Design Thinking as a Student-Centered Approach for Programmatic Insights
Abstract
The purpose of this action research was to identify current student perceptions of an undergraduate student leadership program to identify potential areas for program improvement and to inform future program development. The design-thinking process provided a framework for the study. Design thinking is based in the concept of human-centered design and constitutes five stages (empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test). Researchers conducted interviews and focus groups of current program participants to gather qualitative data during the empathize and test stages of the process. Thematic analysis was then completed to identify key insights from the empathize stage. In the define stage, the researchers applied identified themes to develop the following question to guide their work: How might the program develop self-efficacy within students while providing student-centered programmatic support? Research used this question to develop a list of possible programmatic improvements to enhance student participant experiences in the program. Several of these identified improvements were blended into a prototype; follow-up interviews were conducted with student participants to introduce and discuss the prototype. The proposed prototype received positive and affirmative feedback from study participants and has been expanded into practice within the entire student leadership development program.
Keywords
Design Thinking, Program Improvement, Action Research
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Recommended Citation
Banter, John N.; Egan, John D.; and Bear, Sean C., "Design Thinking as a Student-Centered Approach for Programmatic Insights" (2018). Georgia Educational Research Association Conference. 27.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/gera/2018/2018/27
Design Thinking as a Student-Centered Approach for Programmatic Insights
The purpose of this action research was to identify current student perceptions of an undergraduate student leadership program to identify potential areas for program improvement and to inform future program development. The design-thinking process provided a framework for the study. Design thinking is based in the concept of human-centered design and constitutes five stages (empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test). Researchers conducted interviews and focus groups of current program participants to gather qualitative data during the empathize and test stages of the process. Thematic analysis was then completed to identify key insights from the empathize stage. In the define stage, the researchers applied identified themes to develop the following question to guide their work: How might the program develop self-efficacy within students while providing student-centered programmatic support? Research used this question to develop a list of possible programmatic improvements to enhance student participant experiences in the program. Several of these identified improvements were blended into a prototype; follow-up interviews were conducted with student participants to introduce and discuss the prototype. The proposed prototype received positive and affirmative feedback from study participants and has been expanded into practice within the entire student leadership development program.
