While design is associated with novelty and creativity, few studies have explored the cognitive processes employed during team interactions. Design practice is collaborative where designers work in multidisciplinary teams. Along with the cognitive skills involved in designing, designers also need skills to work in teams, share information, and…

While there is much research concerning the interpretation of diagrams such as geographical maps and networks for information systems, there is very little on the diagrams involved in electrical and electronic engineering. Such research is important not only because it supports arguments made for other types of diagrams but also because it informs…

This study explores the integration of Design Thinking into the Key Stage 3 Design and Technology (D&T) curriculum at a school in North-West England, focusing on fostering 21st-Century Skills alongside subject-specific knowledge. The research draws on a multiple case study approach derived from the 'Solving Genuine Problems for Authentic Users…

A wide range of design literature discusses the role of the studio and its related pedagogy in the development of design thinking. Scholars in a variety of design disciplines pose a number of factors that potentially affect this development process, but a full understanding of these factors as experienced from a critical pedagogy or student…

Framing design problems and solutions has been recognised in design studies as a central designerly activity. Some recent findings with expert designers relate framing practices to problem-solution co-evolution and analogy use, two further widely recognised design strategies. We wanted to understand if interaction design novices also use…

This paper provides a contextual reflection for understanding best practice teaching to first year design students. The outcome (job) focussed approach to higher education has led to some unanticipated collateral damage for students, and in the case we discuss, has altered the students' expectations of course delivery with specific implications…

The internal design thinking behaviour of designers in the concept development has been an important issue of cognitive psychology. In this study, the design thinking process designers have in applying digital media and traditional paper in the early concept development stage was explored. Special focus was made on the structure and procedure of…

This study is mainly about developing an approach for fostering creativity in design education through analyzing the interactions among creative dimensions resembling spatial and organizational pattern of folding as a technique and also by the help of cognitive action of designers: workshop participants. In order to make an assessment, a case…

Design and Technology education is potentially a rich environment for successful learning, if the management of the whole design process is emphasised, and students' design thinking is promoted. The aim of the present study was to unfold the collaborative design process of one team of elementary students, in order to understand their multimodal…

This paper starts from the premise that drawing can be a means of visualising thinking, with an emphasis on the process involved. A gap often seems to exist in the minds of students of visual/material creative fields in ideas-generative contexts, between thought and action. The thesis is that the gap between thinking and doing can be reduced to…

This paper presents qualitative research recently undertaken by the Head of Learning at the Design Museum. The research explores how learning in the museum's workshop programme for schools is conceptualised by the museum educators who devise and teach on the programme. The study is framed by an epistemological stance of social constructionism, in…

Research (Fish, 2004) suggests that everybody should be taught how to freehand sketch and utilise it as a tool for supporting the visualising instinct. A fundamental shift in philosophy of the technology education system in Ireland towards design driven subjects brought with it a need to develop practising teacher's technological capabilities.…

In an ever changing society of the 21st century, there is a demand to equip students with meta competences going beyond cognitive knowledge. Education, therefore, needs a transition from transferring knowledge to developing individual potentials with the help of constructivist learning. Advantages of constructivist learning, and criteria for its…

This paper presents the strategies employed by Indian middle-school students working in groups to identify three unfamiliar artefacts. The activity described in this paper was aimed at sensitising students to the close link between form and function and to bring a certain amount of uncertainty in the tasks before the actual design task. It was…