Impact of project-oriented educational methods on creative design

Due to current challenges in our society, education in the field of design is increasingly oriented towards work. Thus, the objective of this paper is to contribute to determine ways of favouring creativity in design by providing project-oriented training for design students. In accordance with cognitive models, we proposed and compared two educational methods intended to allow students to focus on either the management of constraints related to the design project at hand or the evocation of creative ideas. A total of 32 design students were trained in one of the two methods and they all had to solve the same design problem. The elements they evoked during the early stages of the design process were subjected to quantitative and qualitative analyses, and the creativity of their final designs was assessed by two design teachers. Results show that the type of method has a significant effect on the ideas and constraints evoked by designers but no correlation was observed between method and design outcome creativity. However, this research shows that it is possible to promote certain ways of thinking in design students and to train them with techniques they can use later on in their professional lives to satisfy the specificities of the design projects they undertake.