Online design education: Searching for a middle ground

Abstract

At its heart, design is a studio-based discipline, which makes it difficult for design educators to adopt technology-driven changes into an online teaching and learning environment. Globally, few universities offer online undergraduate degree design courses, despite an overall growth in online higher degree curricula. Anecdotal evidence and limited research studies exploring the design educators’ view lament the potential loss of direct interactions between educator and design students in an online learning environment making it impossible to offer design education online. However, the attitude of design students towards online learning is largely underexplored. Given that today’s design students are considered tech-savvy, and there is a growing student demand for flexible study options, it would seem that design students would embrace online delivery options. The aim of this study is to explore the perception of undergraduate design students towards the idea of studying design online and whether or not blended learning could provide a transitional middle ground to a fully online design course. This study also touches on any student reservations about online delivery and identifies the barriers to study design online.