New Perspectives in Science Education

Edition 13

Accepted Abstracts

Creative Ability: Innate Talent or Learned Attribute?

Justin Lunn, University of Leeds (United Kingdom)

Abstract

The arts and sciences have traditionally been presented as opposing poles, with arts seen as creative modes of thought and sciences as analytical and reductive ones. Despite many ongoing attempts to narrow or bridge this ‘great divide’ there remain fundamental perceived difficulties in achieving a more integrated approach to learning and thinking – not least the idea that creative ability is seen as an attribute which is fixed and innate if not from birth then certainly from childhood. From this, it is assumed that people are either ‘scientific’ or ‘creative’, or occasionally seen to be somewhere in between – but with no possibility of changing their place on the spectrum. However, what could be described as a natural experiment in teaching practice demonstrates empirically that creativity might be a learned attribute. The University of Leeds has run a combined Master and Bachelor in Architectural Engineering programme for many years, recently complementing this with an MEng Architecture course. Both are accredited final award engineering qualifications, with Architecture also Prescribed by the UK Architects Registration Board as a first cycle (UK part 1) degree. The course of study is focused on creative open-ended building design projects which are used to develop creative design skills as well as to demonstrate technical and scientific abilities in materials, structures and building physics. The high quality of output standards has been favourably compared with more conventional schools of architecture. Unlike schools of architecture however, students don’t need to demonstrate pre-existing artistic talent before joining the programme through submission of a portfolio of work, or by having art based qualifications. Indeed, the school’s only requirement in terms of subject is mathematics, in common with all the engineering degrees offered. Despite this, students who sometimes profess a complete lack of artistic or creative talent go on to produce some of the most inventive design schemes, with the most engaging visual communications. These outcomes suggest that creativity is not after all ‘innate’ but rather is a skill which can be learned, and that categorising people as ‘artistic’ or ‘scientific’ is wasting potential abilities.

Keywords: Creativity, science, learning, engineering, architecture;

 

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