Aditya Patil - Bridging The Socioeconomic Gap Through Education

Bridging The Socioeconomic Gap Through Education

Aditya Patil Glasgow School of Art Master’s in Design Innovation & Service Design 2021

00 Contents

Introduction 4 Initial Insights

6

Socioeconomic Status

10

History of Education

12

Stakeholder Map

14

Talking to Experts

16

Secondary Research

22

A Different Approach

34

Designing the Journey Map

42

Ideation 48 Service Blueprint

56

Future Scope

60

Learnings and Conclusion

63

Ackonwlegement 64 Bibliography 65

1 Introduction Education has always been a critical element for a nation’s development, whether it comes to research, upgrading skills and ending the socio-economic divide. However, the education system has been affected due to recent events like a pandemic, Brexit, gender inequality and social inequality. There are an endless set of problems arising, which also brings opportunities for the designers.

The current education system is a result of combined a set of events from the past, whether it is the renaissance, industrial revolution, world war and pandemic. The system keeps evolving based on the events happening in the present. Education has evolved from being a prestige to a necessity.

However, looking at the current scenarios, underprivileged communities do not have access to proper educational infrastructure. Which affects dropouts at the school level and unemployment; this adds up to the socio-economic divide.

When I specifically looked into the Scottish education system, I found out various problems within the system. The government of Scotland is trying to curb this problem with the help of the Scottish Qualifications Authority and Education Scotland by bringing in programs like widening access, scholarships and much more.

2 Initial Insights The current education system is vast, and it comes with its own set of problems ranging from Inequality, unemployment, infrastructure, mental health, and physical health. To understand the problems in detail, I created a mind map to categorise the different problems within education.

The education system consists of various actors viz. pupils, teachers, educationists, institutions and education boards. All of these actors work towards delivering quality education to the pupils, but in the process, everyone faces a different set of problems at different levels in the journey.

The system is affected by factors like infrastructure, environment and Inequality; more recently, pandemic and Brexit have also added up to the cup of tea.

While researching Inequality, I came across problems related to underprivileged communities. According to the Human Development Report, globalisation creates interdependence among nations, but the “world seems more fragmented, between rich and poor, between powerful and powerless.” 1 The BBC documentary - ‘Who gets the best jobs’ shows the reality of the job market. 2 It connects how the pupils coming from the least deprived areas are the most privileged to get higher paid jobs in the market.

It also showcases the factors like right connections and studying in the private schools helps them develop their personality and skills essential to land a job.

3 Socioeconomic Status Before going further into the research, I tried to understand the meaning of socioeconomic status. According to Elizabeth H. Baker - Socioeconomic status (SES) is defined as a measure of one’s combined economic and social status and tends to be positively associated with better health. 3 SES is an economic and sociological combined total measure of a person’s work experiences and an individual’s or family’s economic and social position in relation to others. 4 SES Influences health in 3 significant ways:

1. SES decides the ability of an individual to purchase health-promoting resources

and treatments.

2. Based on the SES, the socialisation behaviour of an individual differs.

3. It is a fact that less healthy individuals complete fewer years of school, miss

more work and earn lower incomes.

I watched the lectures of Dr Warren Leichtle-Chalklen, who is a diversity, equity and inclusion specialist. He explains how to develop essential skills to make the environments more inclusive, safe, productive, and connected.

“Socioeconomic status (SES) is defined as a measure of one’s combined economic and social status and tends to be positively associated with better health.”

4 History of Education I started researching about the history of education to understand the influence of SES on education. Education has been an important pillar of the society to move modern world which we live in. From the research I found out that the education system dates back to the 1500 BC. The Indian culture had the ‘Gurukul’ system wherein the pupils learn from the guru and help the guru in his everyday life, including carrying out of mundane daily household chores. However, some scholars suggest that the activities are not mundane and very essential part of the education to inculcate self-discipline among pupils. Typically, a guru does not receive or accept any fees from the shishya studying with him as the relationship between a guru and the shishya is considered very sacred. 5 At the end of one’s education, a shishya offers the guru dakshina before leaving the

gurukula. The gurudakshina is a traditional gesture of acknowledgment, respect and thanks to the guru, which may be monetary, but may also be a special task the teacher wants the pupil to accomplish.

During the research I found out that in the the medieval times church used to act as educational institutes and specially the Church of Scotland used to provide free education to the poor. During the 1830s the Prussian education system was established as a result of educational reforms in the late 18th and 19th century and one had to pay extra money to study subjects like maths and calculus. The current system has its root from the Prussian education system. By 1891 education was made compulsory in UK and in 1892 education was standardised.

All of these factors have made the affected the education system over a period of time.

From the history it was evident that education has always been a privileged thing. It has always been more accessible for the rich people. It also showcased how the governing institutes from the past tried to make education more accessible to poor people.

5 Stakeholder Map The education eco-system is vast, which is run by various stakeholders and actors. To understand the eco-system I created a stakeholder map. All the systems run around the pupil to help them grow as an individual. The Map is divided into primary and secondary stakeholders. Primary stakeholders consists of teachers, directors, parents, educationist and principal who interact directly with the pupils. While education activists, policy makers, SQA, institute admins, NGOs and edtech entrepreneurs form the secondary stakeholders.

All the stakeholders are linked with one another with a web of connections. I created a cluster map, which helped me to understand the connections between the stakeholders.

I begin the process of finding out the right stakeholders and participants for my secondary research. I connected with Dr Warren LeichtleChalklen and Shona Paul - head of Professional & Continuing Education.

6 Talking to Experts I connected with the education experts to deep dive into the socioeconomic status and its effects on education. My first expert talk was with Dr Warren Leichtle-Chalklen.

Dr Warren Leichtle-Chalklen The interview with Dr Warren helped me understand the current positioning of the education system and how it has been designed for the capitalist economy. He explained how the capitalist economy is designed to generate scarcity in the market and how labour intensive the economy is. He mentioned that there is no direct benefit to the capitalist’s if they invest in education; that is why we hardly see any investments from large companies in the education sector.

The current education system is designed to prepare pupils for the role of industry rather than humanity. The main problem with the system is

• That it does not allow pupils to ask the right questions.

• Lack of practical based approach

• It is not designed for pupils coming from marginal backgrounds

After talking to Dr Warren, it was pretty evident that the current system is not socially just.

“Socially just design must begin with the people most affected.”

Shona Paul Shona is the head of professional & continuing education, and she offers a range of professional training options, from workshops and short courses to bespoke programmes with the help of GSA. She explained the widening access program and enlightened me on the under-deprived communities and the hardships these communities face while pursuing higher education after high school. She specified three significant indicators that lead to a drop in education viz. parental income, mental health, and stability of the community & family.

The Scottish government is trying to bridge the gap with the help of various programs which help the pupils from under deprived communities. They provide help in the form of bursaries, hardship funds, discretion funds and zero tuition fees for the underprivileged.

She mentioned that 21% of pupils from lower SES backgrounds graduate from GSA. She also mentioned gender distribution in the course. Usually, female candidates apply for non-conventional art school courses; the ratio for females to males stands at 4:1. However, when it comes to conventional courses like product design and architecture, the ratio is 1:1; this is because young males look for more earning potential, and the conventional courses give them that opportunity.

The biggest hurdles in the current system are the attainment gap, access to facilities, and limited resources within the school.

The problems faced by the underprivileged pupils are: • Access to workshop • Language issue • Lack of cultural capital • Less networking opportunities • Access to infrastructure

Intial HMW Interviewing the experts directed me to look into my initial HMW

HMW involve pupils from diverse backgrounds to design the curriculum?

HMW bridg between the

lower SES

ge the gap higher and

S pupils?

HMW we redesign educational spaces to initiate collaborative learning?

7 Secondary Research Scottish index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) The studios have been a great place to collaborate and discuss with classmates. During one of the studios, when I was discussing my project with Vinishree, she mentioned the Scottish index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD).

The Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation is a relative measure of deprivation across 6,976 small areas (called data zones). 6 If an area is identified as ‘deprived’, this can relate to people having a low income, but it can also mean fewer resources or opportunities.

SIMD looks at the extent to which an area is deprived across seven domains: income, employment, education, health, access to services, vcrime and housing. SIMD is the Scottish Government’s standard approach to identify areas of multiple deprivations in Scotland. It can help improve understanding about the outcomes and circumstances of people living in the most deprived areas in Scotland. It can also allow effective targeting of policies and funding where the aim is to wholly or partly tackle or take account of area concentrations of multiple deprivations.

While examining the SIMD map, I compared the city of Edinburgh and Glasgow; from the data, it was evident that the city of Glasgow is most deprived than Edinburgh. Edinburgh even has better ranking schools, universities and infrastructure in Scotland.

Using the SIMD data, I started mapping the best ranked and least ranked schools in Glasgow. I referred to the times’ school rankings of Scotland for the data. 7 I choose some specific schools from the top 100 and bottom 400. Later, I mapped these schools on the SIMD map within a radius of 8 miles from the city centre.

The exercise was very insightful, and I discovered that significant schools with the better rankings fall under the least deprived areas while schools with the lowest rankings fall under the most deprived areas. This made me think, what is the reason behind this pattern? This led me to my next phase of research.

Mapping the data With the help of SIMD data, I started comparing Drumchapel, Govan, Castlemilk and Bearsden. I compared the following points:

1) Attainment of school leavers

2) People in the age group of 16-21 not participating in education

3) People in the age group of 18-21 entering universities

4) Employment deprived people

To compare the data, I added the values in the excel sheet and generated graphs.

This analysis showed that most deprived areas were more vulnerable to unemployment, dropouts, and less attainment gap.

Observational Research For the observational research, I collaborated with Rossie Stobie as our topics intersected.

We both were looking into the socioeconomic regions around Glasgow. She was looking at the communities from the most deprived areas around Glasgow.

We decided to collaborate and do observational research. We selected areas like Govan, Castlemilk and Drumchapel, which come under the most deprived areas and Bearsden, which comes under the least deprived areas in Glasgow. We visited the community centres of these places and roamed around the areas making observations.

Observations Highly deprived areas

• Less greenery surrounding the city and in the whole region.

• Very few restaurants to socialise.

• The parks are not well equipped for pupils to play any sports and games.

• They have less frequency of buses from the city centre.

• Overall the area was untidy.

Least deprived areas

• They have a lot more greenery and well kept public spaces.

• They have more cafes and restaurants to socialise.

• The parks are equipped for pupils to play sports and games.

• The frequency of buses and trains is more.

• Overall the area looks tidy.

During the observational research, I got the chance to connect with the organisations from the deprived areas working towards the widening access and attainment gap for the pupils from the locality. The name of the organisations are Intouniversity and Castlemilk youth complex. I planned to connect with these organisations and check hypothesis.

My hypothesis “Infrastructure and socialising places play a vital role in the overall growth of a pupil.”

Analysing the reports Shona Paul shared the widening participation in higher education reports with me. The report had critical findings around the success rate, impact of financial support, employer contribution to widening participation and employability. 8

Employment The report mentioned employment and its problems from the perspective of different socioeconomic groups. it mentioned that

• Black male graduates earned 5.3% less than white males.

• There is a significant difference in income between the state school and

independent school backgrounds.

• Underrepresented groups are disadvantaged in the labour market.

Employers go for the pupils passing from a better ranking university. Usually, admissions into the highest-ranking universities require more money. Hence, the underprivileged pupils end up applying for lower tariff universities whose ranks are the lowest; this, in turn, affects the pupils from lower socioeconomic backgrounds to land a better paying job.

Extracurricular Activities

• Participation in extracurricular activities is associated with the labour market

advantage.

• The socioeconomic background was the likeliest determinant of whether a

respondent had taken part in such activities.

• Pupils from higher tariff universities are more likely to participate in

extracurricular activities.

Retention and success for different groups

• Low socioeconomic group pupils are more likely to live at home and be combining

study with part-time employment.

• 25% of black pupils were awarded a first or upper second class degree, whereas

the figure for white pupils was 61%.

Engagement Tool After reading the report, I had many questions. I decided to create an engagement tool to find answers to the questions around the current education system, higher education, careers & jobs, the job application process, networking, infrastructure, and community.

These were the critical aspects of a pupil’s overall growth. I created a board and placed cues in images to start a conversation around the topic.

To find participants for the exercise, I connected with the Castlemilk Youth complex and intouniversity. I visited the Castlemilk youth complex; it is Scotland’s foremost independent youth arts organisation. I connected with the associate at the complex and explained to them about the project. However, due to time constraints and the nonavailability of the participants in the age group of 18-21 due to the summer holidays, I could not organise a workshop with them.

Even the organisation intouniversity did not get back for further discussion. Hence, I decided to drop the idea of engagement tool and I started looking for other ways to go forward with my research.

8 A Different Approach Teacher Interviews The failure of connecting with the organisations led me to think of different approaches. While talking to my tutor about the project, he suggested I connect with David Miller. David Miller is the director of the Innovation School | Kelvinside Academy.

David talked about the innovation school and how they are taking the design-based approach to educating the pupils at the Innovation school. They have a design module as an elective, wherein the students are assigned projects with having practical approach. They teach how to identify the problems, ideate, prototype and test.

Learning in the innovation school is focused on realworld challenges and collaborative problem-solving rather than exams and results.

“In the current education system their is no room for error.”

David connected me with former state school teacher Leigh Burchill specialising in design thinking. I learned about the current teaching methods at the state schools, the examination and the assessment process.

The annual exams, managed by the Scottish Qualification Authority (SQA), set pupils under much pressure. According to her, the current assessment process does not help evaluate the pupils’ skills to the par. Due to the pandemic, the situation has become grim. Due to lower grades pupils have to reappear the exams, and in some cases, pupils have shown discouragement towards reappearing for the exams.

Also, for assessment, the teacher to student ratio is 1:80, which adds pressure on the teacher. They have to follow the SQA standards to assess the student’s papers which is very tiring.

“Due to lower grades pupils have to reappear the exams, and in some cases, pupils have shown discouragement towards reappearing for the exams.”

Student Interviews Finding pupils for the research was a difficult task, mainly due to the pandemic and summer holidays. I decided to interview pupils who are in the age group of 18-21. I started visiting the UoG’s James McCune Smith Learning hub, where I got a chance to interact with two pupils who had just completed their high school and were pursuing undergrad courses. Specifically, I was looking for pupils who had completed their high school in Scotland. I created a list of Q cards for the interview; the questions were inspired by the engagement tool I had created earlier. I planned to interview more students and find a specific pattern, but I could not recruit participants for the interviews due to constraints.

First, I interviewed a student from Chile who was pursuing his PhD at UoG. I made a mistake; instead of asking the background first, I started asking him the questions. This interview was not that helpful, but it did highlight the problems he faced after coming here for his master’s.

The other participant was Ewan Mckenzie, who is studying engineering at UoG. He completed his schooling in Edinburgh. He stressed that exams put on much pressure, and the projects were more effective than exams.

The third participant was Fraser, who is pursuing his music production course at Riverside College. He has completed his high school from a state school and comes from a less privileged background. He mentioned that annual exams were more stressful, and he preferred the unit test over the annual exams. He also mentioned that managing jobs and exams at the same time was challenging.

Scottish Qualification Authority (SQA) Scottish Qualification Authority is an organisation that has two prominent roles: accreditation and awarding qualifications.

With the Covid-19 crisis forcing the closure of schools, the exams were cancelled. The SQA announced that the grades be awarded by teachers using their professional judgement based on a pupil’s activity over the school year. The teachers awarded more A grades compared to 2019, but 124,564 results dropped down a grade when the exam board got involved.

The nationwide results for all Scottish examinations were higher than last year. National 5s saw 81.1% of pupils getting an A to C grade compared with 78.2% in 2019. The Higher pass rate rose from 74.8% to 78.9%, and Advanced Higher increased from 79.4% to 84.9%. However, these grades would have been even higher if the estimates from teachers had been taken without moderation. 9 With the grades published, the SQA started receiving much criticism. I checked the google reviews of SQA and found that students have to appear for two exams in a day which adds much pressure. Not getting good grades, they have to reappear, but as they have lost the trust in SQA, they think giving re-exams is useless as they will get the same grades again.

Some pupils plan to work part-time and earn money instead of taking the exam.

“Dreams have been crushed. SQA is making me do 2 exams a day. am slowly dying. but its fine cuz having a N5 in music is the way to go. no point of me doing it cause am gonna end up working in mcdonalds.” 10

Thematic Analysis I begin analysing the interviews. First, I analysed the pupil’s interviews. Keeping stress as the central theme, I surrounded it with the things and activities that make it more stressful for pupils. I found that annual exams, grades and jobs are the most stressful things.

Challenges faced by students

“HMW redesign the c

system to cut down pre

and teache

I followed the same process for the teachers; for them, assessments, creative teaching techniques, designing the course and handling the class were the most stressful activities.

They were also involved in bridging the socioeconomic gap, pupil engagement and collaborative learning.

This exercise led me to the final HMW.

Challenges faced by teachers

urrent examination

essure on the students

ers alike.”

9 Designing the Journey Map With the available data from the interviews and reports, I identified the problem in the education system. To understand the problem in-depth, I started to research the SQA’s assessment process. I watched the videos and read the assessment documents shared by teacher Leigh. Through that, I was able to understand the number of actors involved in the examination system. I decided to design personas for better understanding.

Personas Personas are fictional characters that help us understand our user’s needs, experiences, behaviours and goals. I designed two sets of personas, one for the pupils and the other for the teachers.

I took the unconventional approach of deigning the personas because students and teachers have specific behaviours, and based on that, their needs & goals changes.

With the help of interviews and reports, I created a set of persona themes for pupils. The personas are classified into:

• The creators

• The followers

• The graspers

• The performers

Each persona has its distinguished characteristics. Then I further divided the personas into:

• Privileged

• Underprivileged

Teacher Personas

• Idealist

• Practitioners

• Rationalist

• Moderate

User Scenarios I created a set of different scenarios based on the personas. This exercise helped me to consider aspects from different types of pupils. It became the basis of the user journey map through which it was much easier to create the journey.

User Journey Map

I created a user journey map from a student, teacher, and SQAs perspective to understand the annu

actors throughout the journey. This helped to understand the specific problems within the examina process is more stressful.

I sent the journey map to the teacher Leigh for evaluation. It could have helped me refine the exper I started looking for solutions to two problems, viz. the annual exams and the assessment process. taking part in the system and their importance in different journey stages. Through journey maps,

efficiently and quickly. Also, it becomes a standard artefact to look into whenever a designer gets s

ual examination system. From the journey map, I could analyse the pain points for different

ation system like; for students, the annual exams are stressful, and for teachers, the assessment

rience more efficient and add the bits & pieces I had missed.

Creating a user journey map is a complex process; it helps to understand the various actors one can easily highlight the pain points, which helps get to the root of the problem more

stuck.

10 Ideation To address the issues of stress witnessed by both the teacher and students alike during the examinations, I started looking for solutions around the current examination system.

I began sketching ideas and writing them down. While discussing with my friends on topic, I came across solutions like:

1. Dividing the current examination pattern into two phases.

a. It should be a project-based approach consisting of real-world problems.

b. Producing project reports which act as proof of work.

c. Designing a let’s converse board for collaboration and brainstorming.

2. The teacher to student ratio for assessments should be changed to 1:20.

3. SQA should design a system wherein qualified professionals are hired

temporarily to assess the papers.

Also, the classrooms should be designed to promote collaborative working between the students. To help the teachers to manage their time, they should be provided with a planner.

The main motto of the system should be to nurture the right side and left side of a pupils brain and help them take the right course based on their interest.

Storyboard After the ideation process, I decided to create a storyboard to understand the various touchpoints within the ecosystem where the new services cross the existing system.

I narrated the story from Sam’s perspective, a creative pupil who has his basics of subjects clear but does not perform well in the annual exams because of the pressure.

He comes from an underprivileged background and is working part-time to support his family.

This activity gave me a clear idea of how the new service will work in the existing ecosystem. Also, the storyboard showed the possible pitfalls which came to light while designing. I think designing a storyboard is way more complex and beneficial.

Storyboard helps to connect with the users emotionally, which helps us design better experiences, which is the crux of a design process.

Storyboard

Solution The solution consists of three significant parts viz, the exams, assessments and feedback.

It is called the project-based examination system.

Exams The examination is divided into two stages, preliminary and final. The examinations are based on project-based learning (PBL), wherein the pupils are given a real-world problem statement. Every teacher is assigned ten groups of pupils. The pupils have to conduct research on the topic, collaborate with peers and identify the problems.

The teacher acts as a facilitator and arranges workshops to help pupils work collaboratively and brainstorm their findings. They make use of the “Let’s Converse” board to facilitate workshops. Also, the teacher arranges expert talks for the pupils on the related topics, which adds extra knowledge to the pupil’s basket. One-on-one discussion with the experts also helps the pupils make the right connections that can be helpful in the long run.

The student has to produce a report on the given topic with proof of work like articles, artefacts and prototypes, which is assessed by the teacher and the hired expert volunteers by SQA. Also, they have to present their findings which the teachers assess.

Using this system, pupils feel less exam pressure up to a certain level. Also, PBL helps pupils to build up confidence through presentations and collaborating with others.

Assessments The assessment process is divided into two phases. The SQA assigns the project reports for assessments to teachers and expert volunteers.

The group teacher has to assess the reports of their pupils and send them to SQA. The SQA hires expert volunteers through their website based on the requirement. The volunteers have to submit their CV and motivation for the role. The criteria for application is that the individual must have completed their graduation

or post-graduation. Then SQA assigns volunteers to assess the project reports. The same reports go through double assessments, which helps to lower down the pressure on the teachers.

Feedback The pupils report card consist of feedback, which comprises; presentation skills, collaboration skills and understanding of the topic. The feedback from the experts adds professional & practical value, while the teacher’s feedback adds social value to the report cards.

Based on the feedback of stage 1, the pupil can select the topic for stage 2. Even the teachers can recommend some topics, and the pupil has the freedom to choose the topic of his choice.

Prototyping The solution I came up with was a proposal in the form of a new service that had to fit into the existing examination system. To explain this, I decided to create a paper prototype, which can be explained from Sam’s perspective. I designed three different sets, viz. classroom, SQA and Sam’s study space. It consisted of Sam, a teacher, an SQA associate and a volunteer.

With the help of the prototype, it is easier to explain the service and the process.

11 Service Blueprint During the ideation process, I designed the service blueprint to understand how the new system fits into the existing examination system tools fit into the present service model.

I think a service blueprint is an essential deliverable for this project. It involves various actors, and they interact with one another at different stages in the system.

I divided the blueprint into four stages:

•

Stage 1 - Exams

•

Stage 2a - Recruitment of volunteers

•

Stage 2b - Assessments

•

Stage 3 - Publishing the results

•

Stage 4 - Student guidance

A service blueprint should be designed after the research phase to understand how the different services and stakeholders in an organisation are interlinked in normal circumstances. Also, it helps to effectively find the possible touchpoints in the services when two or three stakeholders cross each other, and it helps to understand the effects of those on the service.

Stage 1

Stage 3

Stage 2

12 Future Scope The education system is vast, like an ocean. It comes with its own set of problems. While doing the research, I came across problems related to infrastructure, gender inequality, attainment gap, mental health and employment. All these problems are interlinked, but given the project’s time constraint, it was not possible to cover all these problems.

Looking further into the project, the learning models of maths, physics and history have considerable scope for a redesign. These subjects need to be redesigned the way they are delivered and design to make pupils more engaged with them.

The current examination system adds pressure on both the pupils and the teachers, and the proposed solution needs to be executed in phases. A design-based transformation is needed while considering gender and ethnic inequality eliciting in the system. More emphasis needs to be given to make pupils confident, develop their personality and empower them to ask the right questions.

The problems can be solved by interacting with the experts, pupils and parents.

Understanding their expectations and fulfilling them through design methodology can solve the problem in years to come.

“To bridge the socio-economic divide, we need to empower the underprivileged. Empowering begins through access to free and just education.

Lowering down the exam pressure by taking a project-based approach leads to a boost in confidence, ultimately giving the pupils the motivation for higher education, which can help them pursue their dreams.”

13 Learnings and Conclusion With time to submit the project with a possible solution, I think I have come far enough during the project. It has been a strenuous road, but the learnings from the project are immense.

The proposed solution can benefit both the pupils and the teachers. If executed well, it can solve the problems related to the socioeconomic gap in society, dropouts from high school, and higher education for all. The redesigned system can lower down the pressure from the pupils, and in turn, it can increase their efficiency. Project-based learning can boost their confidence and help them develop their personality, which is essential to survive in this chaotic world.

With the new system in place, the pupils can be taught to identify the correct problems and solve them through collaboration. The system can help the pupils select the subject of their interest, leading to increased pupils from underprivileged backgrounds taking up higher education. Also, the solution helps generate jobs in the market and lower down the pressure on the teachers during the assessment.

In terms of the subject, now I have more information about the education system in Scotland. I have been able to identify problems within the system.

During the execution of the project, I faced many problems related to recruiting participants for the research. However, I tried to overcome them by taking the right actions at the right time. This project has taught me:

•

How to plan a design research

•

How to recruit participants for the research

•

Having a contingency plan if plan A fails

•

Interviewing experts and participants

•

Working individually on a project

•

Asking for help at the right time

•

Working collaboratively with peers

•

Working effectively under time constraints

•

Keeping healthy communication with the peers

•

The importance of sketching

14 Ackonwlegement I would like to thank my tutor, Iain Reid and Jonathan Baldwin, for all the advice you have given during the project. Also, I am thankful to Dr Warren Leichtle-Chalklen, Shona Paul, David Miller and Leigh Burchill for giving me insights into the current education system, which has been crucial for the research. I like to thank my interview participants, which helped me to identify the problems in the system. I also like to thank Rosie Stobbie for collaborating during the research phase, which helped to discuss ideas and experiment with new research methods. Ultimately, thank you to all the GSA friends for all the brainstorming sessions we had over beer and for lending a hand in times of crisis. It has been a fantastic year at GSA, and I learnt a lot in this one year that I will cherish all my life.

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Thank You