Master of Fine Arts, The Ohio State University, 2010, Industrial, Interior Visual Communication Design

In the 1950's, Henry Dreyfuss encouraged studying people's behaviors and attitudes as a first step in designing successful products. Since then, the discipline of design research has steadily grown and experienced a “burst” of popularity in the last 20 years (Arnold 2005, 2006, Rothstein 2001). Today, questions concerning the context of design research in undergraduate product design education have surfaced, particularly with regard to integration into today's changing design curricula. As academia strives to understand and build upon what is done in professional practice, designers must be prepared to conduct credible and effective design research through their coursework while in school. Currently, the majority of (domestic) design programs expect students to experiment and innovate their own methods and approaches without equipping those students with fundamental knowledge about research (Tornello 2003). An international survey was conducted to ascertain the current state of design research education in the context of undergraduate product design programs in the United States. An open ended survey was distributed among international groups of design researchers, design educators and designers that maps out an informed perspective on the state of design research in the United States. The survey also provided an indication as to how the field is evolving. Data in the form of student responses to journal questions were also collected and analyzed in an effort to understand how design students learn best. This research will be used to develop a theoretical course/thread that would reflect the findings of the study. The course would serve as a resource for other design curricula and be one they could incorporate into their own curriculum as they see fit.

Committee: James Arnold MFA (Committee Chair); Elizabeth Sanders Dr. (Committee Member); Paul Nini MFA (Committee Member) Subjects: Design