INVESTIGATING THE ACCURACY OF CREATIVITY METRICS USED IN ENGINEERING DESIGN
Open Access
- Author:
- Ramachandran, Sharath Kumar
- Graduate Program:
- Engineering Design
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- November 29, 2019
- Committee Members:
- Scarlett Rae Miller, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Samuel Todd Hunter, Committee Member
Sven G Bilen, Program Head/Chair - Keywords:
- Creativity and Concept Generation
Design Evaluation
Design Validation
Creatvity Metrics
Verifying Metrics - Abstract:
- The ability to reliably evaluate creativity of ideas generated in the early phases of design is an important and difficult challenge for design researchers. While a variety of metrics have been developed for these purposes, there is yet to be a standardized framework for evaluating the validity of existing or new metrics in our field. Establishing such a framework is important because prior research has shown that using different creativity metrics and yield vastly different, and even sometimes negatively correlated results. These findings lead to some important research questions: “Are these metrics measuring what we’re intend to measure?” and “What are the implications of our measurements if the validity of the metrics currently used is untested?” Thus, the purpose of this thesis was to create a structured framework for testing the validity of engineering creativity metrics. This was achieved by the creation of the CreAtivity Metric Evaluation fRamework (CAMbER) and through a demonstration of its utility through a case study of design variety. Specifically, the CAMbER framework developed as part of this thesis work includes a stepwise methodology aimed at identifying a creativity construct to examine, establishing a ground truth, measuring the validity of the metric under the examination, and identifying how the validity of the metric is impacted by modifications in the metrics computation. The variety metric; generally used to measure the spread of ideas within a sample set generated, was used to demonstrate how the CAMbER framework could be deployed in engineering design research. The results of this thesis will not only help study and validate existing engineering creativity metrics, but also provide a guiding light to ensure the creation of reliable creativity metrics in the future.