Abstract:

In the new degrees of the Bologna framework, creativity competencies have been included among the skills needed by graduate students in engineering. Indeed, creativity is an important feature that allows engineers to provide new innovative designs. Therefore, engineers with creativity capabilities are able to produce more competitive products, open new opportunities and make our industries more profitable. However, the problem that engineering faculties have to face now is how to teach a student to be more creative. Teaching creativity has been studied from the pedagogical point of view since the middle of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, the implementation throughout the different courses of engineering degrees is not clear. The engineering student's perception is that, in the best cases, creativity is relegated to the final degree project. They think that their assessment is focused on their technical knowledge and their skills in using well-known engineering techniques, but new creative ideas to solve open-ended problems is not considered in their curricula. In this paper, a case study is presented encouraging and assessing creativity in engineering students with application to industrial design. A survey of the students’ perception of the process was also performed.

Keywords:

Creativity, industrial engineering, teaching, assessing competencies.