Abstract

Today`s society is increasingly opposed to wicked problems, such those concerning social, health or environmental issues. To handle these complex challenges in a holistic and sustainable way we need more innovations to deal with their multiple impact. D.schools have developed a specific human-centered training that enables students to deal with wicked problems (Rittel, 1973) and to come up with innovative ideas for these type of problems. The educational goal is to enable students via a design thinking process to become future innovators. We suppose that an important element of the education is to address the student´s creative self-efficacy. Our observation at the Potsdam and Stanford d.schools shows evidence that creative self-efficacy can be mediated by methods, trained tools and via specific settings, such as working within multidisciplinary teams in an open space, etc.. We surmise that creative self-efficacy is a cornerstone for the personality of a future innovator. In brief, building on Bandura, creative self-efficacy refers to one’s own believe in his creative abilities. Without this belief we cannot even try to ideate, develop or implement a service or product, nor will we innovate. To check in a quantitative way if creative self-efficacy is really significantly addressed in d.school training we measured this skill at D-school Potsdam with a nine items questionnaire. In this paper, we discuss the results of a longitudinal study over eleven months. The aim is to gain insights into whether d.school education adresses creative self-efficacy, and if so,, are there changes regarding student´s creative self-efficacy with a design thinking education at the School of Design Thinking in Potsdam (D-school)? With this aim in mind, this study is a first step on this promising way to contribute to the discussion on how to train a future innovator.

Keywords

design thinking, design thinking education, D.schools Potsdam and Stanford, creative self-efficacy, questionnaire

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Jul 1st, 12:00 AM

Creative Self-Efficacy as a Cornerstone for an Innovator`s Personality

Today`s society is increasingly opposed to wicked problems, such those concerning social, health or environmental issues. To handle these complex challenges in a holistic and sustainable way we need more innovations to deal with their multiple impact. D.schools have developed a specific human-centered training that enables students to deal with wicked problems (Rittel, 1973) and to come up with innovative ideas for these type of problems. The educational goal is to enable students via a design thinking process to become future innovators. We suppose that an important element of the education is to address the student´s creative self-efficacy. Our observation at the Potsdam and Stanford d.schools shows evidence that creative self-efficacy can be mediated by methods, trained tools and via specific settings, such as working within multidisciplinary teams in an open space, etc.. We surmise that creative self-efficacy is a cornerstone for the personality of a future innovator. In brief, building on Bandura, creative self-efficacy refers to one’s own believe in his creative abilities. Without this belief we cannot even try to ideate, develop or implement a service or product, nor will we innovate. To check in a quantitative way if creative self-efficacy is really significantly addressed in d.school training we measured this skill at D-school Potsdam with a nine items questionnaire. In this paper, we discuss the results of a longitudinal study over eleven months. The aim is to gain insights into whether d.school education adresses creative self-efficacy, and if so,, are there changes regarding student´s creative self-efficacy with a design thinking education at the School of Design Thinking in Potsdam (D-school)? With this aim in mind, this study is a first step on this promising way to contribute to the discussion on how to train a future innovator.

 

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