In order to face the new challenge of engineering practice increasingly being characterized as highly collaborative and innovative process, the issue ‘how to develop engineering students’ creativity in teamwork’ has been paid increasingly attention to in engineering education research. Under this background, the PhD project “Group Creativity Development in Engineering Education in PBL Environment” was started from December in 2008, and expected to be finished in four years.
Problem and project based learning (PBL) have been one solution to prepare the new engineers in for facing the new challenges. Aalborg University in Denmark, with a comprehensive PBL model in engineering education, is the main research context of this project. Based on this model, this project takes a departure of socio-culture view to group creativity in learning, which is understood by socio-constructivist approach. Studies on how group creativity development is influenced by learning environment will be explored and discussed. Multiple methods included quantitative research and qualitative research will be employed. Data will be collected from questionnaires, interviews, and observations carried out with the engineering students groups and their supervisors in PBL environment.
Both the theoretical and empirical research in this project will contribute to research and methodologies in fields such as learning theory, engineering education, creativity, and PBL. The findings will also facilitate new approaches to group creativity development in engineering education practice.