Curriculum Experience and Learning Outcomes for Creativity Competence: Empirical Survey of Undergraduates in the Engineering Domain

Abstract

In the last decades, creativity has been advocated as a key learning process in the engineering domain to advance college students’ abilities in technology and science. Creative education becomes a mantra which is enhanced by educators, politicians, employees, teachers, professors, and students. Creativity competency is viewed as a crucial solution to face the challenges of industrial promotion, human capital investments, and future societal strategies and overcome the social, economic, and educational problems. College students’ competency on creativity represent a series of attributes, behaviors, knowledge, and abilities required for successful learning performance in the engineering domain. This paper discusses on the results of an empirical study on college students’ competences in the engineering domain and their self-evaluation on their perception of creativity and creativity performance. Universities are strongly expected to provide learning opportunities that foster and nurture creativity for students, hence creative education in engineering is an ongoing critical mission for both educational institutes and learners. The research was conducted through a testing questionnaire by theoretical literature review and focus group interviews with experts in engineering and education fields. The samples are tested by the instrument and there were 307 valid samples for analysis. The statistical method includes means, , and the structural equation model. The curriculum experience is the strongest correlation value (r=.55) to affect creativity achievements. The learning styles have an obvious influence on school environments (r=.44), and school environments are shown the same value (r=.45) to curriculum experience. The self-evaluation by students demonstrates that school environmental improvement remains a key agenda for universities to be aware of in developing creative plans and managements for students. The engineering domain is specialized though its professions in the logics of learning along side of maker spirits, and this study leads us to have a clear observation among the various factors which influenced the educational plan or projects for college students. The conclusion provides suggestions for future empirical study and educational plans.