Developing Instrumentation for Assessing Creativity in Engineering Design

A perceived inability to assess creative attributes of students' work has often precluded creativity instruction in the classroom. The Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT) has shown promise in a variety of domains for its potential as a valid and reliable means of creativity assessment. Relying upon an operational definition of creativity and a group of raters experienced in a given domain, the CAT offers the field of engineering education an assessment method that has demonstrated discriminant validity for dimensions of creativity as well as for technical strength and aesthetic appeal. This paper reports on a web-based adaptation of the CAT for rating student projects developed during a weeklong engineering camp. Images of resulting scale models, technical drawings, and poster presentation materials were displayed on a website which was accessed by a team of seven independent raters. Online survey software featuring a series of Likert-type scales was used for ratings. The raters viewed project images on larger computer screens and used iPads to input their assessments. This effort extended the accessibility of the CAT to raters beyond limitations of geographic location.