Comparing University Design Students' and Tutors' Perceptions of Creativity

This paper explores the perceptions and views of creativity amongst UK-based architecture and product design tutors and design students. This study is an extension of the authors' earlier work that examined a group of design tutors' views on creativity in design in a UK university design education context. The authors adopted a semi-structured interview approach and collected a series of rich insights into how design tutors and design students conceptualize creativity and how both perceive their role in developing creativity. The findings of the research indicate clear differences in the way that design tutors and design students assess their creative potential. Yet, at the same time, they both find it very difficult to define and conceptualize. The results also show that the design students generally acknowledge the role that design tutors play in promoting cultures of creativity in the university design studio, but also stressed the importance of the wider socio-cultural system. Lastly, the research reveals that many aspects of creativity in the university design studio remain shrouded in mystery and this lack of knowledge of creativity and how it facilitates design may well be compromising the education of design students. There is, however, clear interest from both the design tutors and students regarding creativity, and the value of domain-specific versus general notions of the concept of creativity in developing this cognitive skill.