Finding creativity in the extrinsically motivated environment of architecture students

Abstract

ABSTRACTResearchers have found both that rewards decrease creativity and that rewards such as money/pay increase creativity. Higher education arts and STEM faculty acknowledge that their environment is often a pedagogical transmission system in which students are given final stress-evoking exams which typically result in little creativity growth and feedback on creativity goals. Given the dominant focus of educators and students on grade-based extrinsic rewards, we focus on how the main curriculum ‘capital’, namely grades, is affecting creativity in architecture students. To measure creativity as product, design projects of freshmen architecture students were assessed for creativity using the Consensual Assessment Technique. To measure motivation, we used Amabile’s Workplace Preference Inventory. We found that even with a schedule of formative assessments, extrinsic motivation caused students to focus on technical more than creative skills. We suggest that high-level formative assessment with its emphasis on developing intrinsic motivation may improve creativity skills in architecture students.