Learning from own mistakes. A comparative study of student design projects...
Channel: Online-Kolleg Konstruktion
Date: 2020-09-03

Presentation held at the 22nd International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education. Herning, Denmark: September 2020.


In previous work we have studied intensively in how far it is important for the learning process that Engineering Design students do not just plan products but also get the opportunity to build and test them.  The findings indicate that – although already a lot of things can be learned by pure paperwork – there are at least some critical learning outcomes that cannot be addressed without the physical realisation of products.  One important learning mechanism that helps to gain experience in a particular field, relies on learning from own mistakes.  Therefore, this study is about the beneficial effects of creating a free space in the learning process that allows 'gentle failure'.


In order to substantiate the hypothesis that an opportunity to test products is crucial to learning how to design, a comparative survey has been conducted among 82 second year students in Engineering Design. The participants were spread over four classes.  Two classes also built and tested the products they had designed in their Engineering Design project.  In analogy to clinical studies one could say that this group received an 'active treatment'. The other two classes also worked in a project-oriented way.  But the solutions they developed existed only on paper.  In the comparative assessment this group serves as a reference.  In clinical studies this group would be called the 'placebo group'.

One complex of questions in the survey tried to find out where the students get their feedback from?  As expected, students that were able to test their products, state that educators do not play the leading role.  Instead they indicate that feedback comes directly 'from the product'.  Whereas for their peers from the placebo group, the educator seems to stand in the centre of the learning process ('classical' teacher-centred learning) as the students attribute him the most importance for giving them feedback.

Asking students if they have committed mistakes in a project naturally puts them into a dilemma.  On one hand, they do not wish to detract from their achievement in the project.  On the other hand, they will be led in their answers by what they think that the questioner desires to hear in order to present themselves as 'reflective thinkers'.  According to our expectation, the answers of both groups did not differ.  For that reason, we also requested the students to enumerate design faults by jotting down a few notes on what went wrong in the design, to what defects this design fault led and how they rectified the problem.  Students from the group that had just designed a product but did not build and test it, just brought forward some project-related deficiencies but were unable to name concrete design faults.  In significant contrast to the placebo group, students that personally tested their products could give a substantially more detailed account of failures in their designs and could tell how to improve it.


For details please consult our full publication:



VOß, Markus, Hulusi BOZKURT, Thorsten SAUER and Marc NUTZMANN: Learning from Own Mistakes. A COmparative Study of Student Design Projects Working with Different Learning Approaches. Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education in Herning, Denmark. (Glasgow, The Design Society, 2020)