Examining design thinking skills in blended learning environments

The aim of this thesis study is to examine the development of design thinking skills of undergraduate students in blended learning environments focusing on BIM (Building Information Modelling) training. The study conducted, a mixed research design including both quantitative and qualitative research methods. The sample consists of two instructors of the BIM course and 20 freshman students taking this course and studying at the Faculty of Architecture of a university in western Turkey. In this study, a pre-test was applied to the sample group, and then the training modules on the Bimvet3 (web-based teaching material) platform related to BIM were applied in a blended learning environment. Eight of the 10 modules on the Bimvet3 platform were taught face-to-face and the other two were taught online through the learning management system used by the university. The "Design Thinking Scale" developed by Sürmelioğlu and Erdem (2021) and the semi-structured interview form developed by the researcher were used as data collection tools. In the analysis of quantitative data, non-parametric tests such as Mann-Whitney you and Wilcoxon Signed-Ranks tests were used. In the analysis of qualitative data, content analysis and descriptive analysis methods were used. According to the result obtained from the quantitative part of the study; Blended learning environments have been found to have a statistically significant effect on design thinking skills. According to the result obtained from the qualitative part of the study; They stated that students could not contribute to the development of design thinking skills because of the absence of factors such as empathy and one-to-one interaction in the blended learning environment in general. In addition, students and instructors reported that empathy, identifying user needs and taking into account different perspectives in the design thinking process made significant contributions to the development of user-oriented and original designs.