Examining the Development of Sketch Thinking and Behaviour

Abstract

Research (Lane et al., 2010b, 2010c), concerning the development of expertise in freehand sketching among students within an Initial Technology Teacher Education (ITTE) programme provides significant indicators that sketching is a teachable skill. Analysing and reporting on any development in sketching expertise can sometimes be difficult and become subject to debate, particularly where casual observations and independent opinions are solely relied upon (Verstijnen, 1998). This paper reports on the application of a visual and verbal protocol analysis tool (Middleton, 2008) to measure pre-instruction sketching behaviour of third year undergraduate students. Forty one students volunteered to take part in visual and verbal protocol analysis which was carried out simultaneous to a Design and Communication Graphics module. A core element of this module was the development of sketching expertise and the ability to engage in creative discovery within a specially designed model (Lane et al., 2010b, p.88). Considering the richness of the data gathered using visual and verbal protocol analysis, it was deemed appropriate to solely analyse and report on students who perceived their sketching ability as "advanced beginner" (Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1986). It was found that the "advanced beginner" students did not engage in any significant level of exploration during a prescribed sketching based design task. This could be related to their perceived "poor" level of sketching ability and their inability to graphically communicate. The research argument presented in this paper is based on the application of Middleton's (2008) visual and verbal protocol analysis model which attempts to establish the attributes that students need to develop in order to reach a high level of sketching expertise. The findings have potential to inform the future direction of pedagogical practices that focus on freehand sketching within graphical education.

Towards a shared ontology: A generic classification of cognitive processes in conceptual design

“…Jin & Chusilp 2006); and (ii) synthesis contributes to the process of concept generation (e.g. Lane & Seery 2011). One potential explanation for co-existing interpretations of synthesis may be identified in the work of Finke et al.…”

“…The related processes of identifying, exploring, clarifying, and prioritising constraints and requirements – that is, the management of constraints and requirements – have also received attention from numerous authors (Kim et al. 2005, 2006; Lane & Seery 2011; Daly et al. 2012).…”

“…Secondly, we found concept generation to be interpreted in two different ways by authors: the generation of ideas or partial solutions followed by the synthesis of these into more mature or complete concepts (Jin & Chusilp 2006); or simply the generation of ideas, with synthesis treated as a separate process (Jin & Chusilp 2006; Kruger & Cross 2006). Concept generation appears to involve the retrieval of representations from memory as a basic process (Jin & Chusilp 2006; Jin & Benami 2010; Lane & Seery 2011), which may occur in response to ‘perceptual stimulation’ (Jin & Chusilp 2006, p. 30). The association of representations is also positioned as a basic process by Jin & Benami (2010), and evidence supporting the involvement of associative reasoning processes in concept generation and synthesis (e.g.…”

“…The transformation of internal representations (e.g. images and concepts) during concept generation is also considered by Jin & Benami (2010), Lane & Seery (2011) and Leblebici-Basar & Altarriba (2013).…”

“…2013; Abraham & Bubic 2015). However, whilst the involvement of long-term memory in design concept generation has been investigated by a number of authors in the sample, these studies do not clearly distinguish between episodic and semantic memory (Jin & Benami 2010; Lane & Seery 2011).…”