Abstract
Despite ample evidence showcasing the impact of design in practice, present design education has been criticized for its slow response and failure to meet the demands of the 21st century. In the past, design served as a unifying force, bridging various disciplines and fostering interdisciplinary education. During this period, there was minimal distinction between the arts and engineering, resulting in an education that imparted competencies based on the task at hand or the challenges in sight. However, over time, acquiring specialized knowledge began to take precedence over holistic education, laying the groundwork for the challenges we face in design education today. These challenges include difficulties in integrating design back into curricula and courses and fostering design competencies. In addition, there is sufficient literature that highlights the significance of the educator in design education and acknowledges the many challenges they face, but there is little that addresses how to tackle it.
Competency-Based Education (CBE) is an approach that focuses on aligning individual performance with the expectations of different levels of the system, whether educational, economic, or social. This approach defines curricula based on competencies essential for success, allowing for involvement from students and employers in the process to ensure relevance. Despite its promise, CBE has been met with resistance due to criteria that require flexibility and individualized learning, which seems counterintuitive in the context of competence development. Expertise often requires deliberate practice, which learners, especially advanced ones, should have the opportunity to engage in within the same time frame. Therefore, the need is to not replace but reorient the education structure toward a ‘competency-oriented education’, combining the strengths of traditional and competency-based education, ultimately preparing students as competent individuals to tackle various challenges.
This thesis introduces a methodology called CODE - Competency Oriented Design Education, supported by the DesCA (Design Competency Assessment) framework as a holistic approach towards competency development. This approach offers a balanced path forward by acknowledging the value of self-paced learning (e.g., within design projects) while recognizing the importance of structured timeframes (of terms or semesters), ultimately preparing students as competent individuals to tackle all sorts of challenges. The CODE methodology proposes a novel approach for educators to identify and distinguish competencies while translating course content into distinct categories of skills, knowledge, and attitudes. It offers a comprehensive structure to analyze and visualize courses, programs, and curricula for competency gaps. The DesCA framework acts as an extensive database of design competencies, maintaining granularity and curation for each stage of the design process. Providing conceptual clarity on the relationship between competency categories, it facilitates the explicit connection between taught knowledge, assessed outcomes, and applied competencies, capturing the roles of both the educator and the student and suggesting a paradigm shift in design assessment toward an emphasis on competencies acquired in the learning process. Through action research, CODE and DesCA were developed and demonstrated through three case studies, showcasing the practical application and adaptability of CODE and DesCA at the university, program, and course levels. These case studies not only affirm the relevance of identified competencies but also highlight their use as a common language for coherent course and curriculum development.
In conclusion, this research presents a methodology and a tool that can effectively bridge the gap between theoretical concepts of competency development and its practical application within education.