Teaching Innovation Capacities in Undergraduate Leadership Courses: The Influence of a Short-Term Pedagogical Intervention

This study explored the effectiveness of a short-term, low-cost experiential learning intervention on undergraduate students’ development of innovation capacities. Data were collected from 90 students at a large Midwestern public institution across two randomly assigned conditions: those who received only a video-based innovation lecture and those who received the video-based lecture in addition to an in-class pedagogical intervention. Notably with respect to treatment validity, the instructor for the in-class pedagogical intervention was the same for all students. Results suggested that students who participated in the theoretically-derived pedagogical exercise developed their innovation capacities to a greater degree than their peers in the group that did not receive the in-class reinforcement. Study importance and implications are discussed.