The design process is inherently experimental, and so in essence it has no predictable result. However, the vocational Media Design students that I teach are from the outset very much accustomed to having to adhere to precise goals in their performance. As these concerns are opposite, the students experience tension. They regard creativity as a sudden, ‘mystical’ occurrence. It is difficult for students to know that their performance will be assessed on the basis of something that doesn’t seem to be in the realm of control. At the same time, many students think they need to instantly and constantly be original. Under such pressure, they often find it difficult to engage in a fruitful design process.

In my research project, I examined several didactical and pedagogical methods and methodologies that may assist and facilitate vocational design students to engage in a more diverse, flexible and fertile design process and to provide personal agency and control in the face of an uncertain result. Eventually, the emphasis of the research shifted from critically examining the endorsed structure of the design process and its didactics to exploring more circumstantial, preconditional strategies that summon and/or affirm the student’s creative confidence. Central topics that arose revolved around communication, trust, responsibility and opening up the ‘hidden curriculum’. Although these aspects often remain undisclosed, implicit or not openly acknowledged, they help to create a sort of ‘includiculum’, incorporating the ‘informal’ into the ‘formal’.

The body of research can roughly be categorised into three main fields of interest: ‘demystifying’ creativity, attribution and circumstance. Students testified about becoming more aware of their own strategies and circumstances by discussing them and having them affirmed – in essence, a matter of metacognition. They felt empowered by telling their stories and recognising themselves in each other. Subsequently, rethinking and discussing the function but also the limitations of the school environment in relation to (design) education is very much part of the metacognitive thematic and the evaluation of current vocational design didactics in this research.

Listen to students on the research thematic in both small interview settings and in classroom discussions: