Cultivating Imagination in Entry-Level Civil Engineering Students: Exploring the Effects of an Innovative Instructional Model

Imagination, the limitless ability to form mental images and concepts through thinking, is inherent in human cognition as the basis for the creative activities and inventions that have driven human technological and engineering innovations. Imagination should be cultivated in the process of preparing future engineers. This study develops an imagination instructional model for entry-level engineering college students. Three features of imagination: possibility, connectivity and boundary-crossing, are established as the theoretical basis for an instructional model called IDEAL. This model was implemented in an introductory engineering course and its effect was evaluated. The results showed that: (i) The IDEAL model significantly increased students' overall imagination, and more especially, (ii) it significantly enhanced students' boundary-crossing capacity. This study makes contributions to current engineering education by first exploring the inherent features of imagination, constructing a workable instructional model for the cultivation of imagination, implementing the model to an introductory engineering course and showing its effect.