Making Pedagogic Sense of Design Thinking in the Higher Education Context

*Corresponding author: Gnanaharsha Beligatamulla, School of Design, 
Queensland University of Technology (and Department of Integrated 
Design, University of Moratuwa – Sri Lanka), Brisbane, 4000, 
Queensland, Australia, E-mail: [e-mail] 
Janice Rieger, Jill Franz, School of Design, Queensland University of 
Technology, Brisbane, 4000, Queensland, Australia 
School of Design, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, 
4000, Queensland, Australia 
Megan Strickfaden, Human Ecology, University of Alberta, 
Edmonton, T6G 2N1, AB, Canada
Open Access. © 2019 Gnanaharsha Beligatamulla et al., published by De Gruyter. 
This work is licensed under the Creative 
Commons Attribution alone 4.0 License.

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Gnanaharsha Beligatamulla et al.
Responding to the lack of research about the teaching 
of design thinking from an experiential point of view, 
and based on taking a problematization approach to 
research (Sandberg & Alvesson, 2011), this study utilises 
an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to 
explore design thinking in the higher education context 
as a pedagogic phenomenon. Thus, the guiding research 
question for this paper is, how do educators in higher 
education make sense of design thinking pedagogy? Hence, 
the study focusses on personal meaning and sense-making 
of design thinking educators in the higher education 
context. In this context, sense-making1 (see Cerbone, 
2015) is the action or process of making sense of or giving 
meaning to design thinking pedagogy as it is experienced. 
The use of the term ‘experience’ also recognises the 
context-bound nature of understanding. In the context 
of this study, design thinking pedagogy concerns the 
theory and practice of teaching design thinking, including 
the strategies, actions and judgements that inform 
curriculum design and delivery. Although the focus is 
to understand the phenomenon from the perspective of