Create or innovate? : can an innovation training program enhance the development of new ideas beyond creativity training?

Abstract

The current study intended to answer the question of whether there is a difference between creativity-only training and innovation training in the quality of solutions generated by training participants. To answer this question, differences between three groups were examined to compare the quality of solutions generated by participants who completed the creativity training, the creativity plus innovation training, and a control group. The solutions generated by the three groups were evaluated for novelty, practicality, ease of implementation, and potential effectiveness. Pre- and post-test measures of creative self-efficacy, general self-efficacy, and motivation to innovate were also examined. Results indicate that the creativity plus innovation training group and the creativity-only group generated ideas that were more novel, practical, easier to implement, and had higher potential effectiveness than the control group. Ideas produced by the creativity plus innovation group also had higher potential effectiveness than the creativity-only group.