Implementing creativity evaluation tools into the concept selection process in engineering education

In design research, creativity assessment methods have been studied to obtain quantitative measurements of design novelty and feasibility for use in the concept selection process. However, little research exists that studies the application and implementation of these tools by engineering students on grade-dependent class projects. In this study, teams of undergraduate engineering design students evaluated their own early product sketches using informal team discussions, a creativity scale and our Tool for Assessing Semantic Creativity (TASC) adjective selection method. The resulting evaluations were compared and contrasted with evaluations obtained from the widely adopted Shah Vargas-Hernandez and Smith (SVS) method and expert ratings. These findings demonstrate that our TASC adjective selection method of evaluating design creativity is tapping into similar constructs of creativity as informal team discussions and expert evaluations. They also indicate that the SVS method does not appear to be evaluating creativity as perceived by engineering design students or experts. The results of this study can be used to understand how students make decisions during the concept selection process and how tools can be developed or implemented in the classroom setting to aid in this process.