Design Thinking in Higher Education: A Scoping Review

Abstract

Design Thinking is trendy in engineering and management educational settings. Some researchers link Design Thinking to the 21st century skills which are highly demanded by industry. In this paper we set the following research questions: 1) What are the characteristics and dimensions of Design Thinking? 2) What skills have been assessed on undergraduate or graduate students as a result of a Design Thinking intervention? 3) What are the ways to develop Design Thinking in education?There is no recent literature review about Design Thinking in engineering and management Higher Education. The purpose of this work is to bring a state-of-the-art of this topic, answering the proposed research questions. A scoping review was carried out building on the literature from the last 10 years as indexed in the 'Web of Science' database, usingThe results show that: (1) There is no agreement for a clear definition of Design Thinking; nevertheless, there are two main ways of depicting it; (2) Only 20 studies out of 79 assess the impact on students as a result of an intervention. It was found around 20 skills, 7 learning outcomes and 5 attitudes, which were assessed. (3) Overall, some authors present ways to develop Design Thinking such as analogies, reflection, physical models, storytelling, among others.Though Design Thinking is presenting as a promising agenda for curriculum design attaining new goals for education, the results stress the need for more empirical robust arguments and evidencebased assessment because most of the research is still based on anecdotal testimonies; otherwise it could become just another fad. The paper provides avenues for future research.

Potentials and problems of teaching design thinking as massive open online courses in the Chinese context

“…Going a step further, Nesteruk and Martin (2019) proposed that liberal arts education could add a critical and reflective layer to DT's creative problem-solving approach. Gauman-Quintanilla et al (2018) conducted a scoping review of the teaching of DT in western universities and noted that although higher education institutions are increasingly investing in programs to embed DT throughout the curriculum, there is no clear definition of design thinking. Design thinking has been variously described as being a 'new paradigm,' a 'way of thinking and being,' the 'application of design methods to innovation challenges by multidisciplinary terms,' 'a team-based innovation method,' 'a human-centered approach applied to wicked problem-solving,' as having 'the ability to combine empathy, creativity, and rationality,' as 'both the creation of material and non-material values, and strategic and systemic approach in the problem solving' (Gauman-Quintanilla et al 2018, p. 2957) and so forth.…”

“…While Meyer and Norman (2019) have proposed the pressing and ambitious mission of taking actions to recreate the paths for design education through curriculum change, other scholars have carried out case studies and scoping reviews to examine how design thinking has been taught in universities (Gauman-Quintanilla et al 2018;Wrigley et al 2018;Wrigley and Straker 2017). However, current discussions around the role of DT in higher education are mostly situated in western contexts, and few studies have reviewed how DT is perceived and integrated into university teaching programs in the Asian context.…”

Design Thinking: a problem-solving approach for first-year undergrad students

“…al. [5] provides an extended definition as a result of a scoping review of DT in Higher Education. They describe it as a way to solve ill-defined problems using some methods taken from designers, which can be adapted to different contexts applying a human-centered and prototype-driven approach, fostering creativity and promoting teamwork.…”

“…al. [5] found that there is an urgent agenda for researchers to assess the effects of DT interventions on students' skills, in a robust way. In their work, they found various skills related to Design Thinking; most of them also connected to the so-called 21st.…”

“…The course would have a focus on analyzing and developing solution proposals and prototypes for Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in the city and, if possible, for for-profit organizations willing to participate in the program as well. Consequently, the students would benefit by working at the very early stage of their professional education in some of the soft competencies that are important for professional life such as: collaboration and teamwork, creativity, problem solving, and empathy [5].…”