Emil Gaul

Creative Thinking – Evaluation of a Design Process

Emil Gaul – Visual Culture Research Group, Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary

With Zsófia Dévai – Alternative Secondary School of Economy, Budapest, Hungary

Abstract:

Between 1 September 2024 and 31 August 2026, researchers from three countries: Finland, Hungary and Japan will study creativity and complex problem-solving in visual education for 15–16-year-olds. In the frame of the Hungarian research, 130 students in two secondary schools during two semesters will design interiors, products, and visual elements for corporate identity of student enterprises. They use in practice the method of Design Thinking. We measure the hypothetical development of their creativity, with the Test for Creative Thinking – Drawing Production (Urban and Jellen, 1985). The performance of students will be observed by the self-assessment method called Visual Rubrics (Gronendijk, Kárpáti, Haanstra, 2019). Further assessment will be carried out on the field of design process with a specially developed worksheet. The basis of our assessment method is a British Research in Design and Technology, which differentiated 14 abilities among 15-year-old British student’s (The assessment of performance in design and technology: [final report of the APU design and technology project 1985-1991]). Meanwhile a Hungarian study with similar aims found 6 abilities among Hungarian students, as follows: problem recognition, phantasy, judgement, skills of construction, visual and verbal communication (Gaul, 2001). In the years of 2000, the assessment method was further refined in the evaluation of Art and Design National Secondary School Competition’s entries. International publications, among them PISA 2022 Study of Creative Thinking (https://www.oecd.org/en/topics/su-issues/creative-thinking/pisa-2022-creative-thinking.html) also contributed to the development of evaluation system. At the InSEA World Congress, we intend to show our Design Evaluation System, its points of views and the results of assessment of the Hungarian research.