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Producing quality original research requires advanced analytic skills, but also the creative intelligence to design a project as well as the ability to handle the inevitably ambiguous research process. This study unveils important aspects of how successful interdisciplinary scholars understand their research process and how they mentor students through research. Using interviews with nine faculty members and qualitative analysis of classroom sessions, the study investigates the mindsets and behaviors that experienced scholars bring to their work. Results suggest that innovative faculty see creativity as central to their research and actively seek to balance the creative and analytical aspects of their work, use an iterative “learning by doing” approach to refining questions and methods, and view setbacks as opportunities for further learning. However, faculty varied in the extent to which they made this messiness and comfort with ambiguity explicit for their students. By uncovering the mindsets that scholars bring to their research, we hope to better support doctoral students in building not just their analytical but also their creative capacity.

This paper explores the benefits of design thinking training to enhance doctoral student problemsolving ability, creative confidence, and emotional well-being. Our team adapted the design thinking curriculum taught by Stanford University's Hasso Plattner Institute of Design to the challenges of developing and carrying out original research, and has taught thirteen workshops to over 240 graduate students, research staff, and faculty over two years. Using a design-based research framework, we reflect on our observation of the workshops, student debriefs, and a prepost survey of participants to assess the value of design thinking for doctoral education. We find that participants felt the workshops enhanced creativity, productivity, and confidence, participants appreciated applying the mindsets of a bias toward action and embracing experimentation to their research, participants learned to be mindful of their research process, and participants valued the emotionally supportive, nonjudgmental atmosphere cultivated in the workshops. The research suggests (1) that creative problem solving methods can be adopted by doctoral students and (2) that there is a demand for graduate training to more explicitly treat students' intellectual needs in tandem with their emotional needs to create happy, productive researchers.