Exploring the relationship between thinking style and collaborative design outcomes

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between the team members' thinking styles and their performance in collaborative design. 20 undergraduate industrial design students participated in the experiment. The Thinking Style Inventory was used to establish the thinking style profile. The grades of the collaborative design team members were collected. The correlation coefficient of team members' thinking styles profiles was calculated, and the Pearson's correlation analysis was used to examine the relationship between project grades and team members' thinking style. The results demonstrated that the team members with difference thinking style could have better performance in the collaborative design team. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.