Abstract
The purpose of the study was to understand and describe the level of nonverbal creativity and its relation to cognitive and learning styles of engineering and computing students. This might possibly provide engineering educators with knowledge of the above three factors and their adaptation to teaching and learning. The study was an exploratory-comparative study with one independent variable (engineering versus computing students) and three dependent variables [the Non-Verbal Test of Creative Thinking (Mehdi, 1973), The Group Embedded Figures Test, (Witkin et al, 1971); the Visual, Auditory, Read and Write Kinesthetic VARK Questionnaire , (Fleming, 1992) ]. The study aimed to compare the level of non-verbal creativity and influence of other attributes on the creativity of students of engineering and computing science. Additional aims were to see if there were significant differences in cognitive and learning styles of students from engineering and computing science. Data were collected by administering the three tests to engineering and computing students in three colleges in Bangalore (N=105). Data analysis was conducted using t-test, ANOVA, MANOVA and Pearson correlation coefficients. Findings indicated that engineering and computer students have above average levels of non-verbal creativity. Engineering students are more field-independent compared to computing students. Computing students are field-dependent in their cognitive style. Engineering and computer students focus more on the kinesthetic learning style. The implications of these findings for the education of engineering and computing students are discussed.