CREATIVITY TRAINING FOR FUTURE ENGINEERS: PRELIMINARY RESULTS OF AN EDUCATIONAL INTERVENTION

Innovation has become one of the 21st century’s primary concerns. The United Nations published a report that explained and promoted the value of a creative economy. Consequently, organisations require more and more innovative behaviors and engineers are among the professionals specifically concerned. As a result, the development of creative skills as part of engineering training proves to be essential. In this article, we will present an academic course designed to develop cognitive abilities related to creativity within an engineering education context. Based on a conceptual framework rooted in cognitive sciences, this course is expected to increase the creative potential of engineers to be. The course was held at École Polytechnique de Montréal (ÉPM), a world renowned engineering school and a pillar in Canada’s engineering community. The course was offered twice in the academic year of 2014-2015 and more than 30 students from the graduate and undergraduate programs participated. This course is based on the hypothesis that developing cognitive abilities linked to creativity like encoding and associative/analytical thinking, will enhance creative potential. Numerous and various pedagogical strategies have been used during the course, such as serious games, observation book, individual and group projects, etc., the development of cognitive abilities being the main objective. The CEDA (Creative Engineering Design Assessment) test was used to measure the students’ ability to improve their creativity potential. Field notes were taken after each of the 15 three-hour sessions to document each activity regarding its contribution to the students’ experience. Results will be presented.