Creative Confidence Research Articles

Designing pedagogical change: Fostering creativity in communication design education by removing grades

This article examines the deliberations and actions of a group of communication design educators in replacing discretionary grading in eight core units of a design course with a combination of pass/fail grading, rich formative feedback and a reinvigorated studio environment. The changes sought to better focus students on their creative process and improve their awareness of their acquisition of attributes, skills and knowledge along the path to becoming work-ready graduates. The traditional studio model of graphic design education approaches student learning through immersion in practice, imagining novice designers absorbing abilities and dispositions through experimentation and proximity to discipline experts and peers. If this model ever truly operated in Australia’s design schools, it has been eviscerated by the massification, marketization and rationalization of tertiary education since the early 1990s. Australian design education now operates with significantly reduced contact hours, tightly scheduled classes and standardized administrative, classroom and assessment practices that do not effectively model professional practice and limit students’ development of creative confidence. Another barrier to fostering students’ design acumen is their frequent fixation on grades as markers of success. We looked to removing grades to revitalize students’ flagging creative ambitions within the constraints of a tertiary education system we could not change. In stressing that a move to pass/fail grading is not an action to be taken lightly, we discuss our research into its advantages and disadvantages, the integral reconceptualization of learning and teaching approaches required to make the change and the challenges in implementation. This included understanding how students and staff interacted in the studio, their emotional and philosophical attachment to graded assessment, the effort required to communicate the changes to staff and students and developing resources to combat the fragmentation of the educational experience, which risks stripping change of its meaning and purpose.

Design thinking mindset: scale development and validation

ABSTRACT Expectations from Higher Education institutions are increasing towards the education of professionals able to face complex societal issues. In this context, traditional thinking is losing ground, and scholars agree on the importance of promoting a Design Thinking (DT) Mindset in educational settings to address wicked problems. However, an explanation of and measurement for the DT mindset still needs to be adequately developed. We developed and validated a scale to measure DT mindset to fill this gap. After a comprehensive literature review, quantitative research was performed on two samples of professionals (N = 151) and students (N = 201). We employed confirmatory factor analysis, which yielded a 31-item scale based on ten dimensions. Overall, this study supports the conceptualization and operationalization of the DT mindset as a second-order factor that reflects uncertainty and risk, empathy, holistic thinking, collaboration and diversity, learning orientation, experimentation, critical questioning, abduction, creative confidence, and impact. Our findings advance knowledge that facilitates new research paths and has practical implications for educational and management fields.

Lawyers' creative confidence and thinking ability: the significance of design thinking in legal education

Lawyers' creative confidence and thinking ability: the significance of design thinking in legal education

Understanding the Development of a Design Thinking Mindset During a Biomedical Engineering Third-Year Course.

As students gain more experience with design concepts, they should progress from novice to expert design thinkers. The purpose of this research was to identify the constructs of growth in design thinking (DT) over short- (one weekend) and long-term (10weeks) design challenges. A DT mindset questionnaire was completed by students in a third-year undergraduate biomedical design course at the beginning of the course, after a one-weekend design challenge, and on completion of the course. After the short design challenge, an improvement in 15 of the 19 constructs was observed relative to baseline. Six of these constructs: mindfulness and awareness of the process, embracing risk, abductive thinking, envisioning new things, creative confidence, and optimism to make an impact, were sustained over the course of the semester indicating that a prolonged period of experiential learning can maintain short-term gains in DT. Three of the constructs: holistic views (considering the problem as a whole), diversity, and curiosity showed improvement following the short-term design challenge,then deterioration suggesting that situational circumstances are significant contributors to these constructs of DT. DT generally improves with the opportunity to collaborate, communicate, and design for a specific outcome. However, situational factors including team diversity, instructor expertise, dedicated time for team collaboration, and prior experiences can affect changes in the DT skillset.

Accepting the Challenge: Helping Schools Get Smarter about Supporting Students' Creative Collaboration and Communication in a Changing World.

Although the purpose of schools can be (and has been) debated, one common goal that most people agree upon is that schools can and should play a role in preparing young people for the complexities of the future. This goal is somewhat paradoxical in that the future is unknown. So how might schools prepare young people for the unknowable? The prototypical response has been to design learning experiences based on what is already known in the hope that the knowledge, skills, and experiences in school will be durable enough to equip students for navigating the complexities of the problems they will encounter in the future. Consequently, most of what students learn in schools is predetermined. Although we recognize that some of these experiences can be beneficial for helping students in the future, we assert in this concept paper that schools can (and need to) get smarter about the kinds of educational experiences that students engage with if we are to prepare them for addressing the uncertainty of complex problems that they face now and into the future. More specifically, we open this concept paper by briefly discussing the prototypical curricular experience that schools provide young people and how these experiences sometimes fall short in providing students with the opportunities, experience, and confidence necessary to creatively engage with, resolve, and communicate about their experiences addressing complex problems. We then introduce a collaborative creative curricular experience called Journalistic Legacy Challenges (JLC). JLCs can support students in learning how to identify, address, document and communicate about complex problems that can make a difference in their communities and in their own and others' lives. The experiences offered by JLCs differ from prototypical learning experiences because they require young people to identify problems that matter to them, collaborate with skilled others to address those problems, develop their creative confidence, and learn how to use journalistic learning to document and communicate about their work to broader audiences.

Constructing Creative Confidence with LEGO(R) Serious Play(R)

Creativity and innovative decision-making are among the most desired traits for leaders today. How does one develop these traits to meet the challenges facing the workplace? One answer is through building a mindset of creative confidence. This study explores the use of Lego® Serious Play® (LSP) to inspire the mindset of creative confidence in individuals. Findings affirm the need for the “other” in the creative process, expose increased levels of perspective-taking among participants, and suggests that divergent thinking can be taught. All positioning LSP as a tool for exercising the mental muscle known as creative confidence.

Cultivating a Design Thinking Mindset in Educationally Disadvantaged Students Using a Design-based Activity

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, as an educational policy, provides opportunities for students to learn these disciplines in more integrated ways than traditional methods. This can be pedagogically accomplished via a design-based approach where students engage collaboratively in solving engineering problems using various domains of knowledge and skills. In this pedagogical process, design thinking is vital. However, little is known about whether students develop this kind of thinking and its mindset when engaging in design-based activities. The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of a design-based activity on design thinking. Participants included 18 ninth-grade students in a small rural school. The data were collected using a Likert-scale questionnaire before and after the design-based activity, in combination with classroom observations and focus group interviews with the students. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to analyse the quantitative data and a thematic analysis method was utilised for the qualitative data. The results indicate that the students were significantly more comfortable with solving engineering problems, even though other aspects of design thinking mindset (e.g., user empathy, collaboratively working with diversity, orientation toward learning, and creative confidence) were not significantly different. These results are discussed based on the enacted nature of the activity.

Creative Self‐Efficacy and Metacognitive Feelings as Sources of Information when Generating, Evaluating, and Selecting Creative Ideas: A Metacognitive Perspective

ABSTRACTIn one study, we examined the relationships between pre‐task creative self‐efficacy, post‐task creative confidence, self‐rated and judges‐rated creativity evaluations, metacognitive feelings, and idea selection under a metacognitive framework. Four hundred and fourteen college students were asked to complete a divergent thinking problem in the domain of marketing and completed several questionnaires measuring pre‐task creative self‐efficacy, post‐task creative confidence, idea evaluation and selection, and metacognitive feelings. Independent judges evaluated the creativity of each idea generated and ranked ideas from the most to the least creative. Results showed positive relationships between pre‐task creative self‐efficacy and post‐task creative confidence, self‐ and judges‐rated creativity evaluations and metacognitive feelings. In addition, metacognitive feelings and self‐rated creative evaluations predicted post‐task confidence. We also observed evidence for positive connections between metacognitive feelings and self‐rated evaluations and greater probability of choosing the first idea brought to mind as the best idea than what was expected by chance. The implications of the results were discussed.

Design Thinking Approach: A New Perspective in Education

Design thinking is a way to understand the tough challenges and solve them, which totally focuses on rapid prototype solutions and learning from mistakes. It is an iterative or non-linear process of thinking which is backed by multiple strategies and methods. In education, design thinking curriculum involves students and teachers in real-world problem solving. This paper is an attempt to highlight how design-thinking approach can be successfully implemented through five modes: empathise, define, ideate, prototype and test. This paper is based on design thinking curriculum implemented in Dr. SNS College of Education which involves students and teachers in real-world problem solving. Hence it is concluded that design thinking approach emphasizes on the development of students’ creative confidence, which is essential in today’s competitive world.

Education “Ever Anew” – A Reflection on the Changing Educational and Professional Reality in Theoretical and Practical Terms

The article aims to make a critical reflection, theoretical and practical, on the school and its functioning in the context of shaping the desired competences among graduates that distinguish them on the labour market. It is a strong impression that young people in the Polish classroom system still play the role of passive recipients of educational services rather than independent creators. Thus, there is a clear need to create high-quality bridges between the areas of pedagogical support for students in their educational and professional choices and the labour market and employers’ space in Poland. Education “ever anew” is the one that continually changes, adjusts its forms and contents to the changing socio-economic reality, creates a new quality focused on an individual and demanding recipient. The introduction takes the form of a brief reflection on the current dynamics of educational and professional life and the competences that will be needed in the future. The next section presents selected contexts and the diversity of the conditions of educational spaces in Poland. The summary contains inspiration for selected aspects of the future of education, such as the concept of learning in cyber parks and the use of “creative confidence” in learning.

Artfully Yours – a case study of Creatively Omnipresent and Versatile Inclusive Design (COVID) by Slam Out Loud

Study level/applicability This study aims to particularly focus on undergraduate and postgraduate early stage level students pursuing business, educational, social work programs. Particularly those studying organizational behavior, leadership and change, curriculum design management, social literacy and courses on 21st Century Skills. Subject area Social entrepreneurship, developmental studies, education, organisational behavior are the subject areas focused in this study. Case overview Purpose – The present case study is an empirical account of the gender perspectives on leadership styles and entrepreneurial mind-set demonstrated by Jigyasa and Gaurav, the co-founders of “Slam Out Loud” (SOL) – an Indian for mission non-profit organisation established in 2017. The authors intend to highlight the challenges faced by SOL during COVID outbreak, to establish community connect in the virtual domain and deliver hyper-personalised socio-emotional learning (SEL) frameworks. Will SOL’s Creatively Omnipresent and Versatile Inclusive Design framework transform Indian child education in the wake of New Education Policy 2020 of India while being sustainable as well as globally competitive? Design/methodology/approach This case study is based on primary data collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews with the founders of SOL. It follows the deductive approach of methodology. The data has been complemented by documentary analysis, including videos, descriptions of internal processes and articles. Practical implications SOL has been strengthening the transformative power of performance and visual arts to help build creative confidence (CC) among children from disadvantaged communities below five years of age. The co-founders have focused on imparting life skills such as communication, critical thinking and empathy in children. The framework adopted by SOL is a combination of six 21st century and SEL skills including creativity, communication, critical thinking, collaboration, self-esteem and empathy. Originality/value A novel Sinha’s 5 × 7 SEL- COVID Matrix. Expected learning outcomes Learning outcomes can only be achieved using case-based pedagogy. Students are encouraged to dive deep into the dilemma. After the case discussion students will be able to define Creative Confidence (CC) with its importance in social development, comprehend the impact of developmental interventions such as Jijivisha Fellowship during COVID 19 and post COVID 19, understand servant leadership and its impact in the management, analyse how servant leadership accelerates social efficacy in the social enterprises, illustrate the novel 5 × 7 SEL-COVID framework for educators, create and evaluate their hyper-personalised SEL framework curriculum. Social implications The SOL initiative is well aligned with the National Education Policy introduced in India in 2020. It will address the issues of not only providing equitable and inclusive education but also enhancing enrolment ratio and reducing dropout rates. Adoption of Arts-based education will also develop Creative Confidence (CC) and improve emotional well-being of children in primary education. Supplementary materials Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Subject code CSS 3: Entrepreneurship

Democratizing Creativity by Enhancing Imagery and Agency: A Review and Meta-Analysis

Creativity is a vital topic of various educational discourses, yet the support it receives within the school system is insufficient. This chapter focuses on four particular ways of making creativity more democratized, salient, and accessible in school settings. We start by exploring the educational benefits of egalitarian theoretical approaches to creativity. Then, we posit that democratization requires an equal focus on the cognitive aspects of creative potential and the motivational sphere of self-perception and self-regulation. Third, analyzing cognitive characteristics, we pay special attention to creative imagery: an understudied yet critical aspect of creative potential. By meta-analyzing available evidence from interventional studies, we show that there are multiple effective approaches to enhancing creative imagery, so—in a sense—supporting creative potential might be democratized as well by going beyond creativity training. Fourth, and finally, we discuss the possibilities of adapting so-called wise interventions for the educational psychology of creativity. We review available evidence of how to strengthen creative confidence and the perceived value of creativity among students, and how to make their creative self-regulation more effective.

Disposition toward critical thinking and creative confidence beliefs in higher education students: The mediating role of openness to diversity and challenge

Creative thinking and critical thinking are complementary cognitive processes that are important for dealing with complex challenges. The primary aim of this study was to examine the mediating role of openness to diversity and challenge in the relationship between disposition toward critical thinking and creative confidence beliefs in higher education students. Participants were 1,627 students from two universities in Spain (Mondragon Unibertsitatea and Florida Universitària), ranging in age from 17 to 44 years (Mage = 20.35, SD = 2.62; 53.05% female). Results showed not only a direct, positive relationship between critical thinking disposition and students' creative confidence beliefs but also that this relationship was mediated by openness to diversity and challenge. Thus, those students more disposed toward critical thinking are also more open to diversity and challenge and have a stronger creative self-concept. These results highlight the importance of enhancing students' disposition to use critical thinking so as to strengthen their creative self-concept. Higher education institutions also need to develop teaching strategies and contexts that promote students' openness to diversity and challenge as a step towards their becoming active and responsible citizens.

Fostering Creative Confidence with SCD in Interaction Design Education

Creative confidence is a concept that has been popularly linked to design thinking in more generalist interaction design education. Based on an analysis of creative confidence, however, we propose that Speculative and Critical Design practices (SCD) can be a better perspective for developing creative confidence in aspiring designers. We present how we have taught two subsequent SCD courses as part of a short 2-year generalist interaction design master’s programme. Based on the outcome of selected student projects, course evaluations, and personal reflections, we articulate the promises and pitfalls of using SCD to foster creative confidence.

Intellectual risk taking: A moderating link between creative confidence and creative behavior?

Intellectual risk taking: A moderating link between creative confidence and creative behavior?

Design thinking implementation for innovation: An organization's journey to ambidexterity

AbstractImplementing design thinking for innovation (DTI) is seen as a way to balance exploration and exploitation, and thus attain an ambidextrous innovation portfolio. Yet, transitioning to ambidexterity is challenging, and is often met with inertia. So how can managers implement DTI as a path toward ambidextrous innovation? In this article, based on an in‐depth longitudinal case study of a leading Australian property development firm and drawing on rich primary and secondary data collected over four years, we examine how middle managers leveraged DTI to respond to inertia generatively, and how this process helped shift the cognitive frame of the organization toward ambidexterity. In our case, the middle manager implemented three DTI practices—(1) creative problem‐solving, (2) sprint execution, and (3) creative confidence— to transition the organization's cognitive frame from an explorative to exploitative, to ultimately an ambidextrous innovation frame. Our argument is that these DTI practices trigger three generative mechanisms—frame flexibility, co‐optation, and collective sensemaking—to support this transition. Drawing on these insights, we develop a process framework of how different DT practices and related generative mechanisms can be deployed flexibly to adapt to the interim (explorative and exploitative) innovation objectives over time. We argue that freezing the innovation frame in each phase can trigger a generative response to inertia, which enables the organization to transition more radically to an ambidextrous innovation portfolio. We thus contribute to the limited design thinking research on the role of cognition in DTI implementation, and more generally to innovation management and ambidexterity research on how leveraging DTI to achieve an ambidextrous innovation portfolio is an emergent and adaptive process.

MyMachine: Collaboration to build creative confidence

MyMachine is a unique intergenerational collaboration of students who bring to life children's “dream machine” ideas. This multi award‐winning non‐profit is on a mission to impact students, educators, and the world at large.

Self-Regulation in Creative Learning: Agentic Perspective

Abstract Creativity is agentic, and so is learning. People create and learn new things most effectively when they are convinced that they can respond appropriately to the task (creative confidence) and value the activity at hand. This investigation explores the role of the relatively understudied aspect of creative agency: self-regulatory strategies. In a longitudinal study, we tested whether self-regulation strategies, previously found to be essential drivers of academic achievement and learning in general (rehearsal, elaboration, critical thinking, and metacognition), might also support creativity in learning. Specifically, we tested sequential mediation, where creative confidence and self-regulation longitudinally mediated the relationship between creative potential (divergent thinking) and effective application of creative skills to solve problems embedded in school subjects. Our findings confirm that self-regulatory strategies predict providing creative solutions to school tasks (a proxy of creative learning) and mediate the relationship between divergent thinking, creative confidence, and creative learning.

Student engagement and creative confidence beliefs in higher education

The fostering of creativity in higher education has been linked to enhanced professional competences and personal development among students. The main aim of this study was to examine the relationship between student engagement and creative self-concept in undergraduates. The sample comprised 775 students (51.61 % female, 46.32 % male, 2.07 % other) from two Spanish universities, ranging in age from 17 to 43 years (M = 20.78, SD = 2.65). Students from the first and final year of various degree programs completed the National Survey of Student Engagement and a measure of creative self-concept. Results showed a positive relationship between student engagement and creative self-concept, as well as differences by gender, field of study, and academic year with regard to the dimensions of engagement that contributed most to enhanced creative confidence beliefs. The study highlights the importance of ensuring that students in higher education have the opportunity to participate in collaborative learning, meaningful interactions with faculty, higher-order learning, reflective and integrative learning, and high-impact practices. Higher-order learning and reflective and integrative learning appear to be particularly important in the early stages of a degree program, whereas with senior students, greater emphasis should be placed on reflective and integrative learning and high-impact practices.

Using design thinking to cultivate the next generation of female STEAM thinkers

BackgroundCountries around the world have struggled to implement education policies and practices to encourage more female youths to pursue Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). This has resulted in a persistent and sizeable gender gap in science and mathematics subjects in some countries. Using mixed-methods sequential explanatory design, this paper explores an educational intervention—specifically, a 3-day design thinking workshop—in Japan, designed to change female youths’ perceptions regarding STEM topics. Framed using a constructivist approach to learning, the workshops aimed to engender creative confidence, empathy, and global competence among youths.ResultsThe findings show that female youths who participated in the workshop had increased interest in engineering, greater creative confidence, more positive perceptions of STEM, higher levels of empathy and pro-social factors, and a more varied outlook on career options. We argue that this short intervention had a strong influence on the female youths’ mindsets, self-images, and perceptions of STEM.ConclusionThis study provides empirical support that a short intervention can produce positive change in how female youths relate to STEM. In gendered societies, an innovative method like design thinking has the potential to revitalize education curriculum in ways that spur female youths’ confidence and creativity, enabling them to imagine a career in the field of STEM.