Investigating the Relationship Between Students’ Creative Self-efficacy and Their Creative Outcomes

This paper examines the relationship between creative self-efficacy and creative outcomes for students participating in an engineering summer camp at a major research institution. The case has been made for an increased emphasis on creativity in technology and engineering education yet, a perceived inability to assess creativity in students’ work coupled with a lack of research in this area has prevented the inculcation of instructional strategies promoting creativity in STEM classrooms. In order to identify instructional strategies that help promote creativity in design, it is important to examine the relationship between students’ creative self-efficacy and their creative outcomes as measured by the Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT). High school students participating in a weeklong engineering summer camp engaged in an engineering design challenge that produced a physical and/or working model. Images of the resulting models, technical drawings, and poster presentation materials were displayed on a website which was accessed by a team of nine independent expert raters. Creative outcomes were evaluated using a web-based version of the CAT as measured by the expert raters. Online survey software featuring a series of Likert-type scales was used for ratings. The raters viewed project images on larger computer screens and used iPads to input their assessments. Student participants also completed a self-reporting creative selfefficacy inventory scale. Using nonparametric bivariate correlation researchers investigated the relationship of creative outcomes and creative self-efficacy. Results of the study found no association between students’ self-efficacy and their creative outcomes. This study also reported on the inter-rater reliability of the web-based version of the CAT and its discriminant validity. Results proved that the web-based version of the CAT is a valid and reliable means of measuring student’s creative outcomes. The results and implications for K-12 technology and engineering education are discussed in this report.