Design education, in comparison with many established academic disciplines, has developed largely through practice-based traditions. Its theoretical foundations and pedagogy often rely on tacit knowledge acquired through professional experience and hands-on practice. This reliance makes the articulation and transfer of skills challenging. Studio-based classrooms—design education’s core pedagogy—are observed by scholars to resemble experiential learning models, particularly Kolb’s experiential learning model, which emphasizes learning through the transformation of experience (feeling, watching, thinking, and doing). However, in practice, studio instructors are often caught in the trap of demonstrating what constitutes good design rather than articulating how good designs come about. This practice resonates with Bandura’s social learning theory and Schön’s notion of learning through reflection-in-action. Although often viewed as effective, it raises critical questions about the depth of reflection and abstraction achieved by learners. In this light, this article explores how experiential learning, observational imitation, and reflective practice intersect in design studio education in order to identify instructional strategies that support the development of design skills. The study employs a qualitative, reflective practice-based methodology grounded in reflection-on-action. Data were collected from instructor reflective journals, studio observations, and student design artifacts produced during undergraduate design studio courses and thematically analyzed through the lenses of Kolb’s experiential learning model, Bandura’s social learning theory, and Schön’s reflective practice framework. The study proposes an adaptive teaching and learning model that focuses on supporting instructors’ articulation processes and learners’ capacity to customize and internalize design strategies in alignment with the dynamic nature of studio-based learning environments.
Chutarat Laomanacharoen (Tue,) studied this question.