Design thinking for digital fabrication in education
Open accessAbstract
In this paper, we argue that digital fabrication in education may benefit from design thinking, to foster a more profound understanding of digital fabrication processes among students. Two related studies of digital fabrication in education are presented in the paper. In an observational study we found that students (eleven to fifteen) lacked an understanding of the complexity of the digital fabrication process impeding on the potentials of digital fabrication in education. In a second explorative research through design study, we investigated how a focus on design thinking affected the students’ performance in digital fabrication processes. Our findings indicate that design thinking can provide students with a general understanding of the creative and complex process through which artifacts and futures emerge in processes of digital fabrication.
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Several studies recommend employing Design Thinking as a methodology to structure Maker project-based learning activities in early education.
“When integrating Making into early education, several studies recommend employing Design Thinking as a methodology to structure Maker project-based learning activities (Smith et al., 2015;Lee et al., 2019;Yoon & Kang, 2021;Veldhuis et al., 2021;Xu et al., 2023).”
From Fostering students’ motivation and self-efficacy in science, technology, engineering, and design through design thinking and making in project-based learning: a gender-perspective study in primary education (2025) · cites this paper as Smith et al., 2015
The interventions enhanced the design competence among the participating students.
“In Smith et al. [34], we presented a thorough account of the design experiment and described how the interventions enhanced the design competence among the participating students.”
From Child as Protagonist (2017) · cites this paper as Smith et al. [34]
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“When integrating Making into early education, several studies recommend employing Design Thinking as a methodology to structure Maker project-based learning activities (Smith et al., 2015; Lee et al., 2019; Yoon & Kang, 2021; Veldhuis et al., 2021; Xu et al., 2023).”
- Authors
- Smith, R. C., Iversen, O. S., & Hjorth, M.
- Affiliations
- Aarhus University (DK)
- Corresponding author
- Smith, Rachel Charlotte
- Venue
- International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2015-09
- Volume
- 5
- Pages
- 20-28
- ISSN
- 2212-8689 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2172698735
- Semantic Scholar
- ae44aa740814ab3316b517ea337542474bc65932
- Cited by
- 206
- References
- 44
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 26 · 2022: 27 · 2021: 35 · 2020: 26 · 2019: 17 · 2018: 22 · 2017: 15 · 2016: 8
- FWCI
- 14.73
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- erratum (2024-09-01)
- Open access
- Licence
- Locations
- International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Aarhus Universitet
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Mechanical Engineering › Design Education and Practice
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Science Applications › Teaching and Learning Programming
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Architecture › Architecture and Computational Design
- Keywords
- design thinking, digital fabrication, creative process, junior high school students, research through design
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