Design Thinking and Creativity: An Empirical Study on Their Correlation

doi:10.7176/rhss/12-2-01

Abstract

In the design field, creativity and design thinking are crucial attributes for professional designer. The current study attempts to examine these relationships through an empirical approach. Two studies were reported. In the first study, we found that everyday creativity was correlated with execution, collaboration, reasoning and reflection of design thinking ( r .32 - .35). In addition, scholar creativity was related to ideation ( r = .24) and reasoning and reflection of design thinking ( r = .31). The second study demonstrates that creativity was only related to reasoning and reflection ( r = .30). Furthermore, creative personality was related to reasoning and reflection ( r = .50), ideation ( r = .51), and collaboration ( r = .27). Several limitations were found and implications of studies were discussed. Keywords: Creativity, Design thinking, Design education, Taiwanese undergraduates, MANOVA DOI: 10.7176/RHSS/12-2-01 Publication date: January 31 st 2022

Highlights

Scholars argue that design thinking is an important strategy for an organizational culture of innovation (Sipe, 2020)
Collaboration positively and significantly correlated to execution (r = 0.40). 4.3.2 Group Differences To understand any possible differences in design thinking and creativity between the genders, we used an independent-sample t-test to compare the mean scores of the eight measures
According to zero-order correlation, we found that everyday creativity correlated to execution, collaboration, reasoning and reflection of design thinking (r = 0.32 - 0.35)

Summary

Introduction

Scholars argue that design thinking is an important strategy for an organizational culture of innovation (Sipe, 2020). It is rooted in creative problem-solving (Slater, Dhanasekaran, & Govindarajulu, 2020). Professional designers are often asked to generate creative ideas and solutions to satisfy market demands. Their creative capabilities have become an important asset. Empirical studies on the relationship between design thinking and creativity are scarce and most of them follow a qualitative approach (e.g., Wu, Chen, & Chen, 2012; Yang, 2018). The current study attempts to examine these relationships through the empirical approach

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Conclusion