CEDA: A Research Instrument for Creative Engineering Design Assessment

Psychology and engineering faculty developed a new assessment tool to measure creativity in engineering design (Creative Engineering Design Assessment or CEDA). Fifty-eight engineering students (52 men and 6 women) and 59 psychology students (27 men and 32 women) completed the CEDA as well as other general creativity measures (creative personality, creativity temperament, and cognitive risk tolerance). Interrater reliability for the overall CEDA was high ( r = .98). On average, men and women displayed similar levels of creative personality, cognitive risk tolerance, and engineering creativity (CEDA scores). However, the CEDA scores exhibited a cross-over interaction between academic class (engineering and psychology) and gender. Women displayed more creativity temperament. Intertest correlations indicate that the CEDA is different from the other general creativity measures. These results suggest that engineering design creativity may be a specialized skill that needs to be honed in engineering students.