What Influences Student Innovation?
Year: 2012
Editor: Lyndon Buck, Geert Frateur, William Ion, Chris McMahon, Chris Baelus, Guido De Grande, Stijn Verwulgen
Author: Berglund, Anders
Series: E&PDE
Institution: Royal Institute of Technology, KTH, Sweden
Section: Design Methods - Methodical Innovation
Page(s): 167-172
ISBN: 978-1-904670-36-0
Abstract
This paper investigates how elements of the learning environment influence student innovation. In detail, the paper addresses students’ perceived efficacy and their motivation to work in two parallel engineering design projects. Rather than rediscovering evaluation, student perceptions determine a project’s overall efficiency by individual reflection on the effort made. Based on previous research on student efficacy [1], this study takes a student-centric point of view where the self-efficacy is grounded in students’ intrinsic motivation for work. The paper’s principal idea is to investigate how different elements of interaction cause students’ beliefs to shift individually and in groups. A qualitative approach has been used where the results have been collected through structured questionnaires with project participants. Results show that the internal proximity and joint motivation to work have positive influence together with lecturer/coach presence, informative clarity and valuable input. Reported differences clearly separated the teams with several useful features of course analysis to consider for future work.
Keywords: Learning environment, student efficacy, project course, innovation, facilitation