Investigating possibilities of developing self-directed learning in architecture students using design thinking

Avsec, Stanislav (author), Jagiełło-Kowalczyk, Magdalena (author)

Education systems are struggling to effectively integrate in their study programs the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which define the challenges we need to overcome as a society in the 21st century. This study revealed the special agency that architecture and built environment have in shaping our social, economic, and natural environment using system and design thinking. Despite the several studies on the metacognitive design process, several cognitive traps still exist when developing design thinking in architecture education. This study investigated design thinking and self-directed learning in undergraduate architecture students. Responses collected from a sample of 117 undergraduates were subjected to bootstrapping in structural equation modelling to find significant relationships of reversed action when design thinking is used for developing self-directed learning. The findings suggest that design thinking is strongly connected with self-directed learning, and as shown in the resulting model, all components of self-directed learning are strongly explained by design thinking variables. This can provide insights for curriculum designers and educators on how to shape effective design thinking processes in architecture education to overcome existing shortcomings while improving interpersonal skills, creativity and digital skills, make pedagogical changes, and enhance redesign of learning outcomes towards sustainable architecture.

• Language: English
• Keywords: sustainable development goals, design and design thinking, self-directed learning, sustainable architecture, structural equation modelling, bootstrapping, higher education, thinking
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: PEF - Faculty of Education
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2021
• Number of pages: 25 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 13, iss. 8, art. 4369
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-126425
• ISSN on article: 2071-1050
• DOI: 10.3390/su13084369
• COBISS.SI-ID: 59806467
• Publication date in RUL: 20.05.2021

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Sustainability
• Publisher: MDPI
• ISSN: 2071-1050
• COBISS.SI-ID: 5324897

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.
• Licensing start date: 14.04.2021

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: k sebi usmerjeno učenje, oblikovanje, trajnostni razvoj, trajnostna arhitektura, visokošolsko izobraževanje, mišljenje