The application of multi-dimensional learning portfolios for exploring the creativity learning behavior in engineering education

Abstract

The main objective of engineering education is to cultivate in students skills demanded by industries. However, those demanded skills largely fall into interdisciplinary experiences related to creative thinking due to emerging competitive markets. Therefore, today's engineering education should design such curriculum that inspires students' critical thinking so as to foster their creativity in order to solve today's sophisticated engineering problems. To achieve this purpose, based on creativity development theory, in this study we design and develop learning portfolio items constructed in a learning system according to learning objectives and teaching strategies of engineering project course. Students participated in learning activities following the instructor's planning and guidance and their learning behaviors to use a learning system were recorded in the database. Those attributes, such as frequency, sequence, and association of learning behavior were identified through a structured arrangement and statistical analysis. In addition, those key learning activities that inspire the students' creativity along with the creativity assessment results were discovered. According to our findings, high creativity students proceeded with active exploration during learning more frequently compared to low creativity students. The data analysis also showed more instances of independent thinking created by high creativity students, which resulted in better problem solving skills. As for the cognitive level, both the low and high creativity students demonstrated that they are able to apply and analyze newly learned information; however, more high creativity students were able to reach Evaluate cognitive level during learning activities.