Methodological diversity and theoretical integration: Research in design fixation as an example of fixation in research design?

ABSTRACT: Over the last three decades, design fixation research has emerged as a distinct and productive area of design creativity research, and of design research more generally. In studying an applied aspect of human behaviour, fixation research is unusually restricted in its methodological choices, primarily adopting experimental and statistical approaches. The few relevant qualitative studies remain isolated from the core experimental literature. This limited diversity and limited integration restricts our ability to interpret the relevance of prior work, plan new studies and impact practice. By viewing research as a creative design activity, I argue that the fixation research community is well placed to study and change its own behaviour, and also to inform the behaviour of other research disciplines.This work was partly supported by the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/K008196/1)