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Today, there are approximately 130,000 chefs in the United States, with female chefs accounting for approximately 20%. This problem-based design project focused on developing chef’s jackets for a mature female professional chef, with 15 years of experience. As a chef, she experienced difficulty finding jackets that were functional, aesthetically pleasing, that meet her professional needs. Project-based learning [Blumenfeld, P. C., Soloway, E., Marx, R. W., Krajcik, J. S., Guzdial, M., & Palincsar, A. (1991). Motivating project-based learning: Sustaining the doing, supporting the learning.Educational Psychologist,26, 369–398] provided the conceptual theoretical framework for the study, while the Functional, Expressive, Aesthetic (FEA) Consumer Needs model provided the operational design process for the study [Lamb, J., & Kallal, M. (1992). A conceptual framework for apparel design.Clothing and Textiles Research Journal,10(2), 42–47]. To understand the chef’s needs, students followed the design process including market research, interviews, developing a semi-fitted made-to-measure jacket block and patterns, and prototype. After the final fit session and presentations, the chef presented awards. Students found problem-based learning more relevant to practical real world, indicating that this project ‘strengthened theirunderstanding of what it means to meet a client’s needs’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Mood boards are used frequently in design and product development as well as in academic courses related to fashion design. However objectively evaluating the creativity of fashion design mood boards is often difficult. Therefore, the purpose of this investigation is to examine reliability of a digital consensual assessment instrument measuring creativity, using expert (from related domains) and non-expert raters (students). Creativity measures were compared with the mood board themes to further investigate any relationships between mood board types and the consensual assessment. Independent samples t test comparing group means indicated expert raters evaluated the mood boards significantly higher in creativity than the non-experts, t (99) = −6.71, p < .001, (95% CI −.57, −.29), while Pearson correlation results indicate a significant relationship between the two groups of raters, r (50) = .33, p < .01. ANOVA results for all raters indicated a significant difference between the five subject matter categories; F (4, 95) = 4.64, p < .005. Overall, expert and non-expert raters reported significant reliability, which further supports prior research using consensual assessment for creativity measures across domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creativity assessment in apparel design is limited in scope and application. The purpose of this investigation is (1) the procedural use of the consensual assessment technique (CAT) when evaluating fashion design illustrations, (2) the internal consistency reliability of creativity and technical quality scales with expert and novice raters, and (3) the differences between expert and novice ratings on creativity and technical quality. The CAT provided a valid and reliable creativity assessment instrument for apparel design evaluation. Results indicate significant relationships between the ratings for both creativity measures (r(30) = .83,p < .001) and technical quality measures (r(30) = .78,p < .001). Yet, domain experience of raters was not significant in comparison. Therefore, apparel design evaluation can be completed by a combination of experts and novice raters effectively; however, the number of raters used is a critical methodological need. Educators integrating evaluation procedures of creative thinking into current courses and curricula can use assessment strategies for creativity evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]