Complete thesis - Murdoch University

This reflection on the outcomes of the Apprenticeship cycle of the study informed the planningfor Cycle 2. At this point the issue of student-centred learning was of prime importance.This literature (discussed in Chapter 3) pointed to learning strategies based on inquiry, orprojects or problems as addressing some of these concerns. Figure 7.1 places this cycle in thecontext of the thesis as a whole.Additional triggers for changeWithin the Engineering Education environment, a change in focus which included equippinggraduates for lifelong learning as well as receiving a broader education with a wider rangeof backgrounds was advocated in the mid 1990s (IEAust, 1996). This is an acknowledgementthat the development of student skills and understanding in generalisable and transferableskills is a necessary dimension of professional education (McLaughlan and Kirkpatrick, 2004).Active learning approaches (which include collaborative learning, problem-based learning,case methods and combinations of roleplays and simulations) are advocated to engage studentsin higher order thinking tasks such as analysis, synthesis and evaluation (Bonwell andEison, 1991). Active learning methods attemptto develop the cognitive [knowledge, understanding and thinking] and affective[emotive] dimensions of the learning process in such a way that learners’ activeinvolvement in the learning is improved.(Learning and Teaching Support Network (LTSN), 2003)Criticism of engineering graduates’ lack in the ability to be flexible and creative (specifically inthe lateral and divergent thinking (Guilford, 1967) seen as an implicit and necessary quality ofa practical engineer (Alpay and Ireson, 2006)) also confirmed the decision to address aspectsof creativity in this cycle.Creativity is described as a balance of convergent and divergent thinking appropriate to thesituation (Nickerson, 1999), with the process of design seen to rarely be convergent, in thesense of being directed towards a single preferred solution. The issue of introducing creativityearly in the design education environment is also being tackled in that environment throughless traditional learning models (in this case Design-Led Learning (DLL) (Edwards, 2002)),with similar concerns regarding how early DLL can be introduced, the amount of content‘lost’ and the depth of learning achieved. The conclusions to date suggest that creative designcan be integrated into the curriculum from the introductory year (Lumsdaine et al, 1999),but that support and mediation is mandatory (Edwards, 2002).While RE is a problem-developing process where design is a problem-solving process, designshares the RE characteristic of being described as open-ended, unstructured, or ‘wicked’274