Motivation in Design as a Driving Force for Defining Motives of Design

The chapter introduces a new approach to social and personal motivation for creativity grounded in the cognitive orientation (CO) theory, and discusses its relation as a major drive to design motive in the pre-design and post-design phases. The instrument for assessment of motivation for creativity—the cognitive orientation questionnaire of creativity (COQ-CR)—is described, and applied in a study about social and personal motivations of creativity of design students in architecture and engineering. The COQ-CR allows characterizing the structural and thematic composition of motivation for creativity across different design disciplines. Implications for design practice and design education include operationalizing the COQ-CR for understanding the underlying connections between motivation for creativity and design motives of designers belonging to different disciplines.