Design values, preferences, similarities and differences across three global regions

As technological advances connect countries from across the world, preparing students to contribute to an internationally connected society is paramount. An understanding of the various cultures, traditions, values, and educational practices is necessary for a more-fully integrated and preparatory curriculum. Specifically, we contend that in the area of open-ended design, identifying cultural, regional, and local preferences is a necessary undertaking to assist in preparing students for success in future endeavors. However, as open-ended design is an area that can be challenging to assess and implement, effectively identifying the design values and preferences unique to different locations are necessary. Identifying these preferences and values across locations may help illuminate best-practices to the teaching and learning for an increasingly culturally-sensitive open-ended design process. In this study, 706 American middle school students participated in an open-ended design project and submitted both prototypes and portfolios for their projects. Panels of teachers and researchers from the United States, England, Ireland, and Sweden were recruited to judge the student work through Adaptive Comparative Judgment (ACJ). Each panel was trained on the ACJ software (CompareAssess), introduced to the assignment and the assessment criteria, and provided a login to complete the ACJ. Through the final student project rankings, emerging from each of the judge panels in the ACJ process, highlighted large variations from region to region with only a few student projects appearing in the top ten rank for all regions. Comments provided by the judges, which explain the rationale behind their ACJ decisions, highlighted themes related to significant design values of each region. The identified values may help to enhance design and design-based learning across an internationally-connected society through an understanding of cultural similarities and differences.QC 20180627