Internat. J. Eng. Ed. Vol. 1(1)2019:31-40, Keng Keh Lim, Zaleha Ismail, Yudariah Mohammad Yusof 31 IJEE, Vol. 1(1), June 2019 – ISSN : 2540-9808 Fostering Mathematical Creativity among Engineering Undergraduates Keng Keh Lim 1 , Zaleha Ismail 1 , Yudariah Mohammad Yusof 2 1 School of Mathematics & Science Education and Creative Multimedia, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru, Malaysia 2 Centre for Engineering Education, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru, Malaysia Email: kklim6@live.utm.my Abstract: This research is used to study engineering undergraduates fostering their mathematical creativity during creative problem solving. This was an exploratory research carried out in a public university as to find out the impact of CPS towards mathematical creativity among the engineering undergraduates. A case study was used to provide deep exploration of how the engineering undergraduates using their creative methods to solve open-ended mathematical problems creatively. Qualitative research design was applied in order to understand in depth the engineering undergraduates working collaboratively to generate their creative ideas during mathematical problem solving. Three final years engineering undergraduates took part in the study. They had to use their divergent and convergent thinking to generate creative methods to solve twelve open-ended mathematical problems. Qualitative research design of case study was used in this study to explore the engineering undergraduates using creative methods to solve open- ended mathematical problems during creative problem solving processes. By analysing the data collected from the case study can provide in-depth and detail understanding of the creative processes and products of the research. Observation and recording sheets were used to collect all the data. SCAMPER was also used as a guideline for them to spark their creativity. All the qualitative data of drawing from documents, videotape from observation and snapshot texts from recording sheets were collected and then analysed. They were coded and categorized into different themes in order to find out the mathematical creativity among the engineering undergraduates. The results in this study shows that the engineering undergraduates were able to generate different creative methods with the help of the SCAMPER. Keywords: Engineering Undergraduates, Creative Problem Solving, Convergent and Divergent Thinking. Submission: July 19, 2018 Correction: September 20, 2018 Accepted: April 9, 2019 Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.12777/ijee.1.1.31-40 [How to cite this article: Lim, K. K., Ismail, Z., Yusof, Y. M.. (2019), Fostering Mathematical Creativity among Engineering Undergraduates. International Journal of Engineering Education, 1(1), 31-40. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.12777/ijee.1.1.31-40] I. INTRODUCTION Engineers have to be innovative and creative in their professions. Engineers also need to have analytic skills as well as creativity to apply their knowledge and skills in solving problems in complex situations. They may have to use their creativity and analytic skills in order to apply and interpret the results obtained (Lee, 2006; Nichols & Weldon, 1997). The authors also pointed out that creativity can help engineers to think out of the box to find out unique and practical way to solve their problems (Lee, 2006; Nichols & Weldon, 1997). Problem solving is the heart of engineering and meanwhile mathematics is a critical tool in engineering. Mathematics can be creative and used as a scaffolding to foster their creativity. Engineering undergraduates can actually develop their mathematical creativity by solving an open-ended mathematical problem. Mathematical creativity is very important to engineering undergraduates to help them to come out with creative methods to solve their problems in the real world and it can be determined during the CPS. CPS works well for engineering undergraduates as they have to use both of their divergent and convergent thinking in all the stages of creative problem solving to solve the problem. The whole-brain approach of creative problem solving process can ensure that the engineering undergraduates have to switch on and off their both types of thinking. According to Laycock (1970) mathematical creativity is the ability to look at the mathematical problems from different perspectives and generate many ideas and then select the best method to deal with them in different situations. Mathematical creativity can actually be developed with the use of creative problem solving skills. In the process of creative problem solving, engineering undergraduates have to use their divergent thinking to generate as many ideas as possible and then use their convergent thinking to select the best solution for the problem. The integration of creative problem