Adaptors’ and innovators’ failure tolerance and innovative tendencies in design-based learning

Creativity and innovation are essential skills for navigating today's volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world. This study examines students’ Innovative Tendencies and Failure Tolerance in a Design-Based Learning (DBL) course at a Singaporean university. Grounded in the premise that DBL fosters both traits and that Failure Tolerance underpins Innovativeness, we administered the Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory (KAI) and the School Failure Tolerance (SFT) scale to 240 students at the start and end of the course. Post-data collection, students were categorized as Adaptors and Innovators based on their overall KAI score. Results indicate that Adaptors and Innovators differed in their Failure Tolerance. Innovators have higher Affect (emotional resilience) but lower Action (structured problem-solving response) than Adaptors. While overall KAI scores remain unchanged after DBL, deeper analysis revealed a shift: Adaptors’ Innovative Tendencies increased, while Innovators’ Innovative Tendencies decreased. Additionally, students became more Failure-tolerant over the DBL course, particularly in terms of Preferred Difficulty. These results suggest that DBL fosters the development of both traits, and that Failure Tolerance alone does not fully account for Innovativeness. By disentangling dimensions of Failure Tolerance and linking them to Innovative Tendencies, this study adds granularity to existing models of innovation development in educational settings.