Characterising design tasks for assessing Learners’ Design Competence

Abstract

Learners’ Design Competence (LDC) is the ability of the learner to integrate and apply relevant knowledge, skills and attitudes to effectively perform a given design task in more than one context. This article aims to characterise this design task, specific to its context, so that it may be administered to assess the design learner. A comprehensive review of the literature suggested a suitable model of design competence for its validation. To begin with, its construct was validated using the Kipling method to check if it can identify the primary (sub)factors that determine a design task. This has led to the proposal of a design task ontology. Next, the comprehensiveness of its content was validated with the thematic analyses of empirical evidence by comparing the Inter-Coder Reliability and Krippendorff’s alpha (K-α) against the ground truth, which suggested revisions in the ontology. Finally, the criterion validity was assessed by defining the relationships among its factors through a design task syntax. This validated its application in real-life situations. The complete set of design tasks thus framed were reposited in a design task generator tool to facilitate the statement of design tasks necessary for assessing LDC.