Assessing Creativity Specific to Engineering with the Revised Creative Engineering Design Assessment

BACKGROUND In engineering, creativity is vital for innovation. The revised Creative Engineering Design Assessment (CEDA) also assesses Usefulness, unlike existing tools. PURPOSE (HYPOTHESIS) The primary purpose was to test for convergent validity of the CEDA with other engineering creativity and engineering specific measures. The CEDA was administered with the Purdue Creativity Test (PCT), the Purdue Spatial Visualization Test-Rotations (PSVT-R), and a Systems Test that assessed roller-coaster design functionality. We hypothesized that the CEDA would be moderately related to the PCT and anticipated a slight relationship with the PSVT-R and Systems Test. We also investigated gender differences to follow up on previous research. DESIGN/METHOD Participants were 259 engineering students (221 males and 38 females) in an introductory engineering design two-course sequence who completed the CEDA and PCT (in a cross-sectional design). We analyzed PVST-R scores for Fundamentals of Engineering I and Systems Test scores for Fundamentals of Engineering II. RESULTS The CEDA showed high inter-rater reliability. The CEDA and the PCT were significantly related to each other and the CEDA was modestly related to the PSVT-R, both demonstrating convergent validity. Male and female engineering students did not significantly differ on the CEDA, PCT, PSVT-R or Systems Test. CONCLUSIONS The CEDA has convergent validity with the PCT, which was normed on engineers in industry (12 years average experience), and with the PVST-R, measuring spatial skills. Findings and previous research suggest that the CEDA is domain specific to engineering. Future CEDA research is needed involving engineers in industry.