I gratefully acknowledge the collaboration in this study of staff members and department heads in the School of Design at the Durban University of Technology. The School of Design in the Faculty of Arts at the Durban University of Technology consists of four Design programmes.
RESEARCH ORIENTATION OF THE CASE STUDY
CASE STUDY RESEARCH DESIGN
SUB-CASES WITHIN THE CASE STUDY
SUB-CASE tNTERVtEWS
For each sub-case, including my own, assessors provided examples of student work to stimulate and guide discussion. Assessment material (assignment cards) in connection with these summative tasks should also be made available for discussion in interviews.
INTERVIEW SCHEDULE
Therefore, conversational turn-taking, rather than the sequence of the semi-structured interview guide used in interviews, controlled the flow of talk. However, these examples of student work had to comply with the cross-examination requirement that they constituted final third-year summative assessment submissions from the year ending 2005 and that the summative tasks set in connection with these submissions required complex design performance .
Discussion of assessment materials
Summative Assessment task planning/design - SAQAi registered outcomes?
Task authenticity in terms of Design praxis: relevance
Discussion of assessment submissions
Reasoning around summative mark award (in order to elicit value constructs)
Assessor view of integrative learning, learning transfer, learning transformation
Discussion of tutor assessment practice
How do A and B relate to programme summative assessment practice at third year level in general?
How might summative assessment practice at third year level change in future?
- CASE STUDY STRUCTURE AND DATA ANALYSIS
Espoused theory that emerged from my own (Fashion and Textiles) sub-case interview is advanced in the first section of the literature review chapter of this study
This theory development underlies the further collection of sub-case data relating to graphic design, jewelery design and interior design. Collecting data in in-depth interviews for sub-cases involves mutual participation and observations during conversation.
Data collected for each sub-case is discussed from the point of view of comparative observations in Chapter This provides for reflection on the case study
In the second section of the same chapter, the connection between design education and learning theory is examined. Data collected for each sub-case is discussed from the point of view of comparative observations in Chapter 4.
Reflective observations on the case study in Chapter 5 lead to implications for the assessment of complex design performance in the School of Design, DUT. This
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
DESIGN ASSESSMENT APPROACH
- DISCUSSION: WHAT IS DESIGN?
- FASHION AND TEXTILES DESIGN ENTERPRISE
- DISCUSSION: HOW IS DESIGN COMMUNICATED?
- FASHION AND TEXTILES DESIGN ENGAGEMENT
- SUMMARY: DESIGN ASSESSMENT OF COMPLEX PERFORMANCE
- DESIGN ASSESSMENT VALUES AND LEARNING THEORY
- DESIGN TASK AUTHENTICITY
- DESIGN LEARNING AUTONOMY
- DESIGN LEARNING INTEGRATION
- DESIGN LEARNING TRANSFORMATION
- DESIGN LEARNING TRANSFER
- TRANSFERABLE SKILLS IN DESIGN
Theorists writing in the field of Design Studies use a Material Culture Studies (MCS) approach to explain the concept of Design. Authors such as Barnard (1998), Palmer and Dodson (1996), Margolin and Buchanan (1996) and others devote many pages to attempting to define design. Oak's (2000:87) account of design assessment exposes the assumptions of my assessment approach: practical learning to design must be conceptually framed in relation to the design views of foreshadowing.
This sets a phase of joint enterprise in the construction of design knowledge emerging from my Fashion and Textile sub-case interview. Summative assessment of complex performance assumes the integration of design learning through a formative learning and feedback process. Ruth Dineen provides important considerations for the transferability of design learning through her investigation of the British Art and Design Standard Statement (2003).
Interest in, and knowledge of, real problems and their societal, economic and political context
An ability to function effectively as members of a team creating new products, processes and systems
An ability to operate effectively beyond the confines of a single discipline
An integration of a deep understanding of science and technology with practical knowledge, a hands-on orientation and experimental skills and
- SUMMARY: DESIGN LEARNING AND ASSESSMENT
Whether summative assessment of complex design performance in the programs participating in this case study is explicitly or implicitly integrative, how learning is transformed, and how learning transfer is conceptualized were central aspects of case study data collection in sub-case interviews with program assessors. In these interviews I have attempted to achieve some necessary distance from the epistemoiological density of the design theoretical perspectives presented in the first section of this chapter. However, in light of related literature in this chapter, I also envisioned that design task authenticity and design learning autonomy relate to integrative, transformative, and transferable learning in complex ways.
The educational values surrounding these theoretical concepts became important themes in the case data analysis, which I present in the next chapter.
CASE DATA ANALYSIS
BROAD ASSESSMENT APPROACHES
- COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE CHARACTERISTICS
As in my own subcase interview analysis, Wenger's (1999) Community of Practice (CoP) framework of shared repertoire, joint enterprise and mutual engagement is used to explore broad assessment approaches across the subcase interviews comprising this case study. The macro-interpretive framework within which participants are expected to assess is that of SACO outcomes registered in respect of each of the programmes. However, this was directly linked to assessment approaches only in one sub-case, and then in a very opaque way: Participant C was confident in a specific outcome for which the assessment task was constructed, but for the other three case study participants, SAQA outcomes in relation to their assessment tasks were considered somewhat vague.
Interview vignettes of repertoires of Wenger's practice within the programs were most illuminating about the ways in which disciplinary concepts of design inform evaluation approaches.
If a student is inspired by Klimt and uses [Klimt in a design application], we want them to consider whether their intent can be interpreted by others.
R- is there any negotiation with the student- about the assessment - It's really that the students are choosing the subject matter so in that way it is very much
INTERREGNUM: DESIGN ENGAGEMENT AND ENTERPRISE
Looking at relationships between task authenticity and relevance to a practice repertoire on the one hand, and students' latitude in interpreting these assessment tasks on the other, it appears that there are further expectations for student-centered design thinking that influences autonomy as a prerequisite for learning transfer. . Any of the assessor approaches (proven so far in subcases A, B, C or D) could support students' learning autonomy. But the apparent differences between subcases require a closer look at the participatory relationships of CoP mutual involvement in assessment between raters and students.
We are looking for evidence that they have found and developed it at the end of the year..Part of the project is for them to develop an artist statement..they need to establish their references write their artist statement using terminology and understanding of terminology ..we first get them to go out there and gather references in different areas that they are interested in - sort of trying to get them to construct their tastes.
SPECIFIC ASSESSMENT VALUES
- INTEGRATION
- DESIGN LEARNING TRANSFORMATION
- DESIGN LEARNING TRANSFER
One of the requirements of the assignment was to do a written document - they have to take what they learn in professional practice - and part of that is speaking, so they have to present their work. The other three can be chosen by the student from any of the design projects prepared during the year. Interestingly, Lawson noted that “teaching the history or philosophy of design can leave students with well-developed knowledge that they nevertheless find difficult to connect with.
And they are certainly encouraged to think about designing this project in terms of the strength they already have in the area they hope to go into or both if possible.
The task encourages students to theorize their practice and put their own design theory into practice. It is necessary to say what you do and why you do it, and to also allow this to be shaped by the views of others. I would like to find evidence in the review that previous lessons are being carried over to later efforts.
OBSERVATIONS ACROSS AND WITHIN SUB-CASES
In the foregoing analysis, and in the various sub-cases, the observations concern assessment issues that lie between the embedding context of program design repertoires and a wrap-around focus on student design. Situated design learning is, in Oak's work "...a balance where a designer expresses their interpretation of the needs of others through a public language of material and technique, form and symbol. In their dialogue with students through assessment activities assessors specific values that speak to how design learning should be developed through assessment.
In Chapter 5, I consider the ways in which the assessment approaches and values that emerged in the sub-case interviews influence the learning autonomy of students' design.
CONCLUSIONS: VALUES AND APPROACHES
REFLECTIONS ON DESIGN ASSESSOR INTERVIEWS
- DESIGN ENTERPRISE AND ASSESSMENT STRATEGY
It does not matter that the repertoires of practice under the auspices of product design differ; they are all approaches to social and cultural knowledge as the overarching context of design learning transfer. Consequently, what evaluators can bring to learning in student-chosen design communication contexts is not equivalent to what they can contribute to learning in designated or mediated design communication contexts. It occurred to me in the analysis phase of this study that I had foregrounded an aspect of the content of the interview design presentation that was subjectively consistent with my repertoire of knowledge, and implicitly, my beliefs in undertaking common design.
Through data analysis of the sub-case interviews with other design teachers (as analyzed in Chapter 4), I came to realize that my assessment approach mixes my conception of design business with my conception of design repertoire.
DESIGN ASSESSMENT APPROACHES AND VALUES
My own emphasis as a design teacher on written reflection as a form of summative assessment needs to be reconsidered in this light. The authenticity of my terminal assessment task in terms of professional practice in fashion also seems somewhat exaggerated in retrospect; few fashion professionals would be able to compose their tacit design approach in written form. From a case study, this is an issue not limited to my own situated assessment practice.
The evaluators' approaches to the mutual engagement of CoP with personal or joint ventures that I highlighted in chapter 4 are unresolved; they embody the external repertoires of the design practice program, but do not intrinsically represent the evaluators' internal educational values.
A practical knowledge approach, where the process of direct involvement with expressive media embodies the knowledge required for their production (Prentice
- DESIGN ASSESSMENT STRATEGY AND EDUCATIONAL VALUES
- CASE STUDY IMPLICATIONS FOR SUMMATIVE DESIGN ASSESSMENT With the proviso that all forms of summative assessment bear some resemblance to
The assumption of assessing tacit design knowledge is that it will allow students' design expression to find acceptance in the social world. How then do we as design assessors at the School of Design ensure that students receive appropriate recognition of both silent and open learning. In sub-case A, this was evident in the evaluator's efforts to understand the student's perspective and develop it without interference.
Autonomy develops in relation to social practices and values (in this case, values and practices of evaluation) that can hinder or develop it (Griffin, 1997:11).
Buchanan, R (1996) 'Declaration by Design: Rhetoric, Argument, and Demonstration in Design Practice' pp.91 -109 IN The Idea of Design: A Reader of Design Issues edited by Victor Margolin and Richard Buchanan. 2-11 IN The End of Knowledge in Higher Education edited by Ronald Barnett and Anne Griffin. Prentice, R (1995) 'Learning to Teach: A Conversation' pp.10-21 IN Teaching Art and Design: Addressing Issues and Identifying Directions edited by Roy Prentice.
Schwandt, T A (1994) 'Constructivist, Interpretivist Approaches to Human Inquiry', fq.118-137 IN Handbook of Qualitative Research, redaktuar nga Norman Denzin dhe Yvonna Lincoln.
