An Assessment of Personality Traits and Their Implication for Creativity Amongst Innovation Design Engineering Masters Students Using the MBTI and KTS Instruments

Sep 17, 2026

Uploaded by Connor

Creativity and its realisation are critical to industry and competitive advantage. This study explores masters-level design engineering students’ creativity through personality correlations by administering the MBTI and Keirsey Temperament Sorter (KTS) to Innovative Design Engineering (IDE) students. Results show intuition is notably prominent, and extraversion is modestly positively correlated with creativity in the engineering domain. Contrary to expectations, perceptors do not outnumber judgers. KTS theory suggests that Idealists and Rationals, though a small group, display exceptional presence in the IDE sample.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages10

Reading Time25 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

1 Introduction

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ENGINEERING DESIGN, ICED13 19-22 AUGUST 2013, SUNGKYUNKWAN UNIVERSITY, SEOUL, KOREA AN ASSESSMENT OF PERSONALITY TRAITS AND THEIR IMPLICATION FOR CREATIVITY AMONGST INNOVATION DESIGN ENGINEERING MASTERS STUDENTS USING THE MBTI AND KTS INSTRUMENTS Yanliuxing YAN (1), Peter R N CHILDS (1), Ashley HALL (2) 1: Imperial College London, United Kingdom; 2: Royal College of Art, United Kingdom ABSTRACT Creativity and its realisation are vitally important to industry as identified, for example, by the Capitalizing on Complexity report undertaken by IBM. The scope of this study is to explore masters level design engineering students’ creativity in terms of personality correlation. A personality survey conducted on Innovative Design Engineering (IDE) masters students by applying the MBTI and Keirsey Temperament Sorter (KTS) to investigate individual creativity is reported. The results reveal that intuition, which is suggested to potentially strongly link with creativity, is quite prominent among the IDE students. That extraversion is positively correlated with creativity in the engineering domain is modestly confirmed. Contrary to expectation, perceptors did not outnumber judgers. From KTS theory, although Idealists and Rationals account for a small part of the whole population, they mark exceptional appearances in IDE sample. It is reasonable to speculate that more creative potentials, which lead to better creative outcomes, exist among people who belong to those personality groups and possess certain personality traits in the design engineering fields where creativity is desired. Keywords: creativity, personality traits, personality type, design engineering, intuition Contact: Yanliuxing Yan Imperial College London Mechanical Engineering London E15 2JR United Kingdom [y.yan11@imperial.ac.uk](y.yan11@imperial.ac.uk) ICED13/196 1 1 INTRODUCTION In response to the ever-changing mature market, more and more companies are realising the importance of creativity for competitive advantages. Industries, in particular engineering industries, have begun to focus on the lack of creative thinking and innovation in engineering graduates. This is highlighted in the call for a focus on creativity among world leading commercial enterprises in the IBM survey, capitalising on creativity (IBM, 2010) . Universities expect qualified engineering design students to be capable of using their intellectual abilities, applying scientific knowledge and designing effective solutions to problems whilst permitting manufacture and meeting social needs. Engineering design can be regarded as the total activity necessary to establish and define solutions to problems not solved before, or new solutions to problems, which have previously been solved in a different way (e.g. see Pahl et al., 1996) . Creativity is widely recognized as being essential part of engineering design (e.g. see Thompson and Lordan, 1999) . Creativity had not attracted much attention by many scholars until 1950, when the president of American Psychological Association J.P. Guildford addressed the need for research on creativity. Creativity is often regarded as ‘an act of making new relationships from old ideas’ (Koestler, 1964) or‘the ability to imagine or invent something new of value ’ (see Childs et al., 2006) . An idea or work that is considered being creative is composed of two components: novelty and appropriateness. Creativity must represent something different, new, or innovative (Amabile, 1983), but also be appropriate to the task at hand. Creativity is central to designers’ thinking and it is of great significance in the design engineering domain. The published literature supports the general view that each person is born with creative potential, but to varying degrees. Increasing consensus suggests creativity in the individual is reliant upon multiple components, such as cognitive ability and personality factors (Feist, 1998)

FAQs

What instruments are used to assess personality traits in this study?

The study applies the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the Keirsey Temperament Sorter (KTS) to collect personality data from IDE masters students.

Which personality trait is found to be most prominent among IDE students?

Intuition is reported as quite prominent among the IDE students, and it is suggested to potentially strongly link with creativity.

How are personality types related to creativity in the findings?

While Idealists and Rationals form only a small part of the population, they show exceptional appearances in the IDE sample, suggesting creative potential may be higher within those groups.

Sep 17, 2026

Uploaded by Connor