CEDA: A research instrument for creative engineering design assessment.

Psychology and engineering faculty developed a new assessment tool to measure creativity in engineering design (Creative Engineering Design Assessment or CEDA). Fifty-eight engineering students (52 men and 6 women) and 59 psychology students (27 men and 32 women) completed the CEDA as well as other general creativity measures (creative personality, creativity temperament, and cognitive risk tolerance). Interrater reliability for the overall CEDA was high (r = .98). On average, men and women displayed similar levels of creative personality, cognitive risk tolerance, and engineering creativity (CEDA scores). However, the CEDA scores exhibited a cross-over interaction between academic class (engineering and psychology) and gender. Women displayed more creativity temperament. Intertest correlations indicate that the CEDA is different from the other general creativity measures. These results suggest that engineering design creativity may be a specialized skill that needs to be honed in engineering students. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Assessing General Creativity and Creative Engineering Design in First Year Engineering Students

Creativity is a vital tool for innovation in engineering. Psychology and engineering faculty developed the Creative Engineering Design Assessment (CEDA) because existing tools are limited. This measure was administered with general creativity measures in 63 engineering (57 males, six females) and 21 non‐engineering (six males, 15 females) students in five week intervals. Inter‐rater reliability showed high consistency overall and between the test and retest administrations. Only engineering males and females significantly differed on the retest. Engineering students with low, medium, and high creative engineering design did not statistically differ in their general creativity, not domain specific to engineering; however, only high scorers were significantly higher on the retest from the other groups. Future research is needed with larger samples.