Creativity Enhancement via Engineering Graphics: Conceptual Design Blending Approach

This research paper reports on an experimentally designed study that investigates whether Conceptual Design Blending (CDB), a new pedagogical approach to engineering graphics instructions, facilitates creativity in engineering graphics students. The demand for curiosity, creative thinking, and innovation is on the rise in workplace with the annual export of an estimated $30 billion in the creative industries. There is hardly any industry or field that does not promote some sort of creativity, and the field of engineering is of no different. Innovative abilities and creative motivation are regarded as essential qualities in engineering profession due to the growing scope of challenges and complexities in the 21st century technologies. Despite the increasing demand for creativity, the importance of developing and implementing creativity-enhanced curriculum is often overlooked in the traditional engineering curriculum. Traditional engineering graphics instruction requires students to replicate existing objects, drawings or models, providing little scope for preparing students to execute their own ideas. The concept of CDB is derived from existing literature on conceptual blending and bisociation. In CDB practice, students integrate features of two or more pre-existing designs to create new design. The results of the study indicate a significant effect of CDB on students’ creativity compared to conventional instruction