The Connected Qualities of Design Thinking and Maker Education practices in Early Education: A narrative review
Open accessAbstract
Design Thinking (DT) and Maker Education (ME) are fairly new approaches that aim to equip students with skills for the 21st century. As DT and ME both involve a design process, these might be combined. To guide design processes that aim to combine DT and ME in early education, we review 28 formal and non-formal educational practices aimed at children 8 to 14 years old that have incorporated DT or ME over the past 10 years. We analyse their qualities in terms of their Objectives, Learning Activities, the Teacher’s Role, and Assessment Activities. From our findings, we develop an overview that showcases the connections between these qualities within the selected practices. We found that not all components were aligned well. Therefore, we outline the DT and ME Curriculum Blueprint, a tool aimed to support reflection on the alignment between these components in the development of DT and ME practices in early education.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Design Thinking in education is an iterative, hands-on process where students gather and apply knowledge and create novel products relevant to their lives.
“Design Thinking in education is framed as an iterative, hands-on process where students not only gather and apply knowledge but also create novel”
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 Veldhuis et al., 2021
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
Using thematic analysis in psychology
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006) · Qualitative Research in Psychology · doi:10.1191/1478088706qp063oa · Cited by 194,414 · see citing works
Enhancing teaching through constructive alignment
Biggs, J. (1996) · Higher Education · doi:10.1007/bf00138871 · Cited by 4,084 · see citing works
Synthesizing information systems knowledge: A typology of literature reviews
Paré, G., Trudel, M.-C., Jaana, M., & Kitsiou, S. (2015) · Information & Management · doi:10.1016/j.im.2014.08.008 · Cited by 1,987 · see citing works
Part I: Cognitive development in children: Piaget development and learning
Piaget, J. (1964) · Journal of Research in Science Teaching · doi:10.1002/tea.3660020306 · Cited by 1,802 · see citing works
Teaching children digital literacy through design-based learning with digital toolkits in schools
Bekker, T., Bakker, S., Douma, I., van der Poel, J., & Scheltenaar, K. (2015) · International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1016/j.ijcci.2015.12.001 · Cited by 155 · cited 4× · see citing works
“However, teachers who have been trained in traditional teaching methods might have difficulties adapting to the different teaching styles embedded into these more open-ended processes [25].”
BackgroundInfluentialSelf-citation
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 31
- 2019. The Playful Robotics Workshops (PlayRobs). https://comnplayscience.eu/ app/practice/13
- Nancy E Adams. 2015. Bloom's taxonomy of cognitive learning objectives. Journal of the Medical Library Association: JMLA 103, 3 (2015), 152.
- Yoav Bergner, Samuel Abramovich, Marcelo Worsley, and Ofer Chen. 2019. What Are the Learning and Assessment Objectives in Educational Fab Labs and Makerspaces?. In Proceedings of FabLearn 2019 (New York, NY, USA) (FL2019). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 42-49. https: //doi.org/10.1145/3311890.3311896 · DOI
- Osman Birgin and Baki Adnan. 2007. The use of portfolio to assess student's performance. Journal of Turkish science education 4, 2 (2007), 75-90.
- Paulo Blikstein. 2013. Digital fabrication and 'making' in education: The democ- ratization of invention. FabLabs: Of machines, makers and inventors 4, 1 (2013), 1-21.
- Paulo Blikstein and Dennis Krannich. 2013. The Makers' Movement and FabLabs in Education: Experiences, Technologies, and Research. In Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (New York, New York, USA) (IDC '13). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 613-616. https://doi.org/10.1145/2485760.2485884 · DOI
- Maureen Carroll, Shelley Goldman, Leticia Britos, Jaime Koh, Adam Royalty, and Michael Hornstein. 2010. Destination, imagination and the fires within: Design thinking in a middle school classroom. International Journal of Art & Design Education 29, 1 (2010), 37-53.
- Eva Eriksson, Ole Sejer Iversen, Gökçe Elif Baykal, Maarten Van Mechelen, Rachel Smith, Marie-Louise Wagner, Bjarke Vognstrup Fog, Clemens Klokmose, Bron- wyn Cumbo, Arthur Hjorth, Line Have Musaeus, Marianne Graves Petersen, and Niels Olof Bouvin. 2019. Widening the Scope of FabLearn Research: In- tegrating Computational Thinking, Design and Making. In Proceedings of the FabLearn Europe 2019 Conference (Oulu, Finland) (FabLearn Europe '19). Asso- ciation for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 15, 9 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3335055.3335070 · DOI
- Gabriela Goldschmidt. 2016. Linkographic Evidence for Concurrent Diver- gent and Convergent Thinking in Creative Design. Creativity Research Jour- nal 28, 2 (2016), 115-122. https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2016.1162497 arXiv:https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2016.1162497 · DOI
- Colin M Gray. 2013. Factors That Shape Design Thinking. Design and Technology Education 18, 3 (2013), 8-20.
- Mikkel Hjorth, Rachel Charlotte Smith, Daria Loi, Ole Sejer Iversen, and Kasper Skov Christensen. 2016. Educating the Reflective Educator: Design Pro- cesses and Digital Fabrication for the Classroom. In Proceedings of the 6th Annual Conference on Creativity and Fabrication in Education (Stanford, CA, USA) (Fa- bLearn '16). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 26-33. https://doi.org/10.1145/3003397.3003401 · DOI
- Ole Sejer Iversen, Rachel Charlotte Smith, Paulo Blikstein, Eva-Sophie Katterfeldt, and Janet C Read. 2016. Digital fabrication in education: Expanding the research towards design and reflective practices. International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction 5, 1-2 (2016), 1-2.
- Megumi Iwata, Kati Pitkänen, Jani Ylioja, Iván Sánchez Milara, and Jari Laru. 2019. How Are Mobile Makerspaces Utilized in Schools?. In Proceedings of the FabLearn Europe 2019 Conference (Oulu, Finland) (FabLearn Europe '19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 14, 3 pages. https://doi.org/ 10.1145/3335055.3335069 · DOI
- Charles Juwah, Debra Macfarlane-Dick, Bob Matthew, David Nicol, David Ross, and Brenda Smith. 2004. Enhancing student learning through effective formative feedback. The Higher Education Academy 140 (2004), 1-40.
- Eva-Sophie Katterfeldt, Nadine Dittert, and Heidi Schelhowe. 2015. Designing digital fabrication learning environments for Bildung: Implications from ten years of physical computing workshops. International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction 5 (2015), 3-10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcci.2015.08.001 Digital Fabrication in Education. · DOI
- Janet L Kolodner. 2002. Learning by design™: Iterations of design challenges for better learning of science skills. Cognitive Studies 9, 3 (2002), 338-350.
- Toshiaki Kurokawa. 2013. Design thinking education at universities and graduate schools. Science & Technology Trends Quarterly Review 46 (2013), 50-63.
- Ann Ledwith, Raymond Lynch, et al. 2017. How design education can support collaboration in teams. In DS 88: Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education (E&PDE17), Building Community: Design Education for a Sustainable Future, Oslo, Norway, 7 & 8 September 2017. 014-019.
- Jackie Marsh, Hans Christian Arnseth, and Kristiina Kumpulainen. 2018. Maker literacies and maker citizenship in the MakEY (Makerspaces in the early years) project. Multimodal Technologies and Interaction 2, 3 (2018), 50.
- L. Martin. 2015. The Promise of the Maker Movement for Education. Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research 5 (2015), 30-39.
- Mandy McLean, Tyler Susko, Danielle Harlow, and Julie Bianchini. 2017. Dancing Robots: A Collaboration Between Elementary School and University Engineering Students. In Proceedings of the 7th Annual Conference on Creativity and Fabrication in Education (Stanford, CA, USA) (FabLearn '17). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 17, 4 pages.
- Kevin M Oliver. 2016. Professional development considerations for makerspace leaders, part one: Addressing "what?" and "why?". TechTrends 60, 2 (2016), 160-166.
- Sofia Papavlasopoulou, Michail N Giannakos, and Letizia Jaccheri. 2017. Empirical studies on the Maker Movement, a promising approach to learning: A literature review. Entertainment Computing 18 (2017), 57-78.
- Jean Piaget. 1964. Cognitive development in children: Piaget. Development and learning. Journal of Research in Science Teaching 2 (1964), 176-186.
- Sonia M. Gómez Puente, Michiel Van Eijck, and Wim Jochems. 2013. Empiri- cal validation of characteristics of design-based learning in higher education. International Journal of Engineering Education 29, 2 (2013), 491-503.
- Hayagreeva Rao, Phanish Puranam, and Jasjit Singh. 2020. Does Design Thinking Training Really Increase Creativity? Results from an Experiment with Middle- School Students. INSEAD Working Paper No.2020/11/STR (2020). https://doi.org/ 10.2139/ssrn.3543943v · DOI
- Rim Razzouk and Valerie Shute. 2012. What Is Design Thinking and Why Is It Important? Review of Educational Research 82, 3 (2012), 330-348. http://www. jstor.org/stable/23260048
- Rachel Charlotte Smith, Ole Sejer Iversen, and Rune Veerasawmy. 2016. Im- pediments to Digital Fabrication in Education: A Study of Teachers' Role in Digital Fabrication. Int. J. Digit. Lit. Digit. Competence 7, 1 (Jan. 2016), 33-49. https://doi.org/10.4018/IJDLDC.2016010103 · DOI
- Mana Taheri, Thomas Unterholzer, Katharina Hölzle, and Christoph Meinel. 2016. An educational perspective on design thinking learning outcomes. In ISPIM Innovation Symposium. The International Society for Professional Innovation Management (ISPIM), 1.
- Jan van den Akker. 2004. Curriculum perspectives: An introduction. In Curricu- lum landscapes and trends. Springer, 1-10.
- Irfan Yurdabakan. 2011. The investigation of peer assessment in primary school cooperative learning groups with respect to gender. Education 3-13 39, 2 (2011), 153-169.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Santos, P., El Aadmi, K., Calvera-Isabal, M., & Rodríguez, A. (2025) · International Journal of Technology and Design Education · doi:10.1007/s10798-025-10001-6 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
“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
- Veldhuis, A., d'Anjou, B., Bekker, T., Garefi, I., Digkoglou, P., Safouri, G., Remotti, S., Beamer Cronin, E., & Bouros, M.
- Affiliations
- Eindhoven University of Technology (NL)
- New York University Steinhardt, USA
- STIMMULI for social change, Greece
- Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (GR)
- PACO design collaborative, Italy
- Designathon Works, Netherlands
- AllGrow, Romania
- Venue
- FabLearn Europe / MakeEd 2021 - An International Conference on Computing, Design and Making in Education
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2021-06-02
- Pages
- 1-10
- OpenAlex
- W3197962761
- Cited by
- 24
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 3
- FWCI
- 0.32
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- FabLearn Europe / MakeEd - International Conference on Computing, Design and Making in Education (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- TU/e Research Portal (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- European Commission
- Erasmus+ (2019-1-NL01-KA201-060353)
- 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 › Engineering Education and Pedagogy
- Keywords
- design thinking, maker education, early education, design process, 21st century skills, teacher role, assessment activities, learning activities, curriculum alignment, children aged 8-14
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
