A record of the design process A systematic investigation of the role, value, and effectiveness of the “process book” for interior design students

The aim of this study is to analyze the structure, role, and effectiveness of a design student's "process book" as a method of capturing and facilitating design thinking. The "process book" includes all of the work completed during a design project such as written notes, drawings, and research. This study poses the following research questions: 1) What role and value does the process book have to design students and instructors? 2) How can the process book structure help to reduce a student’s cognitive load, yet allow for the spontaneous actions involved in graphic thinking? This mixed-method research study includes an analysis and exploration of interior design student and instructor perspectives of the process book artifact and tool. The data collection and analysis involves two main components. The first includes an investigation of student and faculty perspectives of the structure, role, and effectivenss of the process book obtained from semi-structured interviews. The second part is an online student survey questionnaire of sophomore, junior, senior, and graduate student perspectives. One interior design program in a large Midwestern university was selected. All students within the undergraduate and graduate program were invited to participate in the survey questionnaire and all faculty were interviewed. Interviews were audio-taped and later transcribed for coding and interpretation. This study serves as a case study and pilot study to provide a foundation for a larger-scale future research initiative. Results from this study will inform two future initiatives: 1) design of a larger-scale research design involving a multi-university sampling frame, and 2) development of a “digital process book” research study. Keywords: Design Process, Design Education, Drawing Research</p

Undergraduate interior design program admissions: What is the best predictor of future “success?”

The purpose of this paper is to present initial findings of a quasi-experimental study that analyzes what selection criteria provide the best measures of predicting future “success” in an undergraduate interior design program. Success in this study utilizes a performance assessment of a capstone interior design project

A “digital process book” learning tool for the design studio: Concept and development

The purpose of this study is to introduce a new learning tool to the interior design studio, namely, a “digital process book.” Paper-based process books are not new to the studio. A process book includes representations of the activities that occur and artifacts that are constructed as a student completes a design project. It allows the instructor, jurors, and others, to see the processes a student goes through to complete a project. It is also intended to assist students as a tool in the learning and design process. Schenk (2007) similarly describes this process work in the graphic design context as “job bags,” where this material, for the most part, provides the “drawn record” of the design process. However, paperbased process books are mostly a linear compilation of the design process that provides little of the scaffolding that a novice designer neeeds. The goal of this project is to take the existing strengths and capabilities of the computer and other digital technology, and merge them with the positive qualities of the paper-based process work, while also incorporating an underlying structure that is grounded in educational psychology theory

Technology and Design Thinking: A Look at Interior Design Students’ Conceptualizations

The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore interior design students’ understanding of their design thinking, and to investigate how they view digital technology’s role in these activities. The research questions are: 1. How do interior design students conceptualize interior design as a discipline? 2. How do these students conceptualize their design process? 3. What value do students place on the “process book”1 as a representation of their design breadth and depth in a given project? 4. How do students view computer technology’s role in their design thinking and their design products? Participants viewed interior design as more sensitive to the human condition than architecture. AutoCAD was one software package that was used both in the process and the end product, but other more common software programs (word processors, spreadsheets) were only minimally utilized. Hypermedia and databases were not mentioned by any participants as tools in their design processes

Infusing Creativity and Design into a University Faculty Mentor Process: Means and Ends

“So you have a design degree, why are you interested in the area of curriculum and instructional technology?” For me I see so many connections and important contributions to both design and education, in addition to the valuable lessons learned by taking an interdisciplinary approach to projects. This case study provides one example of how design and education, together, can produce exciting processes and results that help inform both design and education scholars

Are There Lasting Effects of a Schema Based Learning System in Interior Design Studio?

Gallini (1989) argues that, “the ability to combine a collection of problems into a meaningful representation, or schema facilitates learning” (p. 244). In a previous study, it was found that introducing a schema-based learning system in the design studio assisted novice designers in a structured, purposeful process, where they began to see patterns of information and use these patterns to develop and refine their design solutions. Their design solutions proved to be significantly better than the other students who did not utilize the instructional interventions. But, does this instructional intervention have any lasting effects with this same group of students? Do these skills transfer to new or novel tasks after a period of time ? The aim of this study is to measure the lasting effects of this learning tool by following this group of students through a new set of transfer tasks approximately one year after the original instructional intervention. Like the previous year study, the effectiveness characteristics were examined from four main areas of a design project: 1) organization of information, 2) categorization of information, 3) application of theory, and 4) overall design. The following research questions were addressed: 1. What are the lasting effects of the schema-based learning tools after one year from the initial implementation of the instructional intervention? Or, what are the problem solving transfer effects of the instructional intervention? 2. Do students, who use these schema-based learning tools, develop projects that are more organized, categorized, more theoretically-based, and have better overall designs, than students who do not use such learning tools

Development of a Novel Renal Activity Index of Lupus Nephritis in Children and Young Adults

OBJECTIVE: Noninvasive estimation of the degree of inflammation seen on kidney biopsy with lupus nephritis (LN) remains difficult. The objective of this study was to develop a Renal Activity Index for Lupus (RAIL) that, based solely on laboratory measures, accurately reflects histologic LN activity. METHODS: We assayed traditional LN laboratory tests and 16 urine biomarkers (UBMs) in children (n = 47) at the time of kidney biopsy. Histologic LN activity was measured by the National Institutes of Health activity index (NIH-AI) and the tubulointerstitial activity index (TIAI). High LN-activity status (versus moderate/low) was defined as NIH-AI scores >10 (versus ≤10) or TIAI scores >5 (versus ≤5). RAIL algorithms that predicted LN-activity status for both NIH-AI and TIAI were derived by stepwise multivariate logistic regression, considering traditional biomarkers and UBMs as candidate components. The accuracy of the RAIL for discriminating by LN-activity status was determined. RESULTS: The differential excretion of 6 UBMs (neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin, monocyte chemotactic protein 1, ceruloplasmin, adiponectin, hemopexin, and kidney injury molecule 1) standardized by urine creatinine was considered in the RAIL. These UBMs predicted LN-activity (NIH-AI) status with >92% accuracy and LN-activity (TIAI) status with >80% accuracy. RAIL accuracy was minimally influenced by concomitant LN damage. Accuracies between 71% and 85% were achieved without standardization of the UBMs. The strength of these UBMs to reflect LN-activity status was confirmed by principal component and linear discriminant analyses. CONCLUSION: The RAIL is a robust and highly accurate noninvasive measure of LN activity. The measurement properties of the RAIL, which reflect the degree of inflammatory changes as seen on kidney biopsy, will require independent validation