DESIGN THINKING EDUCATION: FINDINGS FROM THE RESEARCH-LED, DESIGN, EVALUATION, AND ENHANCEMENT OF A UNIVERSITY-LEVEL COURSE

Design thinking is a useful methodology for innovation that has the potential to augment and extend existing disciplines, and is taught at an increasing number of tertiary institutions and universities. There is however, a relatively small but growing body of research on design thinking education. Based on a desire to improve the learning and teaching of design thinking to first-year business students at a New Zealand university, and to use research to achieve this goal, a research project was initiated. The research focused on the iterative design, evaluation, and enhancement of successive versions of a learning environment for design thinking. Participatory action research, and a critical realist theorizing methodology were used to help develop casual explanations i.e. the identification student attributes, and causal mechanisms and contextual factors within the learning environment, which helped account for students' response to its activation. In turn, this led to the identification of potential enhancements to the learning environment. This paper explores the background and emergence of design thinking, and provides a brief overview of the critical realist paradigm positioning and associated methodologies that underpinned the research. The conceptualisation, design, and evaluation of a design thinking learning environment is described, along with examples of findings concerning tendencies - in this instance of business students' responses to the learning environment. Examples of explanatory theory are also presented, along with a summary of key enhancements to the learning environment. This includes examples of features of a 'signature' learning environment for design thinking in university-level contexts. The findings of this research will be useful for other educators who are interested in teaching design thinking to business and other university students, and for the design of innovative and effective learning environments.