Why a Logbook? A backpack journey as a metaphor for product design education

Abstract

Recent literature suggests that the development of cognitive skills should constitute explicit learning objectives in design education. The work describes an educational intervention designed with the intention of promoting the creative and critical thinking performance of a group of Portuguese design students. To this end, creativity and critical thinking tests, pre and post intervention, were applied to the experimental group and to a control group. The intervention was based on two fundamental theoretical assumptions: (1) students' thinking skills can be promoted by the introduction of Design Thinking as a learning content, and (2) this work should be complemented by the promotion of students' metacognitive reflection. Comparing the learning process, by analogy, with a backpack journey, a Logbook concept as an educational tool to potentially promote students' self-reflection was developed. Compared with the control group, results indicate a positive evolution of creative thinking skills in the experimental group.

Impact of design thinking in higher education: a multi-actor perspective on problem solving and creativity

“…Creativity is mentioned in the design thinking literature either as a characteristic of the process (e.g. Lewrick et al, 2020), or as one of the skills being developed throughout the process (Alhamdani, 2016;Clemente et al, 2017;West et al, 2012). The constructivist framework helps to understand the link between creativity and design thinking.…”

Mapping Impact of Design Thinking in Teamwork, Problem-Solving and Creativity

“…In this regard, the results show that students under a DT intervention improved their creativity skills throughout the study. Some studies also found a positive impact on this outcome after a DT intervention (West et al, 2012), (Saggar et al, 2017), (Clemente et al, 2017), (Benson and Dresdow, 2015), and one reported no impact (Ohly et al, 2016). The decline on facilitators mean score from t1 to t2 showed in Figure 2 is not significant; however, it can also be explained by the higher facilitators' expectations by the end of the course.…”

“…(Matsushita et al, 2015), (Lugmayr et al, 2014), (Parmar, 2014), (Taajamaa et al, 2013), and creativity/creative thinking e.g. (West et al, 2012), (Saggar et al, 2017), (Clemente et al, 2017), (Benson and Dresdow, 2015), among others.…”

Design Thinking in Higher Education: A Scoping Review

“…Seidel & Fixson [22] imply on their research that the successful adoption of DT is based on connecting formal methods (need-finding, brainstorming, prototyping) and reflexive team practices according to team composition and phase of development. Clemente et al [37], used the Logbook as a learning tool through a design project that allows students to record and reflect on their personal journey, individually. This tool was used as part of an intervention that used a metaphor between a design project and a backpack trip; the results did not show a significant effect on the critical performance of participants, however it contributed to students' creative performance enhancement.…”