"If I Was Going to Design a Chair, the Last Thing I Would Look at Is a Chair": Product Analysis and the Causes of Fixation in Students' Design Work 11-16 Years

Autor/inn/en	McLellan, Ros; Nicholl, Bill
Titel	"If I Was Going to Design a Chair, the Last Thing I Would Look at Is a Chair": Product Analysis and the Causes of Fixation in Students' Design Work 11-16 Years
Quelle	In: International Journal of Technology and Design Education, 21 (2011) 1, S.71-92 (22 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0957-7572
DOI	10.1007/s10798-009-9107-7
Schlagwörter	Foreign Countries; Creativity; Economic Development; Economic Progress; Talent; Creative Thinking; Cognitive Processes; Design; Secondary School Students; Production Techniques; Technology; Evaluation Methods; United Kingdom + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Ausland; Kreativität; Wirtschaftsentwicklung; Economic growth; Wirtschaftswachstum; Begabung; Hochbegabung; Kreatives Denken; Cognitive process; Kognitiver Prozess; Sekundarschüler; Production engineering; Produktionstechnik; Technologie; Großbritannien
Abstract	Creativity is acknowledged to be important for economic growth and as an everyday life-skill, however several influential reports have suggested that education could do more to harness creative talent. Creative cognition literature suggests the lack of creativity is at least partly the result of "fixation" (difficulty in generating novel ideas due to imagination being "structured" by existing knowledge). This paper focuses on the secondary (students aged 11-16 years) design and technology (D&T) context in the UK. Here we examine whether teacher practice can contribute to fixation by focusing on one specific facet of teacher practice in D&T; the use of product analysis to inform the generation of creative design ideas. Data is drawn from the preliminary phase of a research and intervention project from interviews with D&T teachers (N = 14), students (N = 126) and lesson observations (N = 10) and an analysis of documents and student work. Product analysis is widely used at different points in design projects but, as is shown, in all cases current practice can lead to fixation, as thinking is constrained down specific paths and tasks are at best at procedural rather than comprehension level. The implications of these findings and tentative ways forward for practitioners are discussed. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10