A Critical Review of Measures of Innovativeness

Understanding, evaluating, and promoting individual innovativeness is a critical step in cultivating engineering leaders for the future. As a means of evaluating the gaps in current research related to innovativeness assessment, this paper analyzes ten measures and models of innovativeness through two lenses: (1) their internal vs. external point of reference (i.e., attribute vs. action); and (2) their relationship to key elements of cognitive function (i.e., cognitive level, style, and affect). From this review, it is clear that a comprehensive, rigorously validated psychometric instrument does not yet exist to assess the aptitudes, skills, knowledge, personal traits, and behaviors that are indicative of an innovative engineer. This work highlights the potential for such an instrument to help transform engineering education by enhancing student insights about innovation across programs.