An empirical assessment of metaphor use in the design studio: analysis, reflection and restructuring of architectural design

This investigation was concerned with the use of metaphors in architectural design education. Reasoning by means of metaphors helps to understand a design situation in terms of a remote concept normally not associated with it. By juxtaposing the known with the unknown in an unusual way, metaphors can enhance design problem solving. The goal of this study was to research empirically the use of metaphors in the design studio as perceived by students. By analyzing relations between metaphorical reasoning and design, we explored metaphor factors that have a major contribution to the design process. Results showed that ‘Restructuring design problems’ and ‘Delving into design solutions’ are the main factors of design problem solving. Furthermore, ‘Innovative design based on personal beliefs’ and ‘Analysis and reflection on design problems’ are the two factors associated with metaphor use. The latter was found to be a significant predictor with a contribution to ‘Restructuring of design problems’. Findings have implications for design education, particularly for intervention programs that seek to improve reasoning and reflection skills in the architectural design studio.     

Effects of cognitive styles on 2D drafting and design performance in digital media

This paper investigates the interactions between design students’ cognitive styles, as measured by Riding’s Cognitive Styles Analysis, and performance in 2D drafting and design tasks in digital media. An empirical research revealed that Imager students outperformed Verbalisers in both drafting and creativity scores. Wholist–Analytic cognitive style dimension was found to be independent from drafting and design performance. The study suggests that examining the cognitive styles of students in Computer Aided Design (CAD) education deserves further attention and may facilitate for improvements in learning processes.     

Interactive effects of environmental experience and innovative cognitive style on student creativity in product design

Environmental experience can enhance the ideas of design students. Thus, this type of experience may interfere with the influence of design students’ cognitive style on creativity. The aim of this study was to examine the influence of environmental experience on the relationship between innovative cognitive style and industrial design students’ creative outcomes. The environmental experience was measured according to the total scores of the five components of sense, feel, think, act, and relate on the basis of Schmitt’s strategic experience modules. The cognitive styles were measured using Kirton’s adaption–innovation inventory, and creative works were assessed through the consensus assessment technique, which was employed by three experts. Through a field experiment and survey investigation, the analysis indicated that innovative cognitive style significantly and positively influenced creativity, but this only occurred when student was accompanied with a low degree of environmental experience (i.e., a student had a low score for environmental experience); as the student attained a high degree of environmental experience, the influence of innovative cognitive style on creativity became weakened. The experiential media suggested that the natural elements, cultural history, group travel, and narrator effectively diversified the experiences of the students and enhanced creative thinking. This paper suggests providing increased stimulation of environmental experience prior to instructing design students to engage in creative activity. Environmental experience can benefit students by enhancing their creativity.     

Consequential creativity

Creativity is an original cognitive ability and problem solving process which enables individuals to use their intelligence in a way that is unique and directed toward coming up with a product. Architectural education is one of the fields in which human creativity has been exhibited; because, it can be defined as a design study that correlates with other disciplines: social sciences, management, history, operational research, philosophy, graphic design, math and etc. These features which distinguish architecture from other disciplines ascribe different kind of responsibilities for architectural education; since beside technical and professional skills, an architect must have imagination and to be creative at many levels. Thus, this research aims at proving that students can be trained in creative thinking via acquiring specific skills and systematic techniques, which directly acts on design product. The study methodology depends on the concept of experimental research that targets at exposing students to creative problem solving experience via carrying out a creative training course that concerns “Consequential Creativity”. That experiment examined the potentiality of enhancing the students’ ability of viewing problems in non-traditional perspectives that counts on the systematic procedures of problem solving. Tools for assessment before and after training have been implemented. The Experiment findings proved that the students’ creative thinking skill has been clearly improved after attending the course. Therefore, training in creative thinking can be considered as independent courses or within specific architectural curricula.     

Project-based pedagogy for the facilitation of webpage design

Real issues of web design and development include many problem-solving tasks. There are, however, some inadequacies associated with the implementation of appropriate pedagogy for organised and structured instruction that supports the rational problem-solving paradigm. The purpose of this article is to report on a study for the design and implementation of an Instructional Web Design Programme (IWDP) with methodology-specific guidelines in an information systems design context. A second purpose is to discuss the pedagogy developed within the IWDP and its effects on promoting technological problem solving of learners in the project-based classroom. A qualitative, action-research approach was the basis for this study. The sample consisted of 17 learners at an institution of higher education. The researchers used a focus group interview, journals and essays to observe learners’ behaviour, to analyse their project designs and to assess their opinions and experiences with regard to the IWDP. An organised and structured instructional environment within the IWDP helped the teacher to promote technological problem solving. The teacher and learners acknowledged the components of the programme (for example, assessment criteria, range statements, performance indicators, pre-defined learner tasks and activities) in the project-based classroom. Practical and cognitive apprenticeship and experiential and situated learning were used to accommodate the problem-solving needs of learners. Learners indicated a need for a variety of tools and expert guidance in a peer-based collaborative learning environment.     

A model of creative design process for fostering creativity of students in design education

Creativity, which is concerned with problem solving, is essential if we are to generate new solutions to the massive and complex problems in the unknown future. Our next generation needs an educational platform where they can be taught to possess creativity. Design education is such a way to foster students’ creativity. Therefore, it is essential to understand the creative design process and its routine in order to show how students can generate creative output and how teachers can guide students in the design process. Consequently, the aim of this paper is to investigate the creative design process as it is employed in producing creative designs, and further recommend how students can practise and learn to be creative based on the model process developed in this paper. The model is expected to provide a guideline for teachers to facilitate students along the creative thinking process.     

Architectural design education: in varietate unitas

A fascinating and rich landscape of personal views and approaches can be seen in architectural design and in architectural design education. This variation may be confusing for students. This paper focuses on the question: is the framework of generic elements that we developed for explicating the design process helpful to compare the differences in architectural design approaches? The results of interviewing a variety of 15 architectural, urban and landscape designers show all kinds of personal approaches that have a set of five underlying generic elements in common. Therefore, the framework may be helpful for teachers and students to describe these personal approaches and may help students in understanding differences and similarities and in finding out what their own personal approach may be.     

Heuristics and CAD modelling: an examination of student behaviour during problem solving episodes within CAD modelling activities

Design activities typically involve and culminate in the creation of models representative of new ideas and conceptions. The format is often dictated by the specific discipline, with ideas in design and technology education regularly being externalised through the use of computer aided design (CAD). This paper focusses on the realisation stage of a design process, specifically when conceptual ideas are being externalised through CAD. Acknowledging students as novices or quasi-experts with regards to their levels of technical expertise and recognising the limitations in the cognitive capacities of humans suggests merit in investigating problem solving strategies through the lens of heuristics. A comparative study was employed between two distinct CAD systems to examine students modelling behaviour. Considering the situational context of the problems encountered and the bounded rationality which the students are operating within, a number of insights are generated from the findings which are of importance from a pedagogical perspective within design and technology education.     

ASIT—a problem solving strategy for education and eco-friendly sustainable design

There is growing recognition of the role teaching and learning experiences in technology education can contribute to Education for Sustainable Development. It appears, however, that in the Technology Education classroom little or no change has been achieved to the practice of designing and problem solving strategies oriented towards sustainable design. Brainstorming, Brainwriting, SCAMPER, Metaphoric Thinking, Outrageous Thinking, Mind Mapping and other problem-solving strategies used in the classroom could be suitable for eco-design, however, there appears to be little research data on their use. This paper examines and presents the ‘Advanced Systematic Inventive Thinking’ (ASIT) system as an eco-design strategy. ASIT is derived from a more complex engineering-based problem solving strategy known as TRIZ (the Russian acronym for The Theory of the Solution of Inventive Problems). Drawing on Stable’s (in press) call for new approaches to address sustainable design and achieve solutions through Technology Education, this article traces the history of TRIZ and the development of ASIT. It then argues that the ASIT strategy can be an effective methodology to be taught and used in the Technology Education classroom to solve problems in the ‘eco’ or sustainable design context. Several design scenarios have been included to illustrate how ASIT can deliver eco-design solutions to problems. These examples demonstrate the flexibility of the methodology and the diverse range of applications in which ASIT can be applied.     

Methods that may stimulate creativity and their use in architectural design education

The architectural design process is based on a creative phase where creativity is highly valued. Although the literature on creativity is rich in ways to stimulate the decision-making process, these tools are rarely formally present in the building design process. To further the discussion on creativity and design education this paper presents a study on methods that may enhance the creative process and their application in architecture courses around the world. The results of this inquiry indicate that design instructors apply methods that may stimulate creativity mostly informally, with some positive results. To explore more fully the richness of the literature on the enhancement of creativity, structured applications of methods are recommended in controlled experiments to analyze results.     

Motivation for creativity in architectural design and engineering design students: implications for design education

The investigation reported here dealt with the study of motivation for creativity. The goals were to assess motivation for creativity in architectural design and engineering design students based on the Cognitive Orientation theory which defines motivation as a function of a set of belief types, themes, and groupings identified as relevant for the development of creativity. Differences between the two groups of students were expected in some of the scores of the belief types, themes, and groupings. Participants were 112 students (52 from architecture, and 60 from engineering) who were administered the questionnaire of the Cognitive Orientation of Creativity. Significant differences in numerous motivational contents were observed between the groups of students. Major characteristics of the architectural design students were an emphasis on the inner world, inner-directedness, and a development of the self, and of the engineering design students being receptive to the environment, and demanding from oneself despite potential difficulties. The findings provide insights for intervention programs targeted at improving architectural and engineering design education.     

Learning outcomes in affective domain within contemporary architectural curricula

Contemporary architectural education has shifted from the traditional focus on providing students with specific knowledge and skill sets or ‘inputs’ to outcome based, student-centred educational approach. Within the outcome based model, students’ performance is assessed against measureable objectives that relate acquired knowledge and skills to performance expectations in higher level courses or real world architectural practice. Bloom’s taxonomy has been widely accepted as a useful tool for defining learning outcomes. It references three domains that impinge on the learning process including the ‘cognitive,’ ‘affective’ and ‘psychomotor.’ In practice, most of the attention is paid to the cognitive domain. Considering the interdisciplinary and multivalent character of architecture (as discipline), curriculum design cannot be founded primarily on cognitive-based outcomes. This paper argues that affective domain, especially in the field of building learners’ personalized value systems, is essential to designing outcome based architectural programs. Interactive studio-based education provides a platform to integrate cognitive and behavioural skills that are necessary for professional practice.     

Why do students present different design objectives in engineering design projects?

Engineering design practice has been recognized as an effective approach to engage students in STEM learning. However, we noticed that students who possessed strong STEM knowledge did not necessarily perform well on their design projects. Thus, this study sought to explore factors that shaped students’ design objectives and means. A design-based research was adopted using a single group teaching experiment, in which students’ performance in relation to conceptual knowledge, engineering design practice, and their STEM attitudes were assessed in different design complexity groups. Based on the findings of this study, we concluded that students’ interest and metacognitive skills might be the key factors affecting their motivation during the engineering design process. Their abilities in predictive analysis and testing/revising were core elements affecting their design thinking. Our work provides preliminary evidence on how students form and present different design purposes and objectives in an engineering design project.     

The effect of alternative approaches to design instruction (structural or functional) on students’ mental models of technological design processes

The study aimed to examine the relationship between alternative approaches towards problem solving/design teaching (structural or functional), students’ mental modeling of the design process, and the quality of their solutions to design tasks. The structural approach emphasizes the need for an ordered and systematic learning of the design process stages, while the functional approach emphasizes the teaching and study of design functions (rather than stages). Participants were 80 seventh graders, divided into two groups, who were taught a unit on technological problem solving by either approach in the course of 14 classes (21 h) during a semester. Before, during and after the design process of a technological solution the students represented their perception of the design process. The results for both groups were analyzed in terms of: (a) types of models generated; (b) changes in type of models along the learning/design process; (c) defining characteristics of the design process models. Significant differences between the groups’ models were found for most variables examined. The functional approach was more effective than the traditional structural approach for supporting the construction of holistic, flexible, and effective mental models of the design process of technological solutions.     

A Synergy Between the Technological Process and a Methodology for Web Design: Implications for Technological Problem Solving and Design

Traditional instructional methodology in the Information System Design (ISD) environment lacks explicit strategies for promoting the cognitive skills of prospective system designers. This contributes to the fragmented knowledge and low motivational and creative involvement of learners in system design tasks. In addition, present ISD methodologies, including web design methodologies, do not focus sufficiently on technological problem solving and design. Engagement in system design tasks demands critical thinking [Shelly, Cashman & Rosenblatt, 2001, Systems Analysis and Design, 4th edn. Course Technology, Boston] and abstraction skills [Harris, 1999, Systems Analysis and Design for the Small Enterprise, The Dryden Press, Harcourt Brace College Publishers, Fort Worth]. The aim of this paper is to explain a synergy between the technological process and web design methodology and its influence on the development of the cognitive skills of learners in the ISD context. In this research, the Team Structure Software Process (TSSP) methodology was integrated with the stages of the technological process. An interface approach between Information Systems and Technology Education was adopted during the implementation of an Instructional Web Design Program (IWDP), which served as a framework for building a software product. This research was based on a qualitative, action-research approach where individual interviews, focus group interviews, observation and document sources were used to gather data. Seventeen students at an institution of higher education were observed and their experiences were investigated through a focus group interview, journals and an essay. In addition, an interview with the teacher was conducted to investigate her thoughts and feelings during the implementation of the IWDP. During the implementation of the IWDP, multi-method learning was promoted, enlarging learners' insight into the design process and a climate for enhancing intellectual processes and skills created [Jakovljevic, 2002, An Instructional Model for Teaching Complex Thinking through Web Page Design, DEd thesis, Rand Afrikaan University, Johannesburg] This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Sparking self-sustained learning: report on a design experiment to build technological fluency and bridge divides

In this article we report assessment results from two studies in an ongoing design experiment intended to provide a single school system with a sequence of secondary school level (ages 14–18) computer technology courses. In our first study, we share data on students’ learning as a function of the required introductory course and their pre-course history of technological experience. In order to go beyond traditional assessments of learning we assessed two aspects of students’ “learning ecologies”: their use of a variety of learning resources and the extent to which they share their knowledge about technology with others. In our second study we present patterns of course taking by male and female students who have almost completed their secondary schooling. In addition, we share case studies of students who elected to take more technology classes and leveraged their course experiences for internships, further education, and jobs. The quantitative and qualitative data are consistent with our hypothesis that students would become more technologically fluent and that their learning ecologies would diversify as a result of their project-based experiences.     

Exploring the learning problems and resource usage of undergraduate industrial design students in design studio courses

Design is a powerful weapon for modern companies so it is important to have excellent designers in the industry. The purpose of this study is to explore the learning problems and the resources that students use to overcome problems in undergraduate industrial design studio courses. A survey with open-type questions was conducted to collect data. Participants in this study were 189 undergraduate industrial design students from three universities, and two coding schema were formulated for analysing the data. The results demonstrated that the most difficult design tasks included concept generation, design presentation, and design research. The learning resources used to solve the learning problems included four categories: people, object, method, and environment. This information will increase the understanding of the learning process of students and provide a reference for teaching and the setting of learning resources in industrial design education.     

Mutual impacts of product standardization and supply chain design

This paper deals with two major issues for industries; the product design and the supply chain design. These problems are usually solved separately, but in recent years, approaches were proposed to tackle these two problems together. In this paper, we investigate more precisely the links between the standardization of products or components, and the design of the supply chain. First, we show on a little example that there is a great interest to consider simultaneously these two decisions, and that solving these interdependent problems separately could result in a suboptimal, or even a bad, decision. Then, on a simplified problem issued from an industrial case study, we outline the impact of standardization choices on the structure of the supply chain and the gain that can be obtained from solving the problem as a unique compound optimization model. To illustrate the solutions of the problem, we propose graphics in order to visualize, in function of quantities and/or transportation costs, the best decision for the product standardization and for the supply chain design. Graphics also permit to anticipate the impacts of a variation of either quantities or transportation costs, from a specific situation. Such graphics they could be used in a decision aid tool to help companies in their choices. Finally, we show that costs and supply chain structure are highly impacted.