Doing the right thing. Social processes in design learning

Critical Analysis

In this text, the authors reflect on the way groups in an educational design context impact the way students experience studio. The authors observed three design school courses, and interviewed six students in each over six weeks. Based on this interview data and observation, the authors conclude that social interactions with others construct the frame in which students self-assess, form an identity, and learn.

Students typically enter design school with an expectation that they will learn a vocation. The environment in which this learning happens clearly impacts the learning itself; this environment is largely influenced by the students in the environment, and the way they see themselves as compared to others. This comparison is a form of reflection, and for most students, occurs at a time in their lives where they “establish new identities and when peer groups exert particular influence and are motivated to comply with group norms.”

While students may enter school with an expectation that there is a right answer to a design problem, the “right thing” in a social group is created by the group’s dynamics. This is a social reality, and students “establish correctness by discovering what the shared understanding of right and wrong is in that particular context.”

Students in design school want to understand if they are doing the “right thing,” and they come to answer that question through various forms of reflection. One of these is through social comparison. Students are acutely aware of what their peers are doing, and what their peers consider to be good design solutions and approaches. The observed peer group is limited, because students form small social groups quickly in a studio environment and their point of reference is then based on only that group’s approaches and abilities.

Students also look to the faculty to see if they are doing the “right thing,” under the assumption that the faculty actually have an answer. This leads to a form of modeling, and appears like apprenticeship; this, however, has been criticized for “preparing students with the answers to today’s problems but not with the critical and judgemental skills to cope with new situations in the future.” Learning outcomes reinforce that there is a right answer, but these are only effective when both faculty and students in groups recognize those outcomes, which is unlikely.

Students form ways of mediating their socially-prompted reflections. One way they do this is through group decision making (such as agreeing on the type or amount of work to show in class), and another is through emulating what the “highly rated students—group leaders” were being praised for.

Students want to do the “right thing,” and that thing is “value loaded—it is created by the group itself and most notably by those who are able to exert influence or leadership.” Sometimes these leaders emerge by being the most capable; other times it is because they have strong socio-emotional skills, like helping and supporting.

Because of the nature of a socially-constructed learning environment, faculty need strategies and approaches to building such a learning space; yet student groups are a “result of collective action where the group collaborates to effect their own learning.” Educators should recognize this by encouraging communication within and across groups. Team-building exercises may be effective, formal allocation of roles and responsibilities may cut across naturally occurring groups, and providing faculty with more training would offer a way for them to support these strategies. Additionally, these processes “could be greatly enhanced if the verbal articulation of learning were encouraged.”

However, these social processes may actually be natural consequences of group formation that are impossible to manipulate.

Research Value

The value of this work in informing my own research is that it:

• Provides substance to the idea that peer-to-peer learning is occuring; the learning is, in part, through collaboratively constructing the social norms of the studio itself
• Offering specific examples of how students leverage their peers (both for good and bad) as they work to solve design problems