Design and Technology Education: An International Journal

Reflection: Graphical Journals as a means of increasing research impact

Niall Seery — 2024-05-06

Reflect, Assess, Visualize: Cultivating Skill Development in User Experience Education

Emma Rose — 2024-05-06

In the field of user experience (UX), there is a wide range of skills that practitioners are expected to acquire and demonstrate as a competitive candidate for a job. Previous research identified three main skill categories of UX practitioners: technical skills, human skills, and dispositions. However, as educators, we have found that students often struggle to understand and incorporate the breadth of the skills they need into their learning and development. To help students identify, assess, and cultivate their skill sets, we designed a pedagogical intervention in the form of an ‘advance organizer’ that asks students to reflect on their initial and changing skill sets while enrolled in a UX-focused course. In this article, we present the basis of the intervention, including background on learning theories that supported its design. The intervention asks students to read and reflect on an academic article about the desired skills of aspiring UX practitioners, conduct an inventory of their existing and desired skill sets, and design a visualization to represent their current and future skill levels. We report on how the intervention was implemented in three different programs related to UX (one undergraduate, and two graduate programs). An analysis of the resulting assignments suggests the intervention was effective and valuable and helped give students a better sense of the range of skills required in industry. We conclude with considerations for implementing the intervention.

The Influence of Teachers’ Perception of Creativity and Makerspaces on Their Practice in Norwegian Compulsory Schools

Brynjar Olafsson — 2024-05-06

The use of makerspaces in Norwegian compulsory education is growing. However, using maker-centred learning to support creativity has yet to be examined extensively in the Norwegian context. Consequently, the aim of this research is to explore Norwegian makerspace teachers’ conceptions of the use of maker-centred learning to augment creative capabilities and digital competences. The study focuses on teachers’ understandings of creativity and makerspaces along with various aspects of maker-centred learning and how they support creativity. The data was collected via six semi-structured interviews with teachers working in school-based makerspaces. In the interviews, the teachers conceptualised creativity related to makerspaces and reflected on various pedagogical aspects of managing creative makerspace activities. The research indicates that teachers have similar understandings of makerspaces but different interpretations of creativity. As a result, the makerspaces are designed differently, and the teachers use a variety of teaching methods. The findings also indicate that the teacher must be able to change their role from being an instructor to a facilitator and observer while also managing the utilised technology. Digital technology, collaboration, and constraints were also found to be factors that supported students’ creativity.

Formation of Industrial Design Culture from Educational to Professional Life

Dogan Can Hatunoglu — 2024-05-06

Although the professional culture of designers has been emphasized as a peripheral issue in various fields of study in design, such as design culture and design management, it has rarely been the central topic of research. However, studies from other professional fields have demonstrated the significance of studying professional culture, especially its formation in higher educational contexts, as it has direct implications on professional status and career prospects of these professions' members. This paper aims to redress this gap by exploring how the professional culture acquired in industrial design education shapes industrial designers’ work experiences in manufacturing companies? It focuses on the context of Turkey and empirically draws on interviews with industrial designers who have work experience in large-scale manufacturing companies. Interviews reveal insights into industrial designers’ perceptions of the profession, experiences in undergraduate education, adaptations to professional life, and professional experiences in manufacturing companies where they collaborate with other professions, where cultural disconnect becomes visible. The qualitative data analysis highlighted the significance of being a community and having flexibility in space and time in industrial design’s professional culture in the examined context. The findings underline collaboration and teaching of soft skills such as communication and teamwork as implications for industrial design education.

Anonymous Modern Design Education in Western China: A Case Study

Zhiyong Wang — 2024-05-06

Along with the rapid development of Chinese modern design since the 1980s, modern design education has grown in China. Many studies have already been conducted to examine the key aspects of this historical phenomenon, e.g., heroic figures and well-known institutes. This article, however, investigates the anonymous activities of modern design education in Western China that have long been ignored because of their mundane function. Methods such as document analysis, questionnaire, interview, and subjective understanding are used to achieve the goal of this article. Through research on the School of Fine Arts in a University of Science and Engineering in Western China, as a typical case, this article reveals that although the school lags behind many other design schools, modern design education at the school has experienced sustained growth since its rise in the twenty-first century. The school has made achievements in a difficult situation but suffers from a series of disadvantages and problems. Additionally, modern design education at the school is facing new challenges resulting from changes related to raised standards and intense competition. In conclusion, the value of relatively unknown educational organisations of modern design is becoming clearer, since they are closely connected to the everyday life of ordinary people in Western China and take on a great deal of responsibility in serving the general populace and the vulnerable groups in society. This article, therefore, tries to call attention to anonymous modern design education whose aspects are disclosed through a case study.

Glocal Design and Technology education: sharing disparate local insight that informs and enriches global understanding and inspiration.

Kay Stables — 2024-05-06