Indicators and criteria for assessing the pedagogical potential of a university’s educational environment in the context of developing students’ technical creativity

This article examines the pedagogical potential of a university’s educational environment in the context of developing students’ technical creativity in engineering and technical programs within a higher education setting. The urgent relevance of this topic stems from the need to transform engineering education to support the national technological leadership strategy and innovative advanced development programs. The authors clarify the interpretation of the term “technical creativity”, propose a structural organization based on a systems approach, and identify system-forming components that form the basis for developing criteria and indicators for assessing the pedagogical potential of a university’s educational environment. A direct correlation between the quality of the educational environment and the effectiveness of developing technical creativity is revealed. It is determined that the university’s educational environment is a key factor capable of stimulating, supporting, and institutionalizing creative and research practices. In addition to a system of criteria and indicators, the key organizational and methodological principles of assessment are presented, and a methodological mechanism for its implementation is described. The possibilities for applying the assessment results for the university’s strategic development, designing professional development programs, improving the internal quality assurance system for educational processes, and enhancing the ergonomics of educational spaces are outlined. The authors’ concept focuses on ensuring methodological continuity between the goals of engineering training and the mechanisms for diagnosing and developing the educational environment. This strengthens the argumentation of the research results and their practical utility, provides a compelling evidentiary basis for the proposed system of criteria and indicators, and confi rms their practical and theoretical signifi cance for long-term planning of technical equipment for universities.