Multidisciplinarity and creativity of engineering and science students
Name
1003858612-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
6.16 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
de6be6df13cf71a8df09a234cd584e24
Author(s)
Oki, Kristi Elena
Advisor(s)
Maria C. Yang.
Date Issued
2017
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
Engineering students must be prepared develop creative solutions to problems that fall at the intersection of multiple disciplines. In order to better understand the role of multidisciplinary learning and creativity within engineering education, this thesis explores the multidisciplinarity of expertise/interest and creativity of college and graduate-level engineering and science students. An online survey was designed to investigate the relationship between creativity and multidisciplinarity of students. Findings from the two creativity tests (Alternate uses and Consequences) revealed a positive correlation between quantity of ideas generated and novelty of ideas. As expected, level of expertise in the engineering and natural sciences disciplines overall was greater than expertise in other disciplines, but interest level was more spread out across disciplines. A substantial correlation between multidisciplinarity of expertise/ interest and creativity was not observed. However, findings based on subpopulations of the student sample suggest the possibility that multidisciplinarity and creativity may be correlated, but the nature of the relationship may differ depending on other demographic factors such as gender, student status (undergraduate vs. graduate), or current field (engineering vs. sciences).
Description
Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 2017.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 57-61).
Subjects
Mechanical Engineering.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Terms of Use
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