016;Daly, Mosyjowski, & Seifert, 2014;Kazerounian & Foley, 2007). Kazerounian and Foley (2007) found that although 75 surveyed instructors indicated that they valued creativity, over 400 engineering students at the same university believed that their instructors did not actually value creativity.…”

“…Even when course goals explicitly include fostering innovation, assessment often focuses on abilities more related to convergent thinking (Daly et al, 2014). Atwood and Pretz (2016) found that creative ability was not predictive of first or final year grade point average (GPA) for engineering students, suggesting that it does not play a substantial role in engineering course assessment. Two recent studies (Genco, Hölttä-Otto, & Seepersad, 2012;Sola, Hoekstra, Fiore, & McCauley, 2017) demonstrated that first year students in engineering courses were capable of significantly greater creativity on design and divergent thinking tasks than seniors, suggesting that either more creative students leave engineering programs before their senior year or undergraduate engineering education may actually contribute to a decline in creativity over 4 years of college.…”

An Investigation of the State of Creativity and Critical Thinking in Engineering Undergraduates

“…Several studies demonstrate a lack of creativity in the engineering curriculum (Atwood &Pretz, 2016;Genco, Holtta-Otto, & Conner Seepersad, 2012;Kazerounian & Foley, 2007).…”

Stickiness of Nontraditional Students in Engineering

“…Existing metrics of success in academic programs include sixyear graduation (Carey, 2005;Horn, 2006), eight-semester persistence/attrition (Astin & Astin 1992;Lord et al, 2009;Ohland et al, 2008;Seymour & Hewitt, 1997), and integrative multimeasure metrics that rely on a "blending" of more than one measure as a prediction of student success (Alvord, 2004;Kroc, Howard, & Hull, 1997) as examples . Generally speaking, these measures are used to define not only the success of students, but the success of academic departments (Atwood & Pretz, 2016). Despite the wide use of these metrics in the literature for defining student and disciplinary success, these metrics fail to paint the full picture of success within an academic department, including engineering.…”