3.3.2.1 Accountability to a joint enterprise
Accountability to an enterprise (see 2.3.1.1), means having a common sense of purpose which influences the choices, interpretations and evaluations of experience we make. The papers reveal a range of purposes to which students feel accountable, which I grouped into (1) external: the course or instructor’s requirements, the client need, the social impact and (2) internal: own learning, own design, own beliefs. These are not mutually exclusive, and indeed three papers reflect (3) interactions between sources of accountability.
Accountability to an external purpose is illustrated in the papers by: trying to comply with the course requirements (Brill, 2016; Frank et al, 2003; Jensen et al, 2002; Mills 2002), responding to the client’s needs (Gestwicki & Mcnely, 2016; Maleki, 2009; McNeill & Chernish, 2001; Tracey et al, 2008), and creating something with a social impact (Amos et al, 2015; Johri & Sharma, 2012; Vemury et al, 2018; Yusop & Correia, 2014). Students’ accountability to more complex, evolving purposes, such as course requirements and client need (Budny et al, 2016; McNeill, 2015), or client need and social impact (Dabbagh & Williams-Blijd, 2010; Tracey & Kacin, 2014) is mentioned in the articles as a course feature, without elaborating or explicitly making the link with the students’ professional identities.
Accountability to an internal purpose is illustrated in the selected articles by students being accountable to their own learning and development (Dabbagh et al, 2000; Qutadamo & Brown, 2001; Woolf & Quinn, 2001), their own beliefs about teaching and learning (Shambaugh & Magliaro, 2001), and their own design beyond external requirements (Boling & Smith, 2010). Here as well, the orientations identified in the papers might not be the reflection of students’ actual choices as much as of the focus of the particular research interest.
A third perspective, highlighting interactions between sources of accountability, is identified in three papers. Students are accountable both to the client and their own learning in the case presented by Bannan-Ritland (2001), although details are scarce and only the tutor’s perspective is included.
Woolf and Quinn (2009) explore the effect that conflicts between students’ learning goals and clients’ goals have on student-perceived value. The absence of conflict between clients’ and students’ expectations is not in itself beneficial, as Cocchiarella and Booth (2015) describe design students having trouble to maintain orientation in the absence of external drivers, indicating they don’t yet have a clear inner purpose.
Most papers mention either internal or external sources of accountability, mostly reflecting learning or research design choices. A third, underrepresented research perspective is the one regarding interactions between sources of accountability and their impact on students’ professional identity.
3.3.2.2 Mutual engagement
Mutuality of engagement (see 2.3.1.2) defines the community members’ expectations in relation to the way they work together and is reflected in the selected articles by (1) difficulties in engaging with similarly novice peers, (2) benefits of student engagement with peers, (3) peer critique process, and (4) interactions with other stakeholders.
The selected articles describe students’ difficulties in engaging with their similarly novice peers: students find it easier to work with teammates in companies than with colleagues (Badets, 2017), since the latter are also novices similarly confused about what they should do (Smith et al, 2008). Students want to work alone (Frank et al, 2003; McNeil & Chernish, 2001) and avoid getting involved (Duffy et al, 2013). In online courses, Jensen et al (2002) found that less contact widens differences between participants, other authors describe using very close scaffolding (Williams van Rooij, 2010), or special meetings (Tracey & Kacin, 2014) to facilitate engagement.
In other cases, authors report benefits of student engagement with peers: provision of diverse expertise (Johri & Sharma, 2012), facilitation of design judgments (Demiral–Uzan, 2015), practice for synchronizing different opinions (Tracey et al, 2008), accepting different work ethics (Dabbagh & Williams-Blijd, 2010), peer learning opportunities (Cocchiarella & Booth, 2015;
Karaman & Celik, 2008; Dabbagh et al, 2000; Land & Greene, 2000), more complex mental models of design (McNeill, 2015).
A kind of engagement that seems to differentiate the design community (although not unique to design disciplines) is the peer critique process (defined in section 2.2). Woolf and Quinn (2001) support its value, but point out that students should know each other well to create the required unthreatening atmosphere. This is echoed by Brill (2016) who reports difficulties brought by not knowing how the review will be received. While Smith (2015) claims that students provide each other with support and stimulating competition, and Qutadamo and Brown (2001) describe students sharing the projects online and being motivated to raise the quality, Bedard et al (2012) report a discouraging competition, perceived as increasing stress and decreasing engagement. Although peer critique and associate forms are present in the reviewed literature, they do not have the prominence expected from a key process, with authors disagreeing both on its value and ways of implementation.
Another theme detected in the selected papers is interaction with other stakeholders, such as mentors and non-student co-workers (Johari & Bradshaw, 2008), faculty members as experts (Frank et al, 2003), community members as “design partners” (Yusop & Correia, 2014, p.789), students from other majors (Amos et al, 2015), outside experts (Ashton, 2011; Vemury et al, 2018). Authors report positive examples of engineering students accepted as team members by colleagues from industry (Beier et al, 2019; Lutz et al, 2015). Notably, interactions with clients are missing from the analysis. The opportunities students have to enact their new identity to people outside their peer community are mostly reflected in the reviewed papers in a one-sided way and the complexities of the engagement with stakeholders are largely unexplored.
In contrast to what was found in previously reviewed literature (see 3.2), engagement seems to be reflected in the selected papers primarily with novice peers. Since projects are part of the traditional approaches in design disciplines, this particularity can be attributed both to domain and to method. Although a range of issues are discussed, articles seem to treat engagement in a static
way (as different themes are reflected in different papers). Moreover, processes which are critical to the design field, such as peer critique, are underrepresented and disagreed upon.
3.3.2.3 Shared repertoire
The shared repertoire (see 2.3.1.3) is made of artefacts, language and procedures negotiated by the members of the community. The examined literature is fragmented regarding the types of artefacts, language and procedures focused upon. Four themes were identified: (1) communication with people having different backgrounds, (2) skills development, (3) engaging in reflective practice, and (4) other design procedures such as peer review, critical thinking, design judgments.
A frequently reported element related to speaking a common language is the ability to communicate with people having different backgrounds, either peers or stakeholders, and harmonize their opinions (Amos et al, 2015; Johri &Sharma, 2012; Tracey et al, 2008; Yusop & Correia, 2014). Although deemed important, it was not successful in all cases reviewed, but the implications for the course design are not discussed.
Being involved in real projects versus learning theoretical knowledge is emphasized by several authors (Badets, 2017; Budny et al, 2016; Dabbagh & Williams-Blijd, 2010; Mills, 2002), as it contributes to skill development and highlights the relevance of more theoretical courses (Beier et al, 2019; Gavin, 2011; Joyce et al, 2013). Only one article explicitly articulates the need for students to be involved in design procedures – and not just applications of theory (Lutz et al, 2015).
Engaging in reflection is a procedure mentioned in thirty-four papers, but only nine offer details about its use: Magliaro and Shambaugh (1999) report about encouraging students to make their beliefs explicit and incorporate them in design, while Krogstie (2009) presents a model of retrospective collective reflection supported by collaborative tools. In a cluster of related articles, guided reflection is seen to supplant the novices’ limited base of precedents
(Hutchinson & Tracey, 2015; Tracey & Hutchinson, 2013, 2016, 2018a, 2018b; Tracey et al, 2014) but the emphasis is mostly on a quantitative analysis of students’ reflective texts.
Other design procedures mentioned in articles are peer review (Ge & Hardre, 2010; Woolf & Quinn, 2001; Brill, 2016), designer judgments (Boling & Smith, 2010; Demiral-Uzan, 2015), using uncertainty in design (Tracey & Hutchinson, 2016, 2018b), critical thinking (Qutadamo & Brown, 2001).
Overall, the scholarship is more concerned with elements of repertoire that are not specific to design (such as communicating with people having different backgrounds and skills development). Of the specific ones, reflection is heavily mentioned but rarely discussed, while other elements are engaged with in sporadic ways.