The Creative Mindset In Design Education

Abstract

Creativity is an important problem-solving tool in the design context. People who are in design education treat creativity as an important component of their self-identity. Thus, it is imperative to develop and be mindful of creativity in design education. Most traditional design fields focus on creative outcomes that impact revenue, trends, and popularity. However, this current research shows that it is even more important to focus on people’s state of mind (mindsets) and attitude in building their creative ability. Depending on people’s attitudes toward their projects, some design solutions are more creative than others. This research originated from two different types of attitudes and their subsequent outcomes involving students’ mindsets in regard to the decision to be creative in an educational context. The decision to be creative is related to people’s beliefs regarding their psychological traits and abilities, which plays an important role in influencing their own motivation and behavior (Dweck, 1999). According to Dweck’s conceptualization, people hold different beliefs that represent their state of mind and explain their subsequent behavior. Some people perceive their abilities as fixed (fixed mindset: unable to change), while others believe that their abilities are malleable (growth mindset: able to change) (Dweck & Leggett, 1988). This research takes the perspective that the creative mindset is related to a growth mindset toward creativity. The primary research objective of this study is to identify the presence of design students’ creative mindset and how it is manifested in their work. This research also seeks to discover how the creative mindset operates and develops with respect to students’ creative performance by incorporating the concept of the fixed/growth mindset toward creativity. In order to address these purposes, grounded theory was used with a qualitative triangulation. For a good sample selection, the growth mindset concept was applied to define high creative growth mindset students. Throughout semester-long observations and interviews with these high growth mindset students selected from the existing implicit belief survey, the qualitative data established the fact that: 1) The creative mindset involves students’ attitude toward design projects and is manifested as a positive attitude, such as having an open mind and demonstrating readiness at the beginning of their design process; 2) A positive attitude from students’ creative mindset is closely related to learning goals, which is one of the main concepts of the growth mindset; 3) The creative mindset greatly affects the outcome of the design, and more specifically improves one’s design ability, which contributes to student success from a long-term perspective; and 4) The creative mindset can be developed/enhanced through learning. The major findings of this study provide a number of important implications for improving pedagogical strategy, utilizing the concept of the growth mindset within a design education context. Moreover, this study provides directions for future research regarding the creative mindset in design education and suggestions for expanding this study to contribute to other disciplines.