Hello Kasper -

You may be interested in a two-year research study I did for the National Endowment for the Arts in the United States on how K-12 teachers use design in their classrooms. The study comes at the issue of design competencies from the opposite direction of what you request - it asks what skills/knowledge K-12 teachers in various subject areas need to teach for which design activities provide a useful curricular approach. The study includes 169 cases and is summarized in a book titled, Design as a Catalyst for Learning. It is out of print but you can still find used copies on Amazon in the US. Although the study was done in the late 1990s, it is still the most comprehensive review of the topic in the US. One of the things the study identified was where design competencies appear in the National Voluntary Content Standards of various subject areas. There is no national curriculum in the US, so these standards are authored and updated periodically by various educational associations - the book will give you the names of the associations through which to search for these K-12 competencies. The standards least sensitive to design were those of the visual arts, so be sure to dig through areas such as civics and science.

I also participated in a more recent project for the OECD that is looking internationally at the gap between the skills required by innovation jobs (product, technology, and knowledge innovation) and what education delivers. There are two working groups in that study - one in higher education (which is currently soliciting universities for participation) and one in K-12 (which had an earlier start and may have compiled some data at this point). You might check with them on research progress. At the time of my participation, the OECD thought design education had something to contribute. An article leading to this study that outlines the innovation competencies can be found at: http://www.tuningjournal.org/public/site/01/11_Educating_Higher_Education_Students_for_Innovative_Economies.pdf <http://www.tuningjournal.org/public/site/01/11_Educating_Higher_Education_Students_for_Innovative_Economies.pdf>.

The last study that might be useful is the National Assessment of Educational Progress in Technology and Engineering Literacy. https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/tel/whatmeasure.aspx <https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/tel/whatmeasure.aspx> This is often called “The Nation’s Report Card” in the United States and is a periodic assessment of what young Americans (grades 4, 8, and 12) know and are able to do with respect to a variety of subject areas. The typical sample size in NAEP research is 20,000+ students. We developed the 2014 grade 8 assessment as a series of computer-delivered design tasks based on the competencies described by the National Academy of Engineering. The test cannot conflate content with other subject areas (for example, advanced mathematics or physics), so the grade 8 tasks more closely resemble industrial, graphic, and architectural design work than engineering. There are only a few test examples available to the public, but the competency framework and findings are broadly accessible. If you’re doing any testing of projects in classrooms, this may also be helpful from that perspective.

And finally, I have a recent book on Teaching Design that includes chapters for K-12 teachers on how to integrate design activities in the classroom. For example, it explains the use of scenarios and applications of modeling and diagramming. Each of these explanations also tells K-12 teachers what to look for in student achievement, easing some of the teacher tension over evaluating work products that are not familiar. Unlike the previous resources, this is not a research study but it does reflect work with classroom teachers so it may provide some practical strategies. There is a lot of work available on critical and creative rubrics if you want information on those.

My point in all these examples is that you may find as much about design competencies by looking at where they help teachers teach and students learn things other than design.

Good luck with your research,

Meredith Davis
Professor Emerita
College of Design / North Carolina State University



   
> On Aug 23, 2018, at 6:29 AM, Kasper Skov Christensen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> Dear all,
> 
> Many design researchers referrer to 'design competency' when discussing what designer think and do. However, most of the descriptions that I have been able to find on design competence are long and somewhat abstract. I am currently working on integrating design education into k-12 curriculum. This requires me to list or create a taxonomy of design competencies. Such taxonomies are easily found within educational texts that focus media or digital literacy, e.g. to be digital literate, one must have the competency to work through a process of identification; 'identify the digital resources required to solve a problem or achieve successful completion of a task'.
> 
> So I am looking for texts or thoughts on how to define or describe design competencies as a taxonomy what could be adapted for K-12 education. Note that K-12 teachers are neither experience nor expert designers. Handing them a classic book like Schons Reflective Practitioner does not help teachers to accomplish their goals.
> 
> A short list of literature that I am currently working:
> 
> Nelson, Harold G., and Erik Stolterman. 2012. /The Design Way: Intentional Change in an Unpredictable World/. Second edition. Cambridge, Massachusestts ; London, England: The MIT Press.
> Holmlid, Stefan, and Mattias Arvola. 2007. “Developing A Thematic Design Curriculum as a Bologna Master.” In , 78–96. Northumbria University, Newcastle Upon Tyne, United Kingdom.
> Wolf, Tracee Vetting, Jennifer A. Rode, Jeremy Sussman, and Wendy A. Kellogg. 2006. “Dispelling ‘Design’ as the Black Art of CHI.”
> Cross, Nigel. 1990. “The Nature and Nurture of Design Ability.” /Design Studies/ 11 (3): 127–40.
> Arvola, Mattias, and Henrik Artman. n.d. “Studio Life: The Construction of Digital Design Competence,” 19.
> 
> -- 
> Med venlig hilsen/Kind regards
> Kasper Skov Christensen
> Phone: Ask
> Ph.d. Student @ Child Computer Interaction Group, Aarhus University, Denmark
> 
> 
> 
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