Design Education for the Knowledge Society: An Action Research Study of Implementing a Liberal Arts Approach to Industrial Design Education

Abstract

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. 1. Education for Economic Growth or Human Development? Trends in higher education have led educationists and academics to argue that design education has come to function as an alternative form of general liberal arts education (Buchanan, 1992, p. 5). Now students might choose to study design as they might choose to study the humanities and arts, that is, without the intention to pursue design as a career (Schön, 1985, p. 2). Consequently, design education is caught within the 'The Conflict of the Faculties' between design as form of professional education and design as an alternative form of liberal arts education (Friedman, 2003, p. 245). Consequently, a core challenge for university-level design education is meeting the plural needs of educating students for a demanding job in a professional field and preparing citizens for life in the global knowledge economy (Friedman, 2002, pp. 27-33). Liberal arts education, according to Martha Nussbaum (2012), is about "challenging the

The Influence of Humanities on Art and Design Learning Performance: An Empirical Study

“…In general design education, researchers suggested that active methods developed in groups and exchange milieus can assist students in improving liberal art education outcomes, especially with a constructivist approach and collaborative practices (Nazaré de Freitas & Assoreira‐Almendra, 2022). In industrial design, researchers suggested pedagogical methods changing from one‐on‐one to peer‐to‐peer teaching and learning and identity change from a studio master to a learning guide (Feast 2020). These pedagogical strategies are also encouraged to practice in humanistic education to improve students’ humanistic capabilities and spirits.…”