Generation pathways of innovation capability among engineering graduate students at Chinese Double First-Class...

Area of Science:

• Educational Psychology
• Higher Education Studies
• Innovation Management

Background:

• Graduate-level innovation capability is crucial for higher education outcomes and national development.
• China's prominent role in global engineering education necessitates understanding innovation development in graduate students.
• Existing research often overlooks configurational mechanisms, favoring variable-centered approaches.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate multiple pathways to high innovation capability among engineering graduate students in China.
• To apply the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to identify these pathways.
• To understand how pedagogical practices, organizational support, and environmental conditions interact to foster innovation.

Main Methods:

• Utilized fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) on survey data from 544 engineering graduate students.
• Employed the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework to analyze influencing factors.
• Identified specific combinations of conditions leading to high innovation capability.

Main Results:

• Identified four distinct configurational pathways to high innovation capability: environment-organization, technology-organization, technology-environment-organization, and environment-partial technology or organization models.
• Demonstrated that innovation capability is a result of synergistic combinations of conditions, not isolated factors.
• Found that these pathways activate psychological factors like student engagement, innovation self-efficacy, and learning motivation.

Conclusions:

• Innovation capability in graduate engineering students is context-dependent and arises from specific configurations of technology, organization, and environment.
• The study extends the TOE framework to graduate engineering education, offering a nuanced understanding of innovation development.
• Findings highlight the importance of institutional and pedagogical contexts in activating psychological mechanisms essential for student innovation.