Electroencephalogram (EEG) alpha power (8–13 Hz) is a characteristic of various creative task conditions and is involved in creative ideation. Alpha power varies as a function of creativity-related task demands. This study investigated the event-related potentials (ERPs), alpha power activation, and potential machine learning (ML) to classify the neural responses of engineering students involved with creativity task. All participants performed a modified alternate uses task (AUT), in which participants categorized functions (or uses) for everyday objects as either creative, nonsense, or common. At first, this study investigated the fundamental ERPs over central and parietooccipital temporal areas. The bio-responses to understand creativity in engineering students demonstrates that nonsensical and creative stimuli elicit larger N400 amplitudes (−1.107 mV and −0.755 mV, respectively) than common uses (0.0859 mV) on the 300–500 ms window. N400 effect was observed on 300–500 ms window from the grand average waveforms of each electrode of interest. ANOVA analysis identified a significant main effect: decreased alpha power during creative ideation, especially over (O1/2, P7/8) parietooccipital temporal area. Machine learning is used to classify the specific temporal area data’s neural responses (creative, nonsense, and common). A k-nearest neighbors (kNN) classifier was used, and results were evaluated in terms of accuracy, precision, recall, and F1- score using the collected datasets from the participants. With an overall 99.92% accuracy and area under the curve at 0.9995, the kNN classifier successfully classified the participants’ neural responses. These results have great potential for broader adaptation of machine learning techniques in creativity research.
Work in Progress: Assessing Creativity of Alternative Uses Task Responses: A Detailed Procedure
Creativity is the driver of innovation in engineering. Hence, assessing the effectiveness of a curriculum, a method, or a technique in enhancing the creativity of engineering students is no doubt important. In this paper, the process involved in quantifying creativity when measured through the alternative uses task (AUT) is explained in detail. The AUT is a commonly used test for divergent thinking ability, which is a main aspect of creativity. Although it is commonly used, the processes used to score this task are far from standardized and tend to differ across studies. In this paper, we introduce these problems and move towards a standardized process by providing a detailed account of our quantification process. This quantification process takes into consideration four commonly used dimensions of creativity: originality, flexibility, fluency, and elaboration. AUT data from a preliminary case study were used to illustrate how the AUT and the quantification process can be used. The study was performed to understand the effect of the stereotype threat on the creativity of 25 female engineering students. The results indicate that after the stereotype threat intervention, participants generated more diverse and original ideas.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1561660
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10208472
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Abstract -
null (Ed.)Assessing creativity is not an easy task, but that has not stopped researchers from exploring it. Because creativity is essential to engineering disciplines, knowing how to enhance creative abilities through engineering education has been a topic of interest. In this paper, the event related potential (ERP) technique is used to study the neural responses of engineers via a modified alternative uses task (AUT). Though only a pilot study testing two participants, the preliminary results of this study indicate general neuro-responsiveness to novel or unusual stimuli. These findings also suggest that a scaled-up study along these lines would enable better understanding and modeling of neuroresponses of engineers and creative thinking, as well as contribute to the growing field of ERP research in the field of engineering.more » « less
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WIP: Assessing the Creative Person, Process and Product in Engineering Education This evidence-based practice paper provides guidance in assessing creativity in engineering education. In the last decade, a number of vision statements on the future of engineering education (e.g. Educating the Engineer of 2020, the ASCE Body of Knowledge) point to the fact that creativity is essential to engineering innovation; it is regarded as an important attribute in the education of engineers in order to meet the most urgent national challenges and to drive economic growth in the new millennium. Yet studies suggest that engineering students’ creative skills are being left underdeveloped or diminish over the course of their studies, or worse, that students who consider themselves to be creative are being driven away from engineering as a chosen field. On the surface, creativity skills are perceived as difficult to utilize in the engineering classroom, primarily due to the didactic nature of science and engineering instruction. Assessing the product of open ended or ill-structured assignments remains a difficult task as well. This study examines available assessments for creativity that are founded in three of the Four Ps of creativity: person, process, product (the fourth P, press, is not considered in this work.) The intent is to identify verified metrics that can be used to quantify creativity with a particular look to whether the metrics are appropriate for creativity, particularly as they pertain to the science and engineering domains. These metrics are examined for applicability to science and engineering, ease of administration and completion, expertise required to score, cost to administer, and time required to administer. Rather than determining the “best” metrics, this examination will provide guidelines for engineering educators and researchers interested in creativity for selecting appropriate metrics to be used in classrooms and research studies based on metric attributes.more » « less
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Introduction and Theoretical Frameworks Our study draws upon several theoretical foundations to investigate and explain the educational experiences of Black students majoring in ME, CpE, and EE: intersectionality, critical race theory, and community cultural wealth theory. Intersectionality explains how gender operates together with race, not independently, to produce multiple, overlapping forms of discrimination and social inequality (Crenshaw, 1989; Collins, 2013). Critical race theory recognizes the unique experiences of marginalized groups and strives to identify the micro- and macro-institutional sources of discrimination and prejudice (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001). Community cultural wealth integrates an asset-based perspective to our analysis of engineering education to assist in the identification of factors that contribute to the success of engineering students (Yosso, 2005). These three theoretical frameworks are buttressed by our use of Racial Identity Theory, which expands understanding about the significance and meaning associated with students’ sense of group membership. Sellers and colleagues (1997) introduced the Multidimensional Model of Racial Identity (MMRI), in which they indicated that racial identity refers to the “significance and meaning that African Americans place on race in defining themselves” (p. 19). The development of this model was based on the reality that individuals vary greatly in the extent to which they attach meaning to being a member of the Black racial group. Sellers et al. (1997) posited that there are four components of racial identity: 1. Racial salience: “the extent to which one’s race is a relevant part of one’s self-concept at a particular moment or in a particular situation” (p. 24). 2. Racial centrality: “the extent to which a person normatively defines himself or herself with regard to race” (p. 25). 3. Racial regard: “a person’s affective or evaluative judgment of his or her race in terms of positive-negative valence” (p. 26). This element consists of public regard and private regard. 4. Racial ideology: “composed of the individual’s beliefs, opinions and attitudes with respect to the way he or she feels that the members of the race should act” (p. 27). The resulting 56-item inventory, the Multidimensional Inventory of Black Identity (MIBI), provides a robust measure of Black identity that can be used across multiple contexts. Research Questions Our 3-year, mixed-method study of Black students in computer (CpE), electrical (EE) and mechanical engineering (ME) aims to identify institutional policies and practices that contribute to the retention and attrition of Black students in electrical, computer, and mechanical engineering. Our four study institutions include historically Black institutions as well as predominantly white institutions, all of which are in the top 15 nationally in the number of Black engineering graduates. We are using a transformative mixed-methods design to answer the following overarching research questions: 1. Why do Black men and women choose and persist in, or leave, EE, CpE, and ME? 2. What are the academic trajectories of Black men and women in EE, CpE, and ME? 3. In what way do these pathways vary by gender or institution? 4. What institutional policies and practices promote greater retention of Black engineering students? Methods This study of Black students in CpE, EE, and ME reports initial results from in-depth interviews at one HBCU and one PWI. We asked students about a variety of topics, including their sense of belonging on campus and in the major, experiences with discrimination, the impact of race on their experiences, and experiences with microaggressions. For this paper, we draw on two methodological approaches that allowed us to move beyond a traditional, linear approach to in-depth interviews, allowing for more diverse experiences and narratives to emerge. First, we used an identity circle to gain a better understanding of the relative importance to the participants of racial identity, as compared to other identities. The identity circle is a series of three concentric circles, surrounding an “inner core” representing one’s “core self.” Participants were asked to place various identities from a provided list that included demographic, family-related, and school-related identities on the identity circle to reflect the relative importance of the different identities to participants’ current engineering education experiences. Second, participants were asked to complete an 8-item survey which measured the “centrality” of racial identity as defined by Sellers et al. (1997). Following Enders’ (2018) reflection on the MMRI and Nigrescence Theory, we chose to use the measure of racial centrality as it is generally more stable across situations and best “describes the place race holds in the hierarchy of identities an individual possesses and answers the question ‘How important is race to me in my life?’” (p. 518). Participants completed the MIBI items at the end of the interview to allow us to learn more about the participants’ identification with their racial group, to avoid biasing their responses to the Identity Circle, and to avoid potentially creating a stereotype threat at the beginning of the interview. This paper focuses on the results of the MIBI survey and the identity circles to investigate whether these measures were correlated. Recognizing that Blackness (race) is not monolithic, we were interested in knowing the extent to which the participants considered their Black identity as central to their engineering education experiences. Combined with discussion about the identity circles, this approach allowed us to learn more about how other elements of identity may shape the participants’ educational experiences and outcomes and revealed possible differences in how participants may enact various points of their identity. Findings For this paper, we focus on the results for five HBCU students and 27 PWI students who completed the MIBI and identity circle. The overall MIBI average for HBCU students was 43 (out of a possible 56) and the overall MIBI scores ranged from 36-51; the overall MIBI average for the PWI students was 40; the overall MIBI scores for the PWI students ranged from 24-51. Twenty-one students placed race in the inner circle, indicating that race was central to their identity. Five placed race on the second, middle circle; three placed race on the third, outer circle. Three students did not place race on their identity circle. For our cross-case qualitative analysis, we will choose cases across the two institutions that represent low, medium and high MIBI scores and different ranges of centrality of race to identity, as expressed in the identity circles. Our final analysis will include descriptive quotes from these in-depth interviews to further elucidate the significance of race to the participants’ identities and engineering education experiences. The results will provide context for our larger study of a total of 60 Black students in engineering at our four study institutions. Theoretically, our study represents a new application of Racial Identity Theory and will provide a unique opportunity to apply the theories of intersectionality, critical race theory, and community cultural wealth theory. Methodologically, our findings provide insights into the utility of combining our two qualitative research tools, the MIBI centrality scale and the identity circle, to better understand the influence of race on the education experiences of Black students in engineering.more » « less
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To better support engineering students and to create an inclusive and welcoming educational context, it is necessary to reimagine instructional methods and approaches. In contrast to deficit educational models that focus on perceptions of what students lack, asset-based practices focus on how students’ lived experiences can be used to enrich and strengthen their educational experiences. There is a need to support faculty in adopting existing techniques or developing new techniques in undergraduate courses, as most existing literature related to asset-based practices is focused on K-12 settings. Engineering design courses provide an ideal context for asset-based practices because the design process requires a diverse set of knowledge, experiences, and skills. Guided by self-determination theory, an understanding of implicit bias and stereotype threat, and the large existing body of research on asset-based pedagogy, we seek to support engineering student outcomes by empowering faculty with tools and strategies to incorporate asset-based practices in their courses. We are engaged in a three-year project focused on assessing the impact of asset-based practices in engineering design courses a large, public, land-grant, Hispanic-serving institution in the southwestern United States, funded by the NSF IUSE:EDU program. Here, we will summarize the design and results from our professional development for faculty, including theoretical frameworks and evidence guiding our work. We share content from our professional development, summarizing learning objectives, presentation content, and activities. Additionally, we present comments shared by instructors related to our professional development, including common barriers to implementing educational innovations in their courses. Our work will provide insights to practitioners interested in promoting inclusive classroom practices in engineering education and researchers who are translating research to practice, especially through professional development.more » « less
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--35612
