Motivational Aspects of Creativity in Students and Architects: Implications for Education

The research was concerned with the study of motivation for creativity. The goal was to assess motivation for creativity in design students based on the Cognitive Orientation theory which defines motivation as a function of a set of themes identified as relevant for creativity. It was expected to find differences in the scores of the themes between more creative and less creative students, as assessed by the students themselves, the architects, and the design studio teachers. Participants were 52 architectural students who were administered a design task, and a questionnaire about the Cognitive Orientation of Creativity (COQ-CR). The independent variables were the scores of the themes for motivation obtained from the COQ-CR, and the dependent variables were design creativity as assessed by design students, expert architects, and design instructors. Findings support the validity of the COQ-CR for assessing motivation in creativity and of the cognitive motivational approach to creativity. The results showed which attitudes and personality tendencies promote creativity. Significant differences in regard to several motivational themes were found between more creative and less creative students in the three groups of evaluators. Themes characterizing the more creative students were: readiness to make efforts and invest in the design task, willingness to use talent to achieve originality, freedom to apply individual criteria, and delve into the unknown. These findings suggest important implications for improving design education which are discussed in the paper.