Where They Learn: How Prevalent is the Project in Undergraduate Design Courses?

Abstract

This paper investigates the idea that undergraduate design courses are predicated on project work framed by a design studio educational setting. To answer the research question, we followed an empirical approach supported by a grounded theory methodology: (1) we gathered 31 publicly available undergraduate design courses programmes and descriptions, (2) we followed the procedures of classic grounded theory to code the data, categorise any clusters that emerged, and finally identified any patterns or insights that emerged from the data. The results of this study support the notion that the design project is still the preferred pedagogical tool for undergraduate design courses; furthermore, the design project is also clearly associated with the design studio educational format. Moreover, the key design education concepts that emerged from our analysis are also evidently interrelated; this finding suggests that an underlying coherent design education theory crosses national boundaries and is familiar to any design course. Finally, the prevalence of learning by doing pedagogy supported by project work within the design studio context suggests that undergraduate design education may not fit distant education formats.