Discovering Taiwanese design college students’ learning performance and imaginative capacity

• We proposed four research questions about the students’ learning performance and imaginative capacity
• We examined the proposed questions by conducting a teaching experiment.
• We used a picture album as supplementary teaching material and two sets of questionnaires.
• We analysed data by using t-test, Pearson's analysis, and Rasch measurement.
• The major viewpoint is that imaginative capacity can be measured and inspired.

Imagination affects not only the structure of design ideas at the initial stage but also influences the manifestation of final products. The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between Taiwanese design college students’ imaginative capacity and their learning performance in class. On the basis of recent scholarship, the authors proposed several reasonably related factors, which were classified into three aspects: personality traits, learning atmosphere, and imaginative thinking. They then verified and discussed four research questions through a teaching experiment with 63 junior college students in YunTech, Taiwan. To proceed smoothly without significantly changing the current teaching process, the authors developed a set of supplementary teaching material and two sets of questionnaires which they then used in the teaching experiment. The results of the teaching experiment proved and suggested the following points corresponding to the research questions: (1) students’ senior high school backgrounds have an effect on their imaginative capacities; (2) judges from other schools should be invited to join the judgement to ensure fairness and with a broader scope; (3) students’ imaginative capacity indeed has an effect on the grade of their final products in the judgement; (4) teachers can identify students with higher imaginative capacity through the responses to the proposed supplementary teaching materials and questionnaires used in the study's curricula. Furthermore, the supplementary teaching material is conjectured to be able to inspire students’ imaginative capacity.