The Nature and Perceptions of Critical Reflective Writing within Hands-On Technology and Engineering Design-Based Learning

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) has influenced educators to adapt design thinking (DT) for technology and engineering design-based learning (T/E DBL) because they believe design-based problems introduce authentic, open-ended challenges valuable for developing hands-on problem-solving. These integrative real-world challenges bring learners into contact with unfamiliar problems and critical incidents which kindle learners' transformative learning related to far transfer and self-directed learning. Critical incidents also correlate with learners' immediate emotional reactions to unfamiliar knowledge and challenging open-ended hands-on performances. These emotional reactions correspond with learners' critical reflection (CR) transformative for them. CR about threshold experiences relates to changes of perspective useful for managing design thinking in future design-related challenges. In addition to improved self-regulation during DT, learners experiencing critical incidents understand domain content better, and they see how to leverage it in the future.

However, while researchers assume CR happens throughout design-based learning (DBL) due to its complex, open-ended challenges, the research has not documented learners' critical experiences and perceptions related to their changes of perspective during DT, nor has the research deeply described reflection critical to transformative, threshold experiences and changes of perspective related to learning. Therefore, a flexible framework for supporting learners' management of critical incidents during DT does not exist. Because learners' hands-on experiences connected to critical reflection are less understood in design thinking (DT), educators and practitioners of T/E DBL know less about scaffolding for DBL during its iterative, decision-making phases in which critical incidents likely occur. Research suggests scaffolding for critical reflection correlates with more effective, iterative design-based ideation and prototyping—for learners and experts alike.

After reviewing research in T/E, the scholarship of teaching and learning, health and human sciences, and the humanistic studies, this two-phase qualitative study identifies themes about designers' emotions and exigences related to hands-on critical reflection during DT. Using the themes from this literature review, Phase 1 of this study defines critical reflection and critical reflective writing (CRW). Then, the study instruments a CRW prompt for integrating CRW into T/E DBL. Since CRW is a reflective tool that slows thinking, Phase 1 of the study uses CRW to slow DT in its iterative phases, allowing participants to express their critical, threshold experiences and changes of perspective which happen during their active, hands-on, design-based problem solving. Phase 1 of this study analyzes the nature and perceptions from three designers' CRW and discloses themes about their CR and DT for the threshold experiences and critical incidents they describe within the recursive phases of prototyping and optimization. After collecting participants' CRW during these phases, the study interprets themes for these participant's critical incidents, threshold concepts, and related changes of perspective. Phase 2 of this study uses retrospective focus group interviews with the same three participants in their design teams to describe participants' experiences and perceived relations between their CR, CRW, DT, and T/E DBL. After data collection from both phases, this qualitative study analyzes the CRWs and interview transcripts through inductive coding. The results for Phase 1 include categorical themes for Emotional Awareness, Social Awareness and Communication, Awareness of the Nature of Real-World Problem-Solving, and Holistic Awareness for Order and Arrangement in Hierarchical Problem-Solving. The categorical themes for Phase 2 include Stepping Back and Getting Perspective, Making Progress, Materializing Abstract Thinking and Less Realized Real-World Experiences, and Exploring Future Integration for CRW. Some of the categorical themes overlap for Phase 1 and Phase 2.

This study contributes a broader awareness for less-expert designers' emotional exigences, threshold concepts, and transformative experiences happening during DBL, as documented through their CRW. The study informs best practices for scaffolding T/E DBL for CR, so gaps can be narrowed between less-expert and more-expert design-related performances during hands-on iteration and prototyping. This research also informs recent cross-curricular, humanistic research that integrates writing and T/E DBL in the STEM disciplines, K-18, so learners can identify and describe experiences related to metacognition and self-regulated learning across ages, disciplines, and design settings in support of self-directed learning.