Comparative study of industrial design undergraduate education in China and USA

Industrial design (ID) undergraduate education in China is seen as a new rapidly growing discipline over the past 40 years. China’s ID education is not well known in the West due to several barriers: language, the Great Firewall of China which blocks out most of the Western websites and a 12-h time difference. All Chinese ID curriculum and program information are available in Mandarin. The Ministry of Education administers all Chinese design education as well as ID scholarships and faculty exchange grants and its website and documents require translation. The Great Firewall of China blocks 90% of Western websites including Google making it difficult for Western Scholars to access accurate information about the size and shape of the Chinese ID education landscape. China has a historical relationship between the ID schools in China and the United States. Chinese students are studying or alumni of every American ID program. China and USA share similar program types, dual-track admissions for art and design streams, and academic calendars. In this paper, a model was developed to clarify the features of ID undergraduate education in China and USA, and a survey of eight ID schools was processed. Four aspects were comparatively discussed: (1) types of ID education, (2) ranking, evaluation, and certification of ID schools and programs, (3) curriculum, credits, course features, and yearly schedules of schools, (4) influences coming from the culture and globalization process. Based on the analysis, the similarities and differences in ID undergraduate education between the two countries are discussed. Results show the dual-track modes in China and USA are different. It is mainly reflected in the management and enrollment, curriculum organization, and cultural environment. Implications for the localization, openness, and globalization to ID education are finally discussed together with several directions for future development. The findings are valuable to USA and Chinese ID departments and faculty, researchers, staff and visiting scholars. It is also useful for university administrative units such as registrars, admissions, international offices and exchanges to understand each other.

     

Materials experience as a foundation for materials and design education

An important body of research has developed in recent years, explaining ways in which product materials influence user experiences. A priority now is to ensure that the research findings are adopted within an educational context to deliver contemporary curricula for students studying the subject of materials and design. This paper reports on an international initiative to develop ‘materials experience’ as a formal subject of study, complementary to traditional technical and engineering approaches to materials and design education. General learning objectives for materials experience are established, followed by specific attention to three kinds of experience that arise during user–material–product interaction: gratification of senses, conveyance of meanings, and elicitation of emotions. For each of these kinds of experience, a specially devised active learning exercise is explained in detail. In combination, these exercises are argued to deliver a good foundation for student appreciation and action on designing for material experiences in product design. The paper concludes with recommendations for how to responsibly redress the imbalance that exists in materials and design education, by transitioning from a culture of ‘imparting knowledge about materials’ to a culture of ‘generating experience with materials’.     

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.     

High school student modeling in the engineering design process

A diverse group of 20 high school students from four states in the US were individually provided with an engineering design challenge. Students chosen were in capstone engineering courses and had taken multiple engineering courses. As students considered the problem and developed a solution, observational data were recorded and artifacts collected. Quantitative methods were used to identify how students allocated their time across different types of modeling. Qualitative methods were used to review data from three students who spent substantial time engaged in graphical and two kinds of mathematical modeling. These students were profiled and their patterns of modeling are represented visually and described in context. Much of the modeling done by these 20 students was graphical in nature. Few students informed their thinking with mathematical representations, yet predictive mathematical modeling is essential to engineering design. Implications for the classroom include encouraging students to transfer understanding of science and mathematics into technology and engineering contexts through modeling.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Open design: an actual topic in architectural education

International Journal of Technology and Design Education - Architecture is never fixed: buildings and (urban) spaces change as their use(r)s and contexts change over time. Even when architectural...     

Format effects in the understanding of motion from kinematic diagrams in engineering education

International Journal of Technology and Design Education - Understanding and constructing domain-specific external representations, such as kinematic diagrams, is an important goal of engineering...     

Learning to think spatially in an undergraduate interdisciplinary computational design context: a case study

Spatial thinking skills are vital for success in everyday living and work, not to mention the centrality of spatial reasoning in scientific discoveries, design-based disciplines, medicine, geosciences and mathematics to name a few. This case study describes a course in spatial thinking and communicating designed and delivered by an interdisciplinary team over a three-year period to first-year university students. Four major elements provide a framework for the sequencing of instruction and acquisition of 2D and 3D spatial thinking and reasoning skills in a computational design context. We describe the process of introducing students to computational design environments beginning with a fun and familiar tool in preparation for a more complex, industry-standard system (SolidWorks). A design project provides diverse student teams an opportunity to integrate and apply foundational spatial concepts and skills including sketching, 2D and 3D representations, as well as digital and physical modeling. Samples of student work illustrate the scaffolding necessary for students to successfully draw upon the spatial thinking and communication skills required to complete their team projects beginning with applying sketching techniques; modeling individual 3D parts; creating digital assemblies; and finally building the equivalent 3D physical model. Key instructional principles provide a framework for the analysis of what worked and what didn’t in relation to spatial skills development in students. The lessons learned are identified along with potential future directions for teaching and learning scholarship in spatial thinking development within a computational design context.     

Mapping the journey: visualising collaborative experiences for sustainable design education

The paradigm of design is changing. Designers now need to be equipped with the skills and knowledge that will enable them to participate in the global move towards a sustainable future. The challenges arise as Design for Sustainability deals with very complex and often contradictory issues. Collaborative learning experiences recognise that these complex issues can be addressed with the pooling of diverse knowledge, perspectives, cultures, skills and tools. Unless, however the process of collaboration is explored in detail, the opportunity for reflection, learning and improvement is lost. This paper proposes that by introducing and analysing collaboration within third level design education, the capacity for responsible design practice can be developed, leading to a transformative shift in how designers are taught as students and subsequently practice as professionals. Over two multidisciplinary projects devised and undertaken by design students from the University of Limerick (Ireland), Hogeschool Utrecht (Netherlands) and Virginia Commonwealth University (USA), the collaborative path is mapped and critical junctions identified. From this process of mapping and visualisation, collective narratives of the overall project experience are constructed (through the eyes of the participants and planners). This leads to a greater understanding and appreciation of the benefits and limitations of the collaborative experience.     

Embedded creativity: teaching design thinking via distance education

This paper shows how the design thinking skills of students learning at a distance can be consciously developed, and deliberately applied outside of the creative industries in what are termed ‘embedded’ contexts. The distance learning model of education pioneered by The Open University is briefly described before the technological innovations—which feature a fully integrated web 2.0 learning environment and design studio—and concepts behind a new course in Design Thinking are explained in detail. In teaching the more generic skills of design and developing experiential knowledge in students, the paper also explores the changing role of designers in becoming less problem-focussed and more socially engaged through the construction of design process. The paper ends by presenting the results of an extensive student and tutor survey as part of an ongoing longitudinal study which indicate that this new approach to teaching design has been successful.     

图书馆在大学生素质教育中的作用

高校图书馆,它既是学校的文献情报中心,又是广大学生不可缺少的学习活动场所,在推进素质教育方面有着诸多的独特优势:文献资源的优势、环境优势、学习氛围的优势、教育形式的优势。我们应该充分利用图书馆的优势,使其在大学生素质教育中发挥应有的作用。     

Digital based media design: the innovative contribution of design graduates from vocational and higher education sectors

Design is increasingly being recognised as a key source of competitive advantage in the innovation economy of many countries. The key objective of this research was to understand the contribution by design graduates to creative industries innovative activities. Primary research was conducted to understand barriers and limitations of graduate contributions to such activities. The attributes and skills of graduates from the university and Vocational Education and Training sectors were the subject of the study. Two focus groups, one with the education sectors and the other with representatives from design firms, government institutions and design associations were held. Though each group of graduates was praised for having certain skill sets graduates from both sectors were found to be lacking in three key areas: problem solving, communication skills and commercial knowledge. A range of suggestions for systemic improvement were proposed as a result of the study.     

Reflection and professional identity development in design education

Design thinking positions designers as the drivers of the design space yet academic discourse is largely silent on the topic of professional identity development in design. Professional identity, or the dynamic narratives that individuals construct and maintain to integrate their personal qualities with professional responsibilities, has not been widely addressed in design education either. The study investigated the use of reflective writing in an introductory design course to help students explore and interpret their design beliefs, experiences, and self-awareness in support of professional identity development work. The results indicate that authorial presence, analysis, and narrative quality are common qualities in reflective responses, but emotion is notably lacking from student writing. Students were highly reflective in relation to a general experience with uncertainty and were least reflective when discussing ideation processes. Implications for design education and related research are analysed and discussed.     

Recognizing and fostering creativity in technological design education

The importance of creativity in technological design education is now clearly recognized, both in everyday understanding and also in formal curriculum guidelines. Design offers special opportunities for creativity because of the “openness” of problems (ill-defined problems, the existence of a variety of pathways to the solution, the absence of pre-specified “correct” solutions). However, teachers are still confronted by the question of how to specify which designs are creative and why, how to identify where the creative strengths of designs lie so that students can build on these, and what advice to give on how to change designs to make them more creative. There are also still open questions concerning design pedagogy. A “functional” model of creativity offers guidelines for making plain to students what they are expected to achieve with their designs and for diagnosing the creativity of the designs they offer. These yield, in turn, guidelines for design pedagogy.     

Introducing students to bio-inspiration and biomimetic design: a workshop experience

In recent years, bio-inspired approach to design has gained considerable interest between designers, engineers and end-users. However, there are difficulties in introducing bio-inspiration concepts in the university curriculum in that they involve multi-disciplinary work, which can only possibly be successfully delivered by a team with integrated competencies. The aim of this work is summarising the results of the first workshop on bio-inspired design carried out at the Hybrid Design Lab of Seconda Università di Napoli, involving Year 2 students of the BSc in Industrial Design. The common theme proposed for their projects was “Bio-inspired design of sport”. Ideally, a sport item would need to respond to a number of exigencies, including safety, comfort, zero-energy balance and/or use of renewable energy sources, multi-functionality. The common aim of the projects was investigating in which cases bio-inspiration can assist in the fulfilment of the above exigencies. The students were asked to present examples from nature and, via an abstraction process, to apply them to the design of sport items. Finally, they were required to clarify the nature and the extent of bio-inspiration in their projects. Some of the projects, which were considered more interesting and realisable, are reported and briefly commented, especially on the nature, extent and appropriateness of their bio-inspiration. A test for feedback has been given to the students, whose scope, structure and general outcome is also discussed.     

T/E design based learning: assessing student critical thinking and problem solving abilities

International Journal of Technology and Design Education - The research presented is of an investigation into the critical thinking (CT) and problem solving (PS) abilities used by high school...