Creativity and Design: Creativity's New Definition and Its Relationship to Design

Abstract

Creativity is often defined in ways that are neither useful nor operationalizable. We proposed a new definition for creativity that incorporates the Skills-Rules-Knowledge model of Rasmussen (1983). We then examine the tests of creativity and real world design problems alongside each other with this new definition in mind. Participants completed six different creativity tests, including the design problems. The tests were scored on the basis of five domains of creativity. Answers to questions an individual had seen previously were not included in data analysis. We expect to find that all measures of creativity correlate weakly with each other, and spatial, nonentrenchment, and original types of creativity correlate more highly with design than other types, providing further evidence for the importance of creativity for designers and engineers.