Abstract
Knowledge generation in doctoral design education and its endeavour to meet a variety of interdisciplinary issues from engineering to aesthetics, sustainability and stakeholder requirements can be labelled with what Rittel and Webber called a “wicked problem” [1]. The following article reflects on conditions, methods and challenges to combine design theory and design research practice on a doctoral level. The study case for these reflections is the PhD course, PD 8300: “Topics in design research” at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. The course introduces among others a disciplinary architecture for industrial design and three theory of science philosophies related to three paradigmatic design theories: Critical rationalism to Simon, Pragmatism and Hermeneutics to Schön, and Social Constructivism to Krippendorff. Further the course attempts to mediate research skills such as writing, analysing and evaluating texts and structuring one’s PhD work. The article is meant as a contribution to the on-going discussion on teaching design theory at different industrial design schools in Scandinavia and as contribution to appraise and develop doctoral education in industrial design.
Keywords
Industrial design curricula, PhD education, industrial design as academic discipline, theory of science, design theories
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/learnxdesign.2013.077
Citation
Keitsch, M.M.(2013) Knowledge generation in doctoral design education, in Reitan, J.B., Lloyd, P., Bohemia, E., Nielsen, L.M., Digranes, I., & Lutnæs, E. (eds.), DRS // Cumulus: Design Learning for Tomorrow, 14-17 May, Oslo, Norway. https://doi.org/10.21606/learnxdesign.2013.077
Creative Commons License
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Included in
Knowledge generation in doctoral design education
Knowledge generation in doctoral design education and its endeavour to meet a variety of interdisciplinary issues from engineering to aesthetics, sustainability and stakeholder requirements can be labelled with what Rittel and Webber called a “wicked problem” [1]. The following article reflects on conditions, methods and challenges to combine design theory and design research practice on a doctoral level. The study case for these reflections is the PhD course, PD 8300: “Topics in design research” at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. The course introduces among others a disciplinary architecture for industrial design and three theory of science philosophies related to three paradigmatic design theories: Critical rationalism to Simon, Pragmatism and Hermeneutics to Schön, and Social Constructivism to Krippendorff. Further the course attempts to mediate research skills such as writing, analysing and evaluating texts and structuring one’s PhD work. The article is meant as a contribution to the on-going discussion on teaching design theory at different industrial design schools in Scandinavia and as contribution to appraise and develop doctoral education in industrial design.