Creativity is increasingly recognized as an important skill for success in the field of engineering, but most traditional, post‐secondary engineering education programs do not reward creative efforts. Failing to recognize creativity or creative efforts can have particularly negative effects for those students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), who may exhibit enhanced divergent thinking ability yet struggle in the traditional educational environment.
This study was conducted to investigate how ADHD characteristics, academic aptitude, and one important component of creativity (divergent thinking) contribute to academic performance in engineering programs and how traditional markers of academic performance and ADHD characteristics predict divergent thinking.
Undergraduate engineering students (
Verbal SAT scores were the only positive predictor of overall GPA and engineering GPA. ADHD characteristics did not significantly predict overall GPA but negatively predicted engineering GPA. ADHD characteristics were the only positive predictor of divergent thinking ability.
ADHD characteristics negatively predict academic performance (i.e., GPA) in engineering programs but are more predictive of divergent thinking ability than traditional markers of academic performance.