Exploring the inventive mindset of Singapore students

Abstract

In a bid to explore the inventive mindset of Singapore students, a toy invention competition was organized to attract budding inventors from amongst the student population. Participants were required to build a prototype based on physics principles so that it could reveal certain aspects of their inventive capabilities. Three evaluation instruments were specially designed to provide data for analyses. The key findings of this exploratory study are that a) students are motivated by intrinsic rewards when entering invention competitions, b) the educational environment is becoming more conducive for inventors, c) female students are just as interested in invention competitions as male students, d) students are not interested in becoming full-time inventors but are willing to take it up as a hobby, e) students from the express stream are more predisposed ,towards inventing than those from the normal stream. In terms of level of creativity of the entries, it appears that there is still some way to go even though some of the entries are of a high standard.