Engineering creativity - How to measure it?

CONTEXT Scholars have been interested in sources of creativity and the ways to enhance it for centuries. The domain of human creativity has been extensively researched for over 100 years. Nonetheless, the researchers have neither agreed on the definition of creativity nor on the proper methodologies to measure it (Lubart & Besançon, 2016; Simonton, 2016). Some scholars suggested that creativity means different things in different domains (Baer, 2016; Weisberg, 2006) and argued that the definitions and the means to measure creativity need to be domain specific. PURPOSE Establishing the definition of engineering creativity and devising the criteria and the means to assess it is of utmost importance for the development of engineers for the 21st Century. Unless engineering educators are able to accurately measure creativity skills of their students, they will be unable to establish ways to nurture creativity skills. APPROACH Research literature relevant to creativity in the domain of technology is reviewed in order to establish how creativity is defined and how it is measured in engineering. Legal grounds of patentability and patent authorship are analysed. RESULTS The following definition of creativity for the engineering profession is proposed: "Engineering creativity is the ability to generate novel solution ideas for open-ended problems, ideas that are not obvious to experts in a particular engineering discipline and that are considered by them as potentially useful". It is proposed to measure engineering creativity by engaging subjects in generating ideas for open-ended problems and counting (i) the number of independent ideas proposed by the subject as well as (ii) the breadth of these ideas. It has been posited that the eight dimensions of MATCEMIB (Mechanical, Acoustic, Thermal, Chemical, Electric, Magnetic, Intermolecular and Biological) is the most suitable means to 'count' the breadth of ideas.