ASSESSED DEBATES AS A METHOD OF DEVELOPING PROFESSIONAL SKILLS IN PRODUCT DESIGNERS
Year: 2024
Editor: Grierson, Hilary; Bohemia, Erik; Buck, Lyndon
Author: Haisman, Rebecca; Coutts, Euan; Emerson, Nick; Nazmi, Ali Reza; Piumsomboon, Tham
Series: E&PDE
Institution: University of Canterbury, New Zealand
Page(s): 621 - 626
DOI number: 10.35199/EPDE.2024.105
ISBN: 978-1-912254-200
ISSN: 3005-4753
Abstract
Within tertiary education disciplines traditionally regarded as “technical”, students have a notably tendency to focus on the skills required for their intended profession; be that mathematics, engineering competencies, coding, manufacture, design, chemistry, to name just a few. There is often less focus on “professional” competencies, such as presenting, orating, negotiating, bargaining and interpersonal communication, sometimes referred to as “soft skills” although this term is somewhat dated and is largely being replaced in the lexicon with the more appropriate “professional skills”. This presents an interesting paradox as frequently many graduate employers express a significant desire to hire graduates who have developed their required technical competencies but additionally professional competencies. Indeed, in a great many instances graduate employers actually place more of a value on the professional skills of a prospective hire as they will undertake additional or more bespoke technical training during on-boarding of new hires in their particular practices. It is a request frequently encountered from industry advisory boards to develop students so that they have a good level of professional competency when they enter the graduate employment market. This raised the question of how this can be best achieved when a curriculum has many technical competency based classes but comparatively few professional or interpersonal competency based classes. While presentations and critiques have been beneficial up to a point, it is observed that if these are offered as informal or formative parts of the curriculum participation can be low and no demonstrable benefit is achieved, particularly since in-person attendance has presented challenges following the increase in online modes of attendance. Additionally the increasing prominence of generative AI tools has mean that many educators are rethinking their means of assessing learning and understanding of subject matter. Accordingly, a new form of experimental assessed oral presentations and “flipped” classroom sessions and activities have been developed. While these have been successful to an extent they only address some aspects of the professional competencies required and typically only really “one way” activities where any back and forth discussion or exchange is limited. As part of designing a new masters class within the technical discipline of product design at the XXXX in XXXX it was sought to create a new class where these professional skills, including negotiation, discussion, interpersonal communication and debate are developed and fostered. This approach has precedence in other fields such as medicine, language, culture, education, politics and business, and has demonstrated success in these fields. Could such an approach to learning activities and assessment work in the product design technical setting? This research explores the efficacy of debate activities and assessment in developing the professional competencies of students enrolled in technical disciplines. It will address whether or not there is an improvement in these competencies amongst students and additionally if student’s confidence in these competencies is improved.
Keywords: Education, Assessment, Employability, Professional Skills