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

Table 2: Overview of results and key takeaways.
Research Question
Results
Key Takeaways
Potential:
What is the potential 
of design thinking for 
education?
Nine themes emerged from design thinking literature: Tacit experiences, 
increased empathy, reduced cognitive bias, playful learning, flow/verve, 
collaboration, productive failure/resilience, surprising solutions, creative 
confidence.
Themes for describing the 
goals and evaluating the 
outcomes of design thinking
Settings:
How is design thinking 
applied in different 
educational settings 
(K12, informal learning, 
higher education)?
Informal settings: (1) designing exhibits, experiences and services; (2) 
service learning and organizational collaboration; (3) extending exploration of 
artifacts, spaces and services; (4) making and crafting.
Schematic overview for 
contextualizing new case 
studies; corpus for further 
analysis 
Formal settings (K12 / higher education): (1) as an instructional design 
method in course material development; (2) as a curricular development 
technique; (3) as a teaching strategy to achieve subject-specific learning 
goals; (4) as a learning goal in and of itself; (5) as a facilitation technique 
in student support, i.e., mentoring, advising, counseling; (6) as a method 
for process improvement or product development; (7) as an approach for 
leadership and organizational development. 
Tools:
What tools, techniques 
and methods 
characterize design 
thinking?
Review yielded 50 different tools, models, techniques, methods. Granularity 
varied from single technique (e.g., crazy eights) to whole process (d.school 
process, STEM Fab Studio Design Process). Various origins and subject 
trajectories.
Planning help for design 
thinking facilitators; corpus 
material for further analysis
Limitations:
What are the limitations 
of design thinking?
Review identified eight potential negative outcomes: Lack of creative 
confidence, teamwork conflicts, anxiety and frustration, shallow ideas, 
idea creation over evaluation, lack of long-term impact, overconfidence, 
misalignment between learning content and design thinking process.
Themes for evaluating the 
outcomes of design thinking, 
decision-making help for 
educators

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Design Thinking in Education: Perspectives, Opportunities and Challenges
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