Challenges to and Development of Innovation Discovery Behaviors Among Engineering Students

Innovation is the process of developing novel and functional products, processes, and systems that appropriately address key user needs. As the role of innovation in engineering has grown, engineering educators have become increasingly focused on preparing engineering students to meet innovative challenges. Innovation discovery behaviors as described in The Innovator’s DNA (questioning, experimenting, networking, and observing) represent four critical behavioral tendencies that can aid engineers during the innovation process, especially in identifying unmet needs and pursuing innovative solutions. In this study, we assessed the behavioral tendencies of 162 engineering students and compared them to an established sample of 382 professional innovative entrepreneurs. When compared to expert innovators, students scored lower on questioning and networking. Overall, students scored lower on networking compared to the three other behaviors. We also interviewed a sample of nine engineering students from the pool of survey respondents in order to gauge the challenges they face in employing these behaviors in an engineering setting. Results indicated that students face critical challenges in each discovery behavior along themes of educational context, individual mindset, lack of skill/expertise, and lack of perceived utility of the behavior. Implications of these findings for improving engineering students’ innovative behaviors are explored.