Fostering creativity in engineering undergraduates

In the present study, an attempt was made to facilitate for engineering undergraduates to come up with innovative ideas by teaching creativity, not simply in a paper and pencil test situation but also in a practical exercise, A total of 64 male engineering undergraduates received three lectures on creativity at the beginning of a course on engineering innovation. Some of them (N = 37) also completed a "creativity" test: TCT-DP (Urban & Jellen, 1996) and were individually counselled on the basis of test scores. A separate control group (N = 21) took the test together with these students, but otherwise did not participate in any way in the study. Upon retesting 6 weeks later the counselled students were more innovative, whereas the control group were simply less inhibited. In addition, machines constructed by the counselled students were more elegant and creative than those of the 27 students who merely attended the lectures. Thus, the training was associated with changes in behaviour not only on the test, but in a practical activity also.