Dialects in Design Learning

Learning as a lifelong and interactive activity, is defined as a continues cycle in which learning starts with an experience, continues with reflection, and then an action which turns to be a concrete experience for reflection according to Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory (ELT). Design education in its featured nature is stated as a good example of ELT and its formation is considered to a suitable approach for all higher education of different disciplines. Previous research shows that most of the design students have a balanced learning style. All four learning styles of ELT are effective in design learning; however, the performance level of different learners with diverse learning styles in various stages of the design learning processes might differ. Another important factor in design learning is the perceptual, cognitive and spatial abilities of the learner. These will help to define the design ability that could be classified as coping with ill-defined problems, problem structuring, managing goals and constraints, generating solution concepts, thinking by drawing, and intuitive reasoning. In the scope of the study it is aimed to figure out the correlations of the learning styles and spatial abilities of the design learners. The spatial ability scores of the design students through some mechanical aptitude tests are figured out and these scores were correlated with the learning styles of them. Results show that the students with higher scores in mechanical aptitude tests tend to have more experiential skills then analytical skills on the bipolar perceive axis and they tend to act by having better behavioural skills rather than the perceptual learning skills on the bipolar process axis. These differences are considered to be the dialects of the design learners through the learning process. By considering the considerably balanced distribution of the learning styles and the developing performance levels in spatial abilities through experience, it is concluded that the association and synergy of the learning dialects are essential for the efficiency of the design education.