Abstract:

Nowadays, it is known the great prominence of innovation and creativity in the global marketplace, due to innovation is the only mechanism that can modify attitudes and conducts in a substantial way. This means that innovation is where creative thinking, theoretical knowledge, and practical know-how meet to do old and new things in a new manner. To be competitive in modern contexts, design students in higher education are challenged to create innovative products and services, and curricula at universities are oriented to enhance students’ innovation capabilities.

In general terms, despite the relevance of creativity and innovative thinking on the educational agenda in higher education, innovation tends to be a latent construct that has diverse meanings in different contexts. Because of the evidenced failure of many products and services introduced to the marketplace and the enormous design challenges, innovation is difficult to learn, and a diverse range of factors influence the innovation capabilities of design students at universities.

Solving design problems in the classroom requires applying technical knowledge to create different ideas and turn those into commercial solutions. However, researchers in pedagogical sciences evidence that design students and professionals generate concepts with similarity to those with which they find familiarity caused by previous experience or by exposure to existing solutions. Despite the seminal literature focused on the impacts of design thinking upon the performance of students, there is little research in higher education environments, and the relevance of curricula on the innovation capabilities of design students is not well investigated.

In higher education, students have different learning style preferences and professors should consider these styles given the variability in situations among students, evidencing that the role of different cohorts of students and their relationships with professors are topics of great interest. In this paper, we provide a general review of the literature and summarize the main results in relation to the innovation capabilities of design students in higher education. A conceptual framework is used to guide the investigation, its design and analysis. To sum up, this work aims: (1) to investigate the most relevant conducts and attitudes linked to innovation and creativity into some academic activities in the classroom, and (2) to describe the effects of these conducts and attitudes on academic performance of undergraduate design students. Within the context of a presential university in Spain, a method for generating concepts and innovative design thinking and a questionnaire were applied to students to evaluate whether the generational component influences their academic outcomes. Students were asked regarding their experiences and resulting concepts were analysed for originality and commercial feasibility.

The outline of this paper is as follows: first, a section is devoted to the introduction, antecedents, and justification of this research. Second, we describe the background regarding creativity and innovation capabilities of undergraduate design students in Spain. Third, a methodology for exploring this topic in the classroom is exposed in this paper. Fourth, the results and a brief discussion are described and finally, a section is devoted to the conclusions, limitations, and theoretical and managerial implications.

Keywords:

Innovation capabilities, Design students, Creativity, Spain, Higher Education.