Students crossing cultural boundaries within a transnational design course in China: An activity theory analysis

<p>The focus of this thesis is on visual communication design (VCD) students’ engagement with creative design process learning within a transnational context. The context is an international partnership between a higher education institution in New Zealand and Hunan City University (HNCU) in China. The Chinese government is currently positioned in a third wave of an internationalisation strategy which encourages cooperative agreements with foreign or overseas institutional partners situated within Chinese universities. For design institutions in particular, the Made in China government initiative has led universities to actively engage with design education approaches imported from the west. The aim for Chinese institutions is to encourage student creativity in order to build on government aspirations to move China from a manufacturing, to an innovation and design led economy. Cultural historic activity theory (CHAT) was used to analyse data from a VCD studio classroom at HNCU in China. A three-level hierarchy of artefacts model was developed for the analysis, which by extention offers a CHAT approach for creative design scenarios. The study had two phases. The first comprised two project-based case studies exploring how creative design process learning occurred when the students were exposed to design thinking. Students were organised into dyads to foster collaborative work for the projects, a branding project, and a cultural project involving illustration design. Data gathered through video stimulated recall interviews with eight dyad participants (sixteen VCD students) and 200 written reflections were analysed. The second phase of the research focused on understanding the cultural and historic pedagogical context. Eight semi-structured interviews were conducted with local teachers at HNCU, and observations were undertaken in Chinese language medium classrooms. Underpinning the findings, are the ways in which Chinese design education practices at HNCU are shaped by an interweaving of Confucian thought within contemporary social and political tenets (e.g., striving for perfection). The analysis revealed that familiar and unfamiliar learning practices, including previous models encountered by students in the classroom, together with an adjustment to new practices, directly impacted student actions. Imported educational practices resulted in tensions and contradictions between step-by-step and iterative design thinking processes, and collaboration within the division of labour. Non-creative and creative activity outcome conclusions were drawn, and it is argued that a fresh perspective emerged. A creative craft practice situated within its historic and cultural context exists at HNCU. Key to the idea of creative craft practice is that historic and current sociocultural contexts participate in the creative process and contextual elements such as materiality, and teaching practices which use imitation, repetition and precedents, are assembled. The practice contained deeply intertwined student object-oriented motives of product over process, and productions of excellence or perfection. Over time, the efficacy of these motives, alongside drawing from examples for conceptual development, led to enhanced student agency and engagement. This overall finding challenges the creativity deficit belief about students from China, and the originality syndrome imposed on VCD students. The contribution is timely owing to a dearth of studies about graphic or VCD education in general and the potential influence of transnational teaching on creative design process learning in China.</p>

Students crossing cultural boundaries within a transnational design course in China: An activity theory analysis

<p>The focus of this thesis is on visual communication design (VCD) students’ engagement with creative design process learning within a transnational context. The context is an international partnership between a higher education institution in New Zealand and Hunan City University (HNCU) in China. The Chinese government is currently positioned in a third wave of an internationalisation strategy which encourages cooperative agreements with foreign or overseas institutional partners situated within Chinese universities. For design institutions in particular, the Made in China government initiative has led universities to actively engage with design education approaches imported from the west. The aim for Chinese institutions is to encourage student creativity in order to build on government aspirations to move China from a manufacturing, to an innovation and design led economy. Cultural historic activity theory (CHAT) was used to analyse data from a VCD studio classroom at HNCU in China. A three-level hierarchy of artefacts model was developed for the analysis, which by extention offers a CHAT approach for creative design scenarios. The study had two phases. The first comprised two project-based case studies exploring how creative design process learning occurred when the students were exposed to design thinking. Students were organised into dyads to foster collaborative work for the projects, a branding project, and a cultural project involving illustration design. Data gathered through video stimulated recall interviews with eight dyad participants (sixteen VCD students) and 200 written reflections were analysed. The second phase of the research focused on understanding the cultural and historic pedagogical context. Eight semi-structured interviews were conducted with local teachers at HNCU, and observations were undertaken in Chinese language medium classrooms. Underpinning the findings, are the ways in which Chinese design education practices at HNCU are shaped by an interweaving of Confucian thought within contemporary social and political tenets (e.g., striving for perfection). The analysis revealed that familiar and unfamiliar learning practices, including previous models encountered by students in the classroom, together with an adjustment to new practices, directly impacted student actions. Imported educational practices resulted in tensions and contradictions between step-by-step and iterative design thinking processes, and collaboration within the division of labour. Non-creative and creative activity outcome conclusions were drawn, and it is argued that a fresh perspective emerged. A creative craft practice situated within its historic and cultural context exists at HNCU. Key to the idea of creative craft practice is that historic and current sociocultural contexts participate in the creative process and contextual elements such as materiality, and teaching practices which use imitation, repetition and precedents, are assembled. The practice contained deeply intertwined student object-oriented motives of product over process, and productions of excellence or perfection. Over time, the efficacy of these motives, alongside drawing from examples for conceptual development, led to enhanced student agency and engagement. This overall finding challenges the creativity deficit belief about students from China, and the originality syndrome imposed on VCD students. The contribution is timely owing to a dearth of studies about graphic or VCD education in general and the potential influence of transnational teaching on creative design process learning in China.</p>

The process for individuating TRIZ Inventive Principles: deterministic, stochastic or domain-oriented?

Although TRIZ is widely acknowledged as a powerful aid to improve efficacy and efficiency of the creative design process, practitioners diffusedly experience difficulties in the selection of the most suitable tool. Such an issue represents a severe limitation in consideration of the large number of tools TRIZ offers. Here, Inventive Principles (IPs) are acknowledged as the most popular TRIZ technique, and their conjointly use with the Contradiction Matrix makes the selection of the appropriate IP a sufficiently supported task. However, the reliability of the Contradiction Matrix is often questioned and an agreement on a solid and reliable procedure for the selection of IPs is far from being reached. In such a context, the paper investigates the recurrence of IPs to solve contradictions, with reference to a classification framework that takes into consideration the nature of the problem to be solved and the technical-scientific domain it belongs to. The outcomes of the analysis reveal that leveraged IPs are considerably related with the technical-scientific domain and the nature of the problem to be solved. The found relationships are worth delving into and translating into selection guidelines.

Visualised Frames: How Sketching Influences Framing Behaviour in Design Teams

Framing is a crucial skill for connecting problem and solution spaces in the creative design process, both for individuals and teams. Frames are implicit in individuals’ cognitive thinking, but the creation of shared frames plays a vital role in collaborative design. Many studies have attempted to describe the framing process, but little is still known about how to support designers in framing, specifically in teams. This paper addresses this gap, by exploring the connection between sketching and framing within interdisciplinary teams. Following a qualitative and explorative approach, we have investigated the process and outcome of five interdisciplinary teams. We identified that sketching assists in the creation and elaboration of frames. Furthermore, in tandem with discussion and reflection, sketching helps increase the chance of a frame to survive within the design process. Our findings have practical and educational implications for improving the creative design process in interdisciplinary teams.