Textile teacher students’ collaborative design processes in a design studio setting

The purpose of the present article is to analyse textile teacher students’ collaborative designing of a functional 3D textile puzzle for visually impaired children. The data collection took place across three sessions of collaborative designing: defining design constraints, visualization and building a mock-up. Twelve first-year university-level students, training to become textile teachers, participated in the study, working in four teams with three students in each team. We were interested in the nature of their design process and how kernels of design ideas were created and transformed during the collaborative design process. The analysis focused on the teams’ design activities and content logs of the video data. The video-recorded data were segmented into two-minute intervals using INTERACT video analysis program. Each segment was classified according to seven observable design activities. This provided a macro level analysis for all design activities during each design session and data for further analysis of different orientations of teams. The results indicated that all teams engaged in progressive design processes and were able to create unique and practical design solutions. The design process turned out to be a problem driven in nature for two teams, whereas the other two teams engaged in a solution-driven design process.