Student Approaches to Learning in Fashion Design: a phenomenographic study

This article describes a study exploring the range of variation in the way twenty-one students studying in four UK universities approach learning through the design project. It draws on the theoretical framework and phenomenographic methodology from Marton and Saljo's (1976) seminal study into students' approaches to learning with texts. Features of the deep/surface variation of approach found in this and many subsequent studies are described in terms that do not map easily onto practice in art and design. An aim of the study was therefore to define features of approaches that might be more recognizable to the discipline. Initial findings suggest that learning in the context of the fashion design project evinces four approaches, two of which share features with those described for deep and surface approaches in the literature. The additional variation is found where there is an intention to develop the design process either through rehearsal and repetition or through experimentation. Further research is required to explore the identified approaches, and to discover whether other art and design students show a similar range of variation in approach.