ERIC Number: EJ1152228
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017-Sep
Pages: 22
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0957 7572
EISSN: N/A
Interdisciplinarity in Design Education: Understanding the Undergraduate Student Experience
Self, James A.; Baek, Joon Sang
International Journal of Technology and Design Education, v27 n3 p459-480 Sep 2017
Interdisciplinarity is becoming a critical issue of concern for design schools across East Asia in their attempts to provide industry graduates with the skills and competences to make creative contributions in a global economy. As a result, East Asian higher education institutions are aggressively endeavouring to provide interdisciplinary undergraduate curriculum that combine traditional designerly skills with engineering knowledge and methods. The current study takes an interdisciplinary undergraduate course as case-study to examine how the pedagogic strategy of team teaching influences student learning experience. Two surveys of student learning were conducted for this research purpose. The first provided an indication of the holistic student learning experience, while the second explored the conditions of team and non-team teaching as influence upon learning experiences specifically. Results showed how students taught by a single instructor provided a more positive overall opinion of course quality and experienced significantly more encouragement to participate compared to team taught respondents. However, findings also indicated how team teaching significantly increased the students' experience of a balanced contribution from different disciplinary perspectives and how the team teaching approach was significantly more effective in providing students with greater opportunities to understand the relevance of the different disciplines to the course subject. We conclude with a discussion of results in terms of the effective use of team teaching at undergraduate level as strategy for interdisciplinary learning experiences.
Descriptors: Interdisciplinary Approach, Design, Foreign Countries, Undergraduate Students, Teaching Methods, Student Surveys, Holistic Approach, Team Teaching, Engineering, Student Experience, Case Studies
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Asia
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A