People, Practice and Products of Curriculum Design in Design Education

Curriculum design is an established field within educational research. Much recent literature on curriculum design in design education aligns to a positivist, ‘product model’ of curriculum development, emphasising discussion of curricular frameworks or content. There has been little discussion of how design educators should go about redesigning their curricula – to equip students for the future world, and the complexities and pluralities of contemporary design practice – as a people-centred ‘process model’ of curriculum development would emphasise. Efforts to explore design approaches, research-through-design methods, and systemic change strategies in curriculum reforms exist but are isolated; with opportunity to develop and test these further. This research frames the curricula of design education as the result of complex interactions between people, practice, and products. These three facets of ‘designing’ are used to guide exploration into curriculum design and present a scaffolding on which to build the study’s key research questions. This thesis presents a focused, and deep understanding of curriculum design in the context of a UK Art and Design school, where the author was embedded for four years. Initial work as a Participant Observer adopting an Ethnographic Action Research approach resulted in the description of two distinct ‘worlds’ of curriculum design: the ‘Educator World’ experienced by design educators; and the ‘Institutional World’ described by institutional documentation. Three subsequent cycles of Participatory Action Research as an Insider Practitioner-Researcher, sought to bridge these worlds: giving form to a more designed curriculum design practice: with the role of visualisation explored, and the potential for different ‘boundary objects’ to aid the interface between Institutional and Educator worlds introduced and discussed. This thesis makes an in-depth contribution to exploring the potential of a research-through-design approach to achieve systemic change across Educator and Institutional worlds. Furthermore, it makes original contributions in: demonstrating the role and value of curriculum visualisations, explicating curriculum design processes and boundaries between educator and institutional worlds, evidencing the agency design educators have in designing design education, and demonstrating a ‘research through design’ approach to educators beyond design.