Review Article Stefanie Panke* Design Thinking in Education: Perspectives, Opportunities and Challenges

*Corresponding author: Stefanie Panke, University of North Carolina 
at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC United States,
E-mail: [e-mail]
Open Access. © 2019 Stefanie Panke, published by De Gruyter. 
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons
Attribution alone 4.0 License.

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Stefanie Panke
does the desire to apply the process of design thinking 
to a wider range of scenarios to analyze and resolve any 
business or productivity challenge in a new, insightful, 
invigorating manner (Hodgkinson, 2013).
While design thinking has captured the imagination 
of practitioners and educators in a range of fields, this 
widespread interest has been repeatedly characterized 
as problematic in the scholarly discourse. Taheri, 
Unterholzer, Hölzle, and Meinel (2016) stated that, 
“disparities among experts regarding the general 
understanding of design thinking, let alone its expected 
learning outcomes”. Several authors have observed that, 
despite its popularity, the concept lacks coherent and 
consistent descriptions (Kimbell, 2011; Taheri et al., 2016; 
Micheli et al., 2018). The numerous normative and often 
process-focused depictions of design thinking seem 
limited in their ability to accurately depict and describe its 
practice (Carlgren, Rauth, & Elmquist, 2016).
“Design thinking has attracted considerable interest 
from practitioners and academics alike, as it offers a novel 
approach to innovation and problem solving. However, there 
appear to be substantial differences between promoters 
and critics about its essential attributes, applicability and 
outcomes”. (Micheli et al., 2018, p. 2) 
The lack of conceptual clarity does not slow down 
the adoption of design thinking in education. For 
example, Goldman, Kabayadondo, Royalty, Carroll, and 
Roth (2014) stated that in in over 60 US universities and 
colleges, design thinking is taught through workshops, 
supplemental training, courses, or degree programs. 
Similarly, Callahan (2019) observed that design thinking 
is being used in K-16+ curricula to foster the development 
of 21st‐century skills, championed by the company 
IDEO and Hasso Plattner Institute of Design. “Design 
thinking has become a pedagogical phenomenon in higher 
education due to its widespread relevance across many 
disciplines” (Beligatamulla, Rieger, Franz & Strickfaden, 
2019, p. 91).
Where does this fascination stem from and how can 
it translate into reflective scholarly practice? This article 
maps the landscape of design thinking in education 
through a systematic literature review to answer four 
distinct research questions:
1. What is the potential of design thinking for education?
2. How is design thinking applied in different 
educational settings?
3. What tools, techniques and methods characterize 
design thinking?
4. What are the limitations of design thinking?
The goal is to enhance research communication and 
discussion of best practice approaches.
The article is structured as follows:
– The theoretical overview provides clarification of 
the term design thinking, and summarizes previous 
literature reviews and other related work.
– The methodology section delineates the sampling 
strategy, the development of codes, and the corpus 
management with Zotero.
– The result presentation is organized along the four 
research questions.
– The discussion section identifies consequences 
for educational practitioners and design thinking 
researchers and contextualizes findings with the 
results other literature reviews and related work. 
– The conclusion summarizes the findings in a concise 
overview table and offers pointers for research designs 
and educational best practices.