Research Through Design in Design Education ▶ Canan Akoglu

RE Canan Akoglu, PhD Designskolen Kolding/Denmark SEARCH THROUGH DESIGN

Research Through Design in Design Education

Design education fosters not only the necessary skills to design, but also the ability to critically engage with theoretical concepts and use those during the design process. Based on this perspective, this paper presents how design students, on a graduate level, could use research through design as a foundation in their design ▲ Canan Akoglu practice. It argues that research through design becomes a natural part of the design process as it keeps designers in a loop or iteration of doing/making and reflecting in theoretical and practical levels at the same time. The study brings in examples from master’s graduation projects from Design for People Programme at Design School Kolding to portray how research through design could be used in design education and therefore practice. The paper concludes that this way of working provides theoretical concepts as a resource for further understanding and transforming design practice as well as creating a better and clearer emergence of theory and practice connection in design. Research Through Design: A Brief Overview To start with a wider perspective, Archer (1995, 6) defines research as such: 33 Research through Design in Design Education

“Research is systematic enquiry whose goal is communicable knowledge: systematic because it is pursued according to some plan; an enquiry because it seeks to find answers to questions; goal-directed because the objects of the enquiry are posed by the task description; knowledge-directed because the findings of the enquiry must go beyond providing mere information; and communicable because the findings must be intelligible to, and located within some framework of understanding for, an appropriate audience.”

With a specific perspective, research through design (RtD) which is in the focus of this paper, is introduced by Christopher Frayling in 1993 in the Royal College of Art Research Papers in three forms of combinations between research and design or art: 1) research into art and design, 2) research for art and design, 3) research through art and design. According to Frayling (1993, 8),

research into art and design works with the historical and theoretical perspectives in relation to subjects in art and design; research for art and design works on theoretical perspectives such as social, economic, political, ethical, cultural, technical, material, structural aspects; research through art and design entails material research, development work and action research. This approach is based in the design or art practice where practice qualifications are put into action as a way of creating real-life scenarios for investigations. In RtD, the process and documentation of the process (e.g., the creation of a diary or a report as pointed out by Frayling (1993)) are essential parts of the research. Both RtD and research for design are approaches where the use of designerly skills is put into action to create new knowledge about a specific topic. Therefore, the designers are seen as knowledge creators through their practice. Both research into art and design and research for art and design make an emphasis on the process of designing itself; while research into art and design focuses on the design outcome, research for design and art focuses on the process of obtaining knowledge that is needed to create the design. Research through art and design could be seen as an approach where designing itself is used to research a general topic; in this one, the research question tends to be broader than the design question. Two years later, in a similar way to Frayling (1993), Bruce Archer (1995) put forward three categories in terms of research through practitioners’ actions. For the last approach, he uses through in the following way: “through the medium of practitioner activity, the case becomes interesting” (Archer, 1995, 11). Archer (1995) focuses on the process of the knowledge gained from the design process and the design artefact’s contribution to the situation when using the designed artefact as a medium for gathering field material. This study interprets that the medium of the practitioner (in this case the design students) could be in the form of prototypes, design experiments, interventions, workshops or a series of ▶▶ Designers are knowledge creatorscombinations of those throughout the design process as those are different ways of generating knowledge through design. The context This study brings in a few examples from master’s graduation projects from Design for People MA Programme at Design School Kolding. In total, between 2020-2022, 14 master’s theses and projects, of which the author was the main supervisor, were investigated to portray how RtD is used in this specific design education. The master’s graduation project is the very final course in the master programmes at Design School Kolding and runs around 20 weeks.

The students are expected to deliver two outcomes at the end of the process: ▶ A thesis about their project: a written assignment that covers sections such as the problem statement, the state of art, a relevant literature review, empirical studies, engagements with relevant actors, analysis, discussion and conclusion ▶ A design proposal: the outcome could be in the form of a digital or physical product and/or a service depending on the student’s discipline as we have students from different design disciplines such as industrial design, communication design, accessory design, textile design and fashion design.

Findings In this study, theory and practice inform and collaborate with each other throughout the design process. As shown in Figure 1, mainly, theory could be used 1) for creating a theoretical framework for contextualising, 2) as a tool for methodological approach and analysis, 3) as an analytical tool for final reflections and discussions together with the design proposal at the end of the design process. The visualization in Figure 1 is based on Design Council’s double diamond model that consists of discover, define, develop and deliver as a representation of the design process (Design Council, 2019). Discover is about exploring challenges within the topic of interest by doing desktop research on literature and practical examples as well as initiating first contacts (interviews, walk and talks, observations, making a probe, doing a probing activity etc) with relevant actors. Define is about framing a challenge by mainly going into further and in-depth engagements with relevant actors, more specifically with potential participants of the challenge. The engagements (further interviews, making probes, doing a probing activity or workshops) in define would have rather more specific focus than in discover. In develop, making continues with early design concepts and further engagements (workshops, probing activities with a much specific focus) with participants. Throughout define and develop, theory could be used as a tool for methodological approach and analysis. For instance, investigating how others use different materials in exploring emotions with people in a workshop setting could benefit a student who explores how design could support in creating spaces for teenagers to socialize with each other. Deliver is mainly delivering a final design proposal by refining a design concept and rehearsing it with relevant actors to receive feedback as well as finalising the design based on the feedback. In deliver, the overall theoretical frame and practice are used as tools for final reflections and discussions.

Designers are knowledge creators ◀◀

desktop (theoretical & examples) research & first contacts with relevant actors in-depth engagements with relevant actors

Theory as a tool for contextualising

Figure 1: RtD elements and process Theory as a tool for methodological approach & analysis

concept development and further engagements with relevant actors refined concept development and rehearsing with relevant actors

Theory as a tool for methodological approach & analysis Theory and practice as a tool for final reflections & discussions

"In order to prevail, universities have started to look into issues that international students face while on campus, such as culture shock, adjustment problems, linguistic barriers , immigration restrictions and psychological distress associated with moving to a foreign country"

(Kusek, W. A, 2015)

SOCIAL EXCLUSION & ISOLATION

CHALLENGES & STRUGGLES

COMMUNICATION BARRIERS

CULTURE SHOCK CULTURAL ADAPTION

ABSENT FROM LOCAL SOCIETY

SOJOURN CITIZEN

CO-CULTURAL COMMUNITY

Figure 2: One example for part of theoretical framing in a master’s graduation project (Lesley-Ann Donnell, 2020)

Figure 2, as an example for discover, shows a snapshot of how one quote from literature forms part of the theoretical framework in a student project about the presence of international students in one city. The above key themes that emerged from the theoretical framing was further investigated in the next step in the form of interviews with international students and a representative of a student association in the same city. This step is also part of discover as the student was exploring what type of challenges international students experience when they move to another city. The same project continued with deeper and many more specific investigations in define based on the findings and insights from the discover phase as shown in Figure 3.

Multi culture influences?

STUDENT IDENTITY

Adapting to the transient lifestyle? maintaining transnational connections? Adapting to new culture?

Feeling part of society? Connecting with locals?

LOCAL CONNECTIONS

Areas of Research

What is a 'community'?

STUDENT COMMUNITY

Forming a community

Figure 3: Probes as part of define (Lesley-Ann Donnell, 2020)

Figure 4: A set of activities (thinking & making) for discover and define based on theoretical framework and engagements with potential participants through workshops (Xiaoya Wang, 2020)

Figure 5: A set of activities for defi ne and develop based on theoretical framework and engagements with potential participants through workshops (Xiaoya Wang, 2020)

Figure 6: A set of activities for develop and deliver based on the engagements with potential participants through rehearsing and reflections (Xiaoya Wang, 2020)

In a similar way, the above study started with investigating the topic in the literature as well as with first and initial contacts with relevant actors through observations, online probes and workshops as part of discover and define (Figure 4); continued with a set of activities for define and develop (Figure 5) and finished through rehearsing with potential participants and reflections (Figure 6).

To conclude This paper presented how design students on a graduate level could use RtD as a foundation in their design practice. It argues that RtD becomes a natural part of the design process as it keeps designers in a loop or iteration of doing/making and reflecting at theoretical and practical levels at the same time. This way of working is also related with how Donald Schön (1983) introduced design as a reflective practice where designers reflect in and on the actions in order to enrich their design practice. From a pedagogical perspective, one essential goal in education is to create spaces for student-led learning as well as growth-mindset (Sahagun et al., 2021). By bringing out RtD, this study showcases that conducting a systemic, transparent way of designing provides student-led reflective practice and therefore supports growth- mindset.

References

Archer, Bruce (1995) The Nature of Research. In: Co-design, interdisciplinary journal of design, January 1995, pp. 6–13. Design Council (2019) Framework for Innovation: Design Council's evolved Double Diamond [online]. Available at: https://www.designcouncil.org.uk/our-work/skills-learning/ tools-frameworks/framework-for-innovation-design-councils-evolved-double-diamond (accessed June 15, 2022). Frayling, Christopher (1993) Research in Art and Design. In: Royal College of Art Research Papers, Vol. 1, Nr. 1, pp. 1–5. Schön, Donald Alan (1983) The Reflective Practitioner: How professionals think in action. London: Temple Smith. Sahagun, Miguel A., Moser, Randy, Shomaker, Joseph & Fortier, Jenna (2021) Developing a growth-mindset pedagogy for higher education and testing its efficacy. In: Social Sciences and Humanities Open, Vol. 4, Nr. 1. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssaho.2021.100168