All Articles

Seda McKilligan

Author: Heather Sauer | Image: Heather Sauer

“Using creative exhaustion to foster idea generation,” an article by Seda McKilligan, an Iowa State University associate professor of industrial design, with colleagues from Purdue University and the University of Michigan, has been published in the International Journal of Technology and Design Education.

The journal article highlights the outcomes of an experimental study demonstrating that once students’ own ideas are exhausted, they are more open to using and learning from cognitive support tools that lead to more creative and higher quality design solutions. The pairing of a design tool intervention with the learner’s experienced need for it (in this case, an exhausted cognitive state) suggests a pedagogical practice for making idea generation tools feel related and of potential benefit to students.This effort is part of the National Science Foundation TUES Type II project that was awarded to Iowa State.