Designing Styles : a new way of looking at design at design

This is the record of a preliminary study into the use of Designing Styles (Lawler, 1999) within design and technology teaching. The theoretical notions of Designing Styles have been developed into a test instrument in a school context and then used to regroup students into similar ‘style groups’. These restructured groups were taught, covering similar materials in ways ‘tailored’ to their Designing Styles. What has emerged from this procedure has been an increased awareness by pupils of ‘how’ they learn and, interestingly, an increase in teachers’ motivation towards their teaching. This paper is positioned between the validation of research findings, action research and curriculum development. It represents an attempt to further validate concepts of Designing Styles through their application within the secondary (11 to 18 years of age) design and technology curriculum. Because it is both developmental and experimental, it is difficult to claim definitive correlations between Designing Styles and pupil and teacher performance. The hypothesis behind this work was ‘learning and teaching in design and technology could be enhanced by the application of the concepts of Designing Styles.’ These are, therefore, the preliminary findings of a pilot study into using the concept of Designing Styles in secondary level design and technology teaching