A Critical Review of Measures of Innovativeness
- Conference
- Location
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Indianapolis, Indiana
- Publication Date
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June 15, 2014
- Start Date
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June 15, 2014
- End Date
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June 18, 2014
- ISSN
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2153-5965
- Conference Session
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Entrepreneurship & Engineering Innovation Research Technical Session 7
- Tagged Division
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Entrepreneurship & Engineering Innovation
- Page Count
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19
- Page Numbers
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24.41.1 - 24.41.19
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--19933
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/19933
- Download Count
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693
Paper Authors
Jessica Menold Pennsylvania State University, University Park
Jessica Menold is a doctoral student in mechanical engineering at Pennsylvania State University. As an undergraduate at Penn State, she was heavily involved with a STEM outreach program called the engineering ambassadors. She currently works as a graduate mentor for entrepreneurial student groups on campus as a part of Penn State’s Lion Launch Pad team. Her interests in entrepreneurs as well as engineering education has led her to the study of innovation in engineers, working with Dr. Kathryn Jablokow. Her current research focuses on understanding innovation in engineering professionals and students, and she is collaborating with a team at Purdue to create a tool to measure innovativeness among engineers.
Kathryn Jablokow Pennsylvania State University
Dr. Kathryn Jablokow is an associate professor of mechanical engineering and engineering design at Penn State University. A graduate of Ohio State University (Ph.D., electrical engineering), Dr. Jablokow’s teaching and research interests include problem solving, invention, and creativity in science and engineering, as well as robotics and computational dynamics. In addition to her membership in ASEE, she is a senior member of IEEE and a Fellow of ASME. Dr. Jablokow is the architect of a unique, 4-course module focused on creativity and problem-solving leadership, and is currently developing a new methodology for cognition-based design. She is one of three instructors for Penn State’s Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Creativity, Innovation, and Change, and she is the founding director of the Problem Solving Research Group, whose 50+ collaborating members include faculty and students from several universities, as well as industrial representatives, military leaders, and corporate consultants.
Senay Purzer
Purdue University, West Lafayette
orcid.org/0000-0003-0784-6079
Senay Purzer is an assistant professor in the School of Engineering Education and the director of assessment research for the Institute for P-12 Engineering Research and Learning (INSPIRE) at Purdue University. In 2011, she received a NSF CAREER award, which examines how engineering students approach innovation. She is also a NAE/CASEE New Faculty Fellow. She is an editorial board member for the Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education (JPEER) and the Journal of Science Education. Purzer conducts research on the assessment of difficult and often vaguely defined constructs such as innovativeness, information literacy, engineering design, and data-driven decision making. Purzer has M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in science education from Arizona State University. She also has a B.S. degree in physics education and a B.S.E. in engineering.
Daniel Michael Ferguson Purdue University, West Lafayette
Daniel M. Ferguson is the recipient of three NSF awards for research in engineering education and a research associate at Purdue University. Prior to coming to Purdue he was an assistant professor of entrepreneurship at Ohio Northern University. Before assuming that position he was associate director of the Inter-professional Studies Program and a senior lecturer at Illinois Institute of Technology, and involved in research in service learning, assessment processes, and interventions aimed at improving learning objective attainment. Prior to his University assignments he was the Founder and CEO of the EDI Group, Ltd. and the EDI Group Canada, Ltd, independent professional services companies specializing in B2B electronic commerce and electronic data interchange. The EDI Group companies conducted syndicated market research, offered educational seminars and conferences, and published the Journal of Electronic Commerce. He was also a vice president at the First National Bank of Chicago, where he founded and managed the bank’s market-leading professional Cash Management Consulting Group, initiated the bank’s non-credit service product management organization and profit-center profitability programs, and was instrumental in the breakthrough EDI/EFT payment system implemented by General Motors. Dr. Ferguson is a graduate of Notre Dame, Stanford, and Purdue universities and a member of Tau Beta Pi.
Matthew W. Ohland
Purdue University and Central Queensland University
orcid.org/0000-0003-4052-1452
Matthew W. Ohland is a professor of engineering education at Purdue University and a Professorial Research Fellow at Central Queensland University. He has degrees from Swarthmore College, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and the University of Florida. His research on the longitudinal study of engineering students, team assignment, peer evaluation, and active and collaborative teaching methods has been supported by over $12.8 million from the National Science Foundation and the Sloan Foundation, and his team received Best Paper awards from the Journal of Engineering Education in 2008 and 2011, and from the IEEE Transactions on Education in 2011. Dr. Ohland is past chair of ASEE’s Educational Research and Methods Division and a member the Board of Governors of the IEEE Education Society. He was the 2002–2006 president of Tau Beta Pi.
Abstract
A Critical Review of Measures of InnovativenessWith the constant drive for innovation in our economy and the increasing demand to graduatestudents who are more innovative contributors to society, it is little wonder that interest indefining and measuring individual innovativeness is growing. Attempts date back to the 1970s,with some scholars focusing on a general definition and assessment of innovativeness, whiledomain-specific work has tended to focus on consumer behavior. Somewhat surprising is the factthat efforts to define and measure engineering innovativeness as a construct have been few andfar between. Our research aims to rectify this situation through an extended project focused onidentifying and assessing the key factors of engineering innovativeness. Specifically, our workinvolves the development of a socially constructed definition of engineering innovativeness, thevalidation of an instrument (or suite of instruments) to measure engineering innovativeness, andthe creation of a benchmark database of engineering innovativeness among engineering studentsand practitioners.To support our efforts, we conducted a critical review of existing instruments designed to assessinnovative characteristics and/or behaviors in individuals, considering both generalinnovativeness and engineering innovativeness in particular. As examples, assessments ofgeneral innovativeness include the 20-item Innovation subscale (JI) of the Jackson PersonalityInventory [3], Hurt et al.’s Innovativeness Scale (IS) [2], and Kirton’s Adaption-InnovationInventory (KAI) [4]. For measuring engineering innovativeness, Fisher et al.’s study of mentalmodels about the personal attributes, skills, processes, and environments required for innovationis enlightening [1], along with Ragusa’s Engineering Creativity and Propensity for InnovationIndex (EPCII), which is based on ten theoretical constructs that have been partially validatedthrough a pilot study [5].Our critical review of these and other measures of innovativeness includes an analysis of theirinternal/external point of reference (attribute vs. action), the cognitive component they address(level, style, affect, or resource), and their relevance to different stages of the innovation process.We close our review with recommendations for the development of new assessments forinnovativeness in these categories.1. Fisher, E., Biviji, M., and I. Nair (2011). “New perspectives on teaching innovation to engineers: An exploration of mental models of innovation experts,” Proc. of the 2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Vancouver, BC.2. Hurt, H. T., Joseph, K., and C. D. Cook (1977). “Scales for the measurement of innovativeness,” Human Communication Research, 4(1): 58-65.3. Jackson, D. N. (1976). Jackson personality inventory manual. Goshen, NY: Research Psychologists Press, Inc.4. Kirton, M. J. (1976). “Adaptors and innovators: A description and measure,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 61(5): 622-629.5. Ragusa, G. (2011). “Engineering creativity and propensity for innovative thinking in undergraduate and graduate students,” Proc. of the 2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Vancouver, BC.
Menold, J., & Jablokow, K., & Purzer, S., & Ferguson, D. M., & Ohland, M. W. (2014, June), A Critical Review of Measures of Innovativeness Paper presented at 2014 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Indianapolis, Indiana. 10.18260/1-2--19933
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