Teacher Published in University of Cambridge Journal

Our Teacher of Design and Technology, Andrew Halliwell, has co-authored a paper published in the Cambridge Educational Research eJournal. 

The paper, entitled Design for Emotion: Can UK Secondary School Students be Taught How to Evoke an Emotional Response Through Product Design investigates ways in which the curriculum for Design Technology can be modernised.

Andrew explains:

‘How would you design a lamp if you wanted the user to feel angry, happy, fear, sad, surprised or disgusted? Well that’s exactly the task a group of Year 9 pupils tackled during this project. It was fascinating to see how they each interpreted their own emotions and incorporated these ideas into their concepts.

This project sparked a drive for me to provide evidence for changing what and how we teach with regard to Design and Technology in schools. I hope other practitioners are able to build on this untouched area in schools and push for a developed curriculum.’

The concept of designing for emotion has not been researched or taught in the UK outside of higher education and whilst the scale of this study is small, it provides valuable insights for wider investigation.

You can access the full paper here. 

Andrew Halliwell