Research experience as professional learning and a change agent for design: two examples of undergraduate participation in design research projects

• Authors: Barnes, Carolyn , Taffe, Simone , Barron, Deirdre , Jackson, Simon , Zeegers, Margaret
• Date: 2010
• Type: Text , Conference paper
• Relation: Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Design Education (ConnectED 2010), Sydney, Australia, 28 June - 01 July 2010
• Full Text: false
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• Description: This paper considers the imperatives of professional learning and research experience in design education. It reports on two research projects that included Honours students in the investigation team. Providing undergraduate students with research experience is seen as intrinsic to the pedagogical success and socio-economic value of university education. Including professional learning, where undergraduate students work in an industry context or on real-world projects, is thought to make learning more relevant and better prepare students for work. Offering Honours design students research experience as a special form of professional learning has potential benefits for graphic design. Knowledge in a vocational field like graphic design is mostly practice-driven, graphic design's status diminished by designers' lack of access to systematically produced evidence and exemplars of effective practice. The projects discussed in this paper investigated the use of participatory processes in graphic design. Today, co-creative practices and audiencecreated content are seen as important drivers of economic activity and cultural innovation, but participatory design is rarely used in graphic design since project budgets and time frames allow little scope for rigorous audience research. The nature of participatory design also challenges graphic designers' professional identity as creative and communication experts. Our paper reviews general arguments for the inclusion of professional learning and research experience in undergraduate education, considering their implications for design. The paper's discussion section builds on our findings and relevant literature to present research experience in design education as a potential change agent in graphic design.
• Description: 2014084649

The role of honours in promoting research literate graduates for, and with, industry

• Authors: Barron, Deirdre , Zeegers, Margaret , Jackson, Simon , Barnes, Carolyn , Taffe, Simone
• Date: 2010
• Type: Text , Conference paper
• Relation: Paper presented at Connected 2010 The University of New South Wales, Kensington Campus Sydney 28th June, 2010
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• Description: The paper reports on a program that brings together what is known about active learning in design education, that is, learning by doing, and what is known about communities of practice to address a real concern - the lack of take up of Higher Degree by Research programs within in the discipline of design. The report Building Australia's Research Capacity Report (2008) highlights this problem, stating '...it is evident that postgraduate research is in direct competition with the workforce, particularly at the graduate and entry levels, in the current climate of low professional unemployment' (p.87). To meet such calls, Australian Universities have focused on increasing the completion rates of existing Higher Degree by Research candidates. This paper focuses on the role of honours programs as servig two purposes: first to increase the numbers of undergraduate students taking up Higher Degree by Research programs as a way of increasing the numbers of doctoral qualified workers, and second, to produce research literate honours graduates for industry. At the same time literature around research training identifies the vagaries associated with research (Barron & Zeegers, 2002) as one of the barriers faced by Higher Degree by Research students in their research training. This paper looks to understandings generated through communities of practice and Legitimate Peripheral Participation to argue for a model of honours and Higher Degree by Research training that address such vagaries. The model uses collaboration and working with industry and researchers to establish Active Learning experiences - participants with various levels of research expertise working alongside each other in research clusters on industry projects to experience how methods are employed and problems are addresses and solved. The model argues for a staged, deliberate process of drawing newcomers into a given professional field, where they work with increasing more experienced practitioners as a part of specific communities of practice until they themselves become proficient.