Creatvity in Project Work: Students' Perceptions and Barriers

In this paper, we will present case study results from a cross-disciplinary education named Medialogy, which is taught in the Technical and Science Faculty at Aalborg University. The aim of Medialogy is to facilitate creativity within technical solutions, and thus the intention of this paper is to answer the following: What is the Medialogy students’ perception of creativity and in which part of the process of problem solving do they view themselves as being creative? In Medialogy, the education explicitly focuses on the little-c creativity and communicates the everyday life and evolutionary creativity to the students. The Medialogy students also perceive creativity as the little-c creativity that contains something interpersonal and intrapersonal, and by means of which products can be developed. They do not regard creativity as focusing on interaction and social context. They perceive that they are creative during all stages in the project work. However, it is also significant that the Medialogy students believe that they are more creative in the beginning of their projects and during the design and implementation stages, whereas the analysis is a less creative part. In general, the Medialogy students request further tools for creativity as well as more support for the creative process from the supervisors.