Keywords

1 Creativity as a Resource for Innovation

Creativity and innovation are driving forces for personal growth, economic development and social progress (Tang, 2017). Not only circumstances such as the COVID-19 pandemic, which have led to disruption in almost all areas of everyday life, but also the accelerated development of digitalization confront the “knowledge society” (Anderson, 2008) with changes and challenges. Creativity, a skill that distinguishes humans from machines and systems with artificial intelligence, makes humans an essential resource for innovation. As an element of entrepreneurship education, it must be given a place in the curricula of higher education institutions to ensure future viability. Additionally, the various associates must be inspired to think creatively and to translate this into the continuous development of new and innovative products or services (Kuckertz, 2013). Suitable teaching methods and content must be developed, tested and researched. Like other universities, Ruhr West Hochschule of Applied Sciences (HRW) has set the goal of becoming an Entrepreneurial University as part of its vision for the year 2030. As an element of EXIST-Potentiale – an entrepreneurship-specific funding to support German universities – the HRW designs various education and awareness-raising offers (e.g. HRWEducate), which are intended to inspire and qualify all associates at the university to think and act entrepreneurially. The practical conception and implementation of virtual curricular and extracurricular courses for the promotion and development of creative competences – specifically Ideation, the focus of this article – is also part of the programme.

2 EntreComp, Creativity and Ideation

The EntreComp Framework (EntreComp) (European Commission et al., 2018) was launched in 2015 with the aim of providing European citizens and organisations with a toolkit to improve their entrepreneurial capacity. It serves as a quality guideline and orientation for the design of the courses described here. EntreComp summarises entrepreneurship as the “ability to use opportunities and ideas to create social, cultural, or financial value for others”. A total of 15 competences (e.g., Motivation or Spotting Opportunities) in three competence areas (Ideas and Opportunities, Resources, Into Action) represent the building blocks of entrepreneurship (Bacigalupo et al., 2016). Five aspects are assigned to each competency to show what the corresponding competencies can mean in application. The aspect Develop Ideas of the competence Creativity with promoted learning outcomes corresponds to the Ideation learning objectives to be defined and the quality-giving standard on which the courses are to be based. An 8-level progression model is also provided for each aspect (Bacigalupo et al., 2016). With the levels Basics, Intermediate, Advanced and Expert, different knowledge and competencies as well as a growing autonomy of learners can be addressed. In line with this, the courses’ aim is to make its content accessible to a diverse group of participants consisting of Bachelor and Masters students with assumed little to no experience in the field of creativity and ideation, as well as lecturers and researchers at the university. Based on that, the learning outcomes are defined as Basics. Here, participants should be able to “independently and as a part of a team, develop creative and purposeful ideas that create added value for others” (Bacigalupo et al., 2016).

Ideation is derived from the terms idea and generation and means the creation of new ideas (Cambridge University Press, 2014). In general, an idea can be described as a (creative) thought, insight or a concept of something at a high level of abstraction (Bibliografisches Institut GmbH, 2020). Ideation is associated with and is a part of creativity (Amabile et al., 1996). A variety of definitions of creativity along with their conditions can be found in assorted resources. Runco and Jäger (Runco & Jaeger, 2012) formulate that creativity requires originality and effectiveness. Originality can mean new, unusual or surprising; effectiveness can mean useful, valuable or appropriate. Accordingly, skills for generating original ideas as well as for testing and developing their effectiveness need to be developed to fill those requirements for creative (and purposeful) ideas as defined before. The classic “4P model of creativity” (Rhodes, 1961) offers useful concepts of creativity-related skills and structures which can be deduced by the creation of related courses. The model summarises creativity as the interaction between person, process, product and press. Findings point to the importance of person-related factors, which could influence promoting creativity (Runco & Kim, 2017): cognitive factors, like flow of thoughts and ideas, sensitivity to problems (Guilford, 1950), divergent thinking (Guilford, 1968) in idea generation, convergent thinking in the selection and further processing of ideas (Kozbelt et al., 2010). From a non-cognitive or personality-related perspective, (intrinsic) motivation can be mentioned, which is described as relevant with regard to creative performance (Amabile, 1983; Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). Affects or personality-related characteristics, like openness (Fehr, 2006), are also considered relevant aspects. The process a person creatively thinking goes through can be described, for example, by the “4-phase model” (Wallas, 1926) with the stages preparation, incubation, illumination and verification (Kozbelt et al., 2010). It is also emphasised that individual knowledge in a domain can have an impact on creative performance (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990), though there is no consensus about to what degree knowledge ends up being conductive or obstructive. No to little knowledge could hinder access to a problem or cause rather superficial solutions – too much knowledge could also hinder creative thinking. The product reveals the state in which a thought, an idea, takes shape (Rhodes, 1961), as it can be a word, an image, an object or some other form of expression – as an initial idea or as a complex construct. The press represents the relationship between the person and the environment (Rhodes, 1961), which is related, for example, to internal factors such as the situational state of mind, and provides a framework for starting points for support. Fredrickson (Fredrickson, 2004) describes the influence of positive emotions on creative performance and mentions joy as one of the components that can increase the urge to be creative (Isen et al., 1987).

3 Structure and Content of Digital Ideation Courses

As part of the HRW training program, three course concepts – considering the elements outlined earlier – with a focus on creativity and ideation were developed and digitally realised. The courses vary in terms of duration, content and objectives and are adjusted for different numbers of participants. Course one represents the two-day extracurricular HRWEducate format Ideation, which includes the development of ideas with a focus on reflecting on one’s own creative competences. The one-day module Ideation – which was offered extracurricular as part of the multi-day HRW Summer School – as well as the two-day curricular module of the HRW Start-up Project as courses two and three address creativity integrated into a methodologically guided innovation process. Here, it must be ensured that (business) ideas can be systematically generated and further developed in subsequent modules. All courses consist of different, alternating phases (Table 1) with specific functionalities, all designed with the aim to digitally qualify participants to develop creative, purposeful ideas with added value.

Table 1 Examples of digital ideation courses at HRW (own illustration)
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The central unit of the courses represents the phases of Input, Testing and Reflection. Their basic structure is based on overarching principles that can be used to design units to promote creative performance (Scott et al., 2004) and are adapted for the digital context. The unit is (1) designed based on cognitive aspects of creativity (2) which are explained at the beginning and related principles or heuristics and their possible impact on creativity and the generation of ideas are introduced. (3) The theoretical examples are illustrated with real or contextual cases to give participants the opportunity to (4) independently apply and test the principle or heuristic in the context of real problems. Also relevant is the inclusion of (5) regular reflection and correction loops (Gruszka & Dobroczyński, 2017) (e.g. “How did idea generation work alone/in a team?”) so that participants recognise their progress and learn to increase their creative self-efficacy (Mathisen & Bronnick, 2009). With a view to the competencies to be developed and derived from the 4 Ps of creativity (Sect. 2), principles and heuristics are tested and reflected on with the support of creativity techniques. In order to select specific techniques to fit these requirements, it must be concluded that in their entirety they neither have been researched in an all-encompassing manner nor have their effects been sufficiently investigated or proven empirically (Smith, 1998; Wang, 2019). Their conceptualisation is based, e.g. on the assumption of the relevance of different cognitive aspects in the context of creativity and are designed differently from simple instructions to tightly structured procedures (Smith, 1998). Selections can also be made by the assignment to different phases of the creative process, as verbal or silent techniques, based on the type of stimuli, for different problem approaches or individuals or groups (Smith, 1998; Van Aerssen & Buchholz, 2018; VanGundy, 1988; Wang, 2019). For the HRW courses it is tried to offer a variation of different techniques to do justice to different stakeholders and to be able to show their diversity and different approaches. The techniques should also be applicable digitally. In the HRWEducate format, the focus is on the testing and reflection of different techniques. STEM education typically does not focus on creativity. Therefore techniques are selected that allow easy access to creative thinking to be able to introduce participants step by step to those thinking styles. Based on this, techniques are explored, first with guidance and then more and more independently. The arrangement of the techniques alternates during the module and needs to be adapted to the participants’ experience. In the HRW Start-up Project as well as in the HRW Summer School, the focus is on the selection of techniques in the context of specific problem approaches and respective need for ideas. Techniques such as brainwriting, why, 6-3-5, reversal, morphological analysis, SCAMPER or nonlogical stimuli (Van Aerssen & Buchholz, 2018) are part of the portfolio. With the why method, the focus is on the analysis of problems (VanGundy, 1988). By asking the question why five times, the problem should be abstracted step by step, and thus, the perspective on it as well as the understanding of the solution should be increased. The method is more suitable for statements with a low to medium level of abstraction. The morphological analysis is assigned to the analytical-systematic techniques for idea generation. Through an organised decomposition and recombination of, i.e. existing products or processes (Smith, 1998; VanGundy, 1988), it can be used for more complex problems with less inspirational approaches (Wang, 2019). Nonlogical stimuli is based on external stimuli such as unrelated pictures, which is intended to inspire idea generation through forced connections (Smith, 1998; Wang, 2019). It is suitable for problems in which unusual ideas are desired or allowed (VanGundy, 1988). As described above, problems are used that have a realistic connection to the participants’ lived experience. The offer of choices or the development of personal problems is conceivable to be able to increase an individual fit to the expertise, the interest and thus a possible (intrinsic) motivation (Sect. 2) of the participants. The development of own problems is part of the previous modules of HRW Start-Up Project and HRW Summer School, so that this can be accompanied and ensured here. In the HRWEducate course, it is more relevant to fit those requirements. Since the course involves participants from different disciplines and a bigger number of problem statements are needed. In order to implement real problems (Scott et al., 2004), generally accessible topics from the higher education agenda or related programmes (e.g. idea awards outcalled by the university), the 17 sustainability goals of the EU or aspects of trend research can be included. Problem statements with a more general approach can be, e.g. “Cities are overflowing. Living space is becoming scarce and rents are getting expensive. The situation is also difficult for students. How might we improve housing in cities for students?” or “You work in a company and the collection for the new season is to be planned. Your boss asks you to develop new products based on existing ones. Choose an item and develop new product ideas. How might we design…?” The first problem will be processed with the technique nonlogical analysis and the second one with morphological analysis. In addition, from Sessions 1 to 2 in the HRWEducate format, participants can also be given the task of collecting challenges in their own living environment, which also contributes to the competence Spotting Opportunities in EntreComp (Bacigalupo et al., 2016; European Commission et al., 2018).

Besides the phases Input, Testing and Reflection, further phases of the modules must be designed. In Intros (Table 1), relevant aspects of entrepreneurship, as well as practical aspects of creativity, ideation and rules of creative cooperation, are presented to contextualise the content and goals of the modules and to give orientation and connection possibilities. Media changes and (positive) tension-generating activities (Plucker et al., 2011) are also planned to stimulate the participants and arouse their attention or curiosity. This in turn should increase the intrinsic motivation to want to be creative. These activities could be integrated, e.g. as Energizers or Warm-ups during Onboarding, after a Break or before Input, Testing and Reflection (Table 1), e.g. to get to know each other, to increase attention or to be able to introduce a topic or technique. Examples are Energizers such as Touch Blue (here, participants must look for objects and show them in front of the camera), Count up (participants have to count to ten together without talking) or Storytelling (participants have to quelle a story together). Finally, learning content, i.e. the phases, must be divided into cognitively processable units. Based on the cognitive load theory (Chandler & Sweller, 1991), it is assumed that a learning unit in a digital context should not be longer than 60 to 90 min, that Breaks between 15 and 45 min depending on the participants’ needs should be planned and that participants should be consulted repeatedly about their state of attention and exhaustion in order to integrate shorter breaks of 5–10 min (Table 1).

4 Learning Environment and Atmosphere of Digital Ideation Courses

A supportive, positive environment in which participants feel joy instead of fear or competitiveness (Fredrickson, 2004; Paulus, 2000) is relevant in the delivery of digital courses in the context of creativity and ideation. This should have a positive impact on the creative performance. Likewise, the design of the learning experience in a group is relevant. To promote collaboration and cooperation, positive social interdependence, individual responsibility, beneficial interaction, interpersonal competence and optimisation of group processes (Johnson & Johnson, 2009) should be established within a digital learning environment (Table 2). Working with others is also part of EntreComp (European Commission et al., 2018). Creative teamwork promotes not only the development of Creativity, but also addresses the aspects Working Together or Accepting Diversity at the same time. This points to the benefit of diverse disciplines for solving multi-faceted issues that represent real-world business teams better. Therefore, it is worth taking a closer look at the framework for further suggestions. In this context, the role of instructors is particularly important, as they should have knowledge about moderation, group processes and motivation as well as planning, organisation, coordination and evaluation of the teaching content and learning experience (Köhler et al., 2008) in a digital environment. As mentioned above, positive social interdependence describes that the achievement of an individual goal is only possible through cooperation. This can lead to beneficial interaction within a group, for example, sharing thoughts or information and reducing anxiety or stress, which the courses are intended to achieve. Individual accountability describes the support of other group members in addition to the fulfillment of one’s own tasks. It emphasises the appropriate use of interpersonal skills in the context of cooperation, which are to be emphasised and supported by the instructor. Finally, optimisation of group processes should serve to reflect on actions in terms of their usefulness as well as to decide which action should be continued or changed to achieve group goals more effectively (Johnson & Johnson, 2009). Personal, preferably individual guidance, support and assessment by lecturers as well as professional competences are also important during the learning experience (Kröger & Reisky, 2005; Lave & Wenger, 1991) and relevant for establishing a supportive, enabling environment. To contribute to the reduction of anxiety, stress or competition, the Onboarding phase (Table 1) addresses these and presents the courses as judgement-free experimental spaces where mistakes are not perceived as such and where participants can try things out. It also seems important to articulate the difficulty learning and understanding new content while simultaneously performing creatively, and no highly creative results can be expected. This seems to have a positive effect on the participants’ expectations. For the comparison of expectations and experiences before and insights after the completion of the modules, a query is useful in Onboarding as well as in final Retrospectives (Table 1). The evaluation of experiences also contributes to the assessment of how much guidance the participants might need in testing the techniques (Sect. 3). In addition to at least one instructor, it is suggested to involve another person who can provide technical support.

Table 2 Implications in the context of digital learning environment (Johnson & Johnson, 2005; Johnson & Johnson, 2009; Kröger & Reisky, 2005; Lave & Wenger, 1991)
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In recent years, digital workshops have shown that the use of a webcam in the context of computer-mediated communication (CmC) is a cause for discussion and that lately a certain “camera fatigue” has set in – presumably due to digital learning in full time. Since CmC is associated with expanded possibilities but also with restrictions compared to face-to-face communication (Döring, 2013), it is supposed that the use of a large number of sensory channels – and thus also the visual one – in the digital context contributes to the success of creativity-promoting modules. Visual contact between lecturers and participants enables, i.e. non-verbal reassurance as to whether the content presented is pointed or the speed needs to be adjusted. In addition, it can support the development of social presence – which is considered important to achieve. Social presence as a degree of salience between communicators (Short et al., 1976) or as co-presence with the perception of the presence of interaction partners (Biocca et al., 2003) in CmC is said to promote a feeling of well-being (Aragon, 2003) or satisfactory interaction between participants (Aragon, 2003; Biocca et al., 2003) and can also be relevant for the achievement of learning goals (Aragon, 2003). Likewise, connections are shown between establishing social presence and solving problems, making decisions and generating ideas (Biocca et al., 2003), which in turn is a central aspect of the courses to be designed. It must be emphasised that especially lecturers are responsible for establishing social presence in digital settings and should have the corresponding knowledge (Table 3).

Table 3 Requirements and implication in the context of social presence (Aragon, 2003)
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In the context of media communication behaviour, the results of Walther and Bunz (Walther & Bunz, 2005) are also used for cooperation in virtual groups. Six rules can be established that are important for the structuring of digital courses: (1) starting directly with content or tasks; (2) initiating a regular and frequent communication and (3) immediate and obvious acknowledging of read messages; (4) starting organisational activities and content tasks simultaneously; (5) explicit and verbal communication of thoughts, activities, or actions; and (6) setting and meeting deadlines for tasks.

5 Use of Tools in Digital Ideation Courses

Content is taught using digital media and computer-mediated communication. The focus is on creating an environment that promotes, e.g. creativity, social presence, positive social interdependence and application-oriented conditions. Due to their fit with the factual and social requirements of communication tasks mentioned above, the combination of WebEx as a video conference tool and Miro as a digital whiteboard (Table 4) is chosen for the course design. The video conference tool enables different sensory channels (video, text, sound) to be addressed and synchronous communication to one or more people. This activates, e.g. the exchange of information (e.g. for Intro, Onboarding or Retrospectives), the sharing of thoughts or ideas (e.g. for Testing) or immediate feedback (e.g. Reflection). Using many sensory channels could also be relevant for establishing social presence. Sharing a screen allows the text- or image-based communication of knowledge (e.g. Intros) or work results. An important functionality of the tool is the allocation of participants in small groups to enable teamwork. Digital testing of creativity techniques requires an additional tool. In face-to-face contexts, it can be realised via whiteboards and sticky notes. It is assumed that this should also be reproduced digitally. In this context, e.g. Miro complements the video conference tool as a common surface for testing creative skills of the participants, for recording and visualising information, thoughts and ideas, e.g. during Testing or Retrospective. The individual phases of the courses are visualised as a learning path as a supplement to the content presented via WebEx, which is intended to provide orientation for the participants and to show their progress (Fig. 1).

Table 4 Guideline for implementing the individual phases of digital ideation courses (own illustration)
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Fig. 1
A schematic representation of H R W educate format for session 1 on Miro. It has phases of the courses numbered 1 to 8 in the learning path, which are as follows. 1. Energizer. 2. Onboarding. 3. Media change. 4. Problem statement. 5. Testing. 6. Reflection. 7. Retrospective. 8. Checkout.

HRWEducate format. Session 1 with learning path on Miro: (1) Energizer, (2) Onboarding, (3) Media change, (4) Problem statement, (5) Testing and (6) Reflection on 6-3-5, (7) Retrospective, (8) Checkout (own illustration)

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6 Evaluation

Within the framework of the course evaluation, a comprehensive picture of the participants’ experience and the impact of the module on the participants’ qualification in the context of creativity and ideation was to be collected, which also serves the further development of the courses’ structure and content. After completing the courses, the participants were asked to answer an online questionnaire that was made available to them via SoSci Survey. The questionnaire contained 36 statements assigned to eight indices, most of which had to be answered on 5-point Likert scales (1 = strongly agree, 5 = strongly disagree), as well as two general, four sociodemographic and three qualitative questions. An excerpt from the item battery is shown in Table 5. The quantitatively collected data of the evaluation were first analysed descriptively with SPSS. The one-sample t-test was then to be used whether there is a significant deviation from the scale centre in one direction of the scale ends. Qualitatively collected data were evaluated with a qualitative content analysis, which is categorised in terms of the theoretical constructs or indices mentioned in Table 5.

Table 5 Item battery (excerpt) (own illustration)
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7 Conclusion and Prospects

In general, the content of the courses seems to have a positive impact on the creative qualification of the participants referring to EntreComp (Bacigalupo et al., 2016; European Commission et al., 2018). This can be inferred, e.g. from the reported creative self-efficacy of the participants. However, as this is a subjective assessment, further analysis needs to be undertaken to assess creative performance along larger samples. In particular, the difficulty is measuring creativity and therefore being able to say whether a measure is effective or not. Thus, factors that influence an increase in creative performance need to be further researched. Participants seemed to evaluate the generation of ideas better in a team than alone. In addition, the participants were rather reserved about the general digital realisation of courses in the context of creativity and ideation. Feedback shows that the participants had the expectation that ideation would work better in an analogue setting than digitally. Interestingly, Jensen et al. (Jensen et al., 2018) show that both digital and analogue settings can support ideation and collaboration which may indicate that digital as well as analogue ideation can work. The starting point here would be to conceptualise and test hybrid and face-to-face formats in comparison to digital courses. The use of digital tools, the interestingness and relevance of the content and the structure of the modules were emphasised. Only the general module length and self-experience phases tended to be questioned: some found them just right, others too long, and others too short. Here it would be interesting to find out which factors influence the different perceptions to be able to derive options for improvement: breaks, duration of learning units, interest and motivation, or embedding of modules? Besides, the learning environment and atmosphere in the courses was positively highlighted. It was rated as important for the success and well-being of the participants and was created through interaction with and by the facilitators. In addition, the courses were taught by female lecturers, which was also highlighted as positive by the participants. Gender characteristics and competency-based development in the context of entrepreneurship are relevant and widely researched fields that can receive more attention. Looking at the embedding of the learning content, ideation is mostly located in the early phases of innovation. In this phase problems and initial ideas are defined, and the way is paved for further developments. In the HRWEducate format, this could be done independently of other modules. Integrated, e.g. in the HRW Summer School, this poses a challenge for the instructor and participants: problem definition, idea generation, team building and content maturation have to run simultaneously and a defined connectivity for subsequent modules need to be achieved. Especially here, the instructor should have sufficient professional and creative competence to support the development and deepening of individual ideas to such an extent that a qualitative connection to subsequent modules can be guaranteed. In conclusion it can be said that participants with little to no experience in the topic area had an increased motivation after completion of the courses, e.g. to want to take part in further courses. It would be interesting to investigate how this motivation can be promoted in the long term in a university context, e.g. by designing further formats such as network or idea platforms. Although only a selection of courses in the context of entrepreneurship education is presented here, starting points for the further development of learning offers as well as for research activities can already be identified. There is great potential to integrate creativity and ideation more strongly into institutionalised processes and curricular topics of higher education institutions. This would be a contribution to the development of innovations, enabling the participants to deal with change and even to initiate it on one’s own for personal growth, economic development and social progress (Tang, 2017).