Information Technology Reference
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of generated ideas. It is possible that the design feature of the proposed tool that provided
idea storage and retrieval capabilities helped participants in the final assessment.
The results of our study also indicate that the brainstorming technique underlying our
tool is a promising method for stimulating creative thinking and idea generation in a software
development task. It has been suggested in the literature (Satzinger et al., 1999) that the idea
generation method is one of the most important sources of encouraging creativity. Essen-
tially, the brainstorming session helped students uncover ideas without being constrained,
stimulate their own thinking by external influences, and capture their thoughts.
Finally, the results of the study support the proposition that an electronic tool following
a specific creativity-enhancing technique can assist the creative process (Sridhar, 2001). One
of the main advantages of such a tool is the speed at which ideas can be produced.
Furthermore, the ideas can be stored and revisited at a later time. The tool can also provide
a variety of stimuli that can enhance creativity. The electronic tool tested in this study
provided all of the above, plus a formal protocol that brought a much needed structure to the
idea generation process.
Although the overall results of this study are encouraging, there is room for further
improvement to originality. The level or originality of ideas achieved due to interaction with
the proposed tool was less than desired. One possible reason for the lack of “highly original”
thought may be the participants' feeling of pressure from consideration of implementation
issues. Alternatively, it can be attributed to the participants' traditional IT education, which
places more emphasis on developing their analytical and systems thinking skills rather than
creative and innovative thinking skills. Furthermore, the subjects in the study had only one
interactive session with the tool, and this might have been insufficient to produce a more
substantial shift in their thinking patterns.
Limitations and Future Research
While the current study provides a number of interesting findings, some caution is
necessary regarding their generalizability due to a number of limiting factors. The application
of laboratory conditions is a major limitation of this study. Furthermore, the conclusions
drawn based on the assessments of expert judges may be biased. We also speculate that the
performance of users in an interaction session can be affected by their state of mind or
previous experience. The emphasis of the present study was on individual students. It would
be interesting to examine the effect of the tool on the creative performance of groups. Future
research may address some of these limitations.
IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE IT EDUCATION
Our findings may have some important implications for IT education. They suggest that
creativity can be improved to an extent that higher-quality software designs may be possible.
Thus, IT schools need to acknowledge this and include creativity within their courses to
prepare students. It is encouraging that some governments and educational institutions are
starting to emphasize the significance of promoting creative thinking of the young through
education (Sunderland, 2000) and are beginning to implement changes in courses taught in
business schools (Sangran, 2001). The results of this study suggest that the type of tool
tested here may be a useful teaching tool in a variety of courses involving creative thinking
and problem solving. Furthermore, the tool is likely to be most valuable in situations where
