Creative Confidence and the Arts: Measuring a Potential Contributing Factor to Students' Motivation to Engage in Engineering Creativity
Engineering is well established as a profession which requires complex, open-ended problem solving. Creativity is instrumental in these processes, but graduating engineering students have been found to lack creative thinking skills. In order to engage in creative thinking, students must first be motivated to do so. Creative self-efficacy (or creative confidence) has been tied to increased internal motivation, and involvement in creative arts activities can lead to increased self-efficacy beliefs. This paper will discuss the development of a survey instrument that will be used to investigate the potential correlation between student involvement in creative arts and their internal motivation to engage in engineering creativity.The survey instrument includes 1 open-ended question, a creative arts inventory, and 46 closed-ended questions to measure creative self, creative mindset, and tolerance of fears that hinder creative confidence. Evidence for validity of the instrument is established through the pilot study.