Enhancing creative problem solving in the higher education curriculum through the use of innovative e-learning technologies

The importance of fostering graduate skills in creativity and innovation is acknowledged by higher education institutions (HEIs) and employers. However, the lack of practical guidelines and a scaffold to guide educators in the design and redevelopment of their courses is a significant impediment to the goal of embedding creativity within the curriculum. This mpaper reports on the findings from a project funded through the Office forLearning and Teaching, Higher Education Division, Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science,Research and Tertiary Education in Australia, which aimed to address these challenges by developing a framework and supporting online tool to scaffold educators and students through a creative problem solving approach. Following a design ‐ based research (DBR) methodology, the study employed a mixed ‐ methods approach involving multiple iterations to design, develop, trial and implement a creative problem solving (CPS) frameworkand tool, which has been trialled in ten courses across different disciplines and HEIs across Australia. The outcomes from these trials have informed the development of principles and practical guidelines for application in the classroom in a range of contexts, both nationally and internationally. The findings reported in this paper focus on the DBR process and the experience of trials of the CPS tool in one of the ten courses included in the study; a first ‐ year undergraduate course offered in the School of Communication, International Studies and Languages at the University of South Australia. Educator and student evaluations conducted at the conclusion of each offering of the course show the benefits of the CPS approach, with educators stating that students who use the CPS tool demonstrate much greater creativity and divergence in the approaches they adopt in their digital media research assignments, and many students reporting greater confidence in their ability to generate ideas for their research and to come up with alternative and sophisticated solutions to creative problems. The evaluations also identified several usability issues, which were addressed through the multiple iterations and trials that informed each stage of the redesign of the tool. The final section of this paper discusses the implications of the findings from this project and the benefits of design ‐ based research as a methodology informing the design, development and implementation of technology enhanced learning innovations.