Authentic Users as Catalysts for Human-Centred Design Inquiry in Key Stage 3 Design and Technology

Abstract

Design and Technology (D&T) education in England has been criticised for privileging procedural making over authentic design inquiry. Design Thinking Integrated Learning (DTIL) offers a promising pedagogical response; however, classroom practice frequently relies on hypothetical users or teacher-constructed briefs. This study investigates how embedding real end-users within a DTIL-based Key Stage 3 (KS3) D&T curriculum reshapes students’ design activity and perceived 21^st-Century Skill development. An embedded multiple case study was conducted across ten student teams (n=40) undertaking twelve weeks of DTIL-structured design projects with different adult end-users from the school and local community. Data included group presentations, classroom observations and a post-intervention focus group. Reflexive thematic analysis examined how authentic user engagement influenced design reasoning and collaboration. Findings indicate that real users acted as pedagogical catalysts through three interdependent mechanisms: empathetic reframing of problem spaces, social accountability that drove iterative persistence and collaborative negotiation of meaning. These mechanisms transformed classroom design tasks from procedural activity into socially situated inquiry, making skills visible and meaningful to students. The study contributes empirical evidence that authentic user engagement is an epistemic condition for human-centred design learning. As a bounded case study, the research offers analytically generalisable insights and proposes authentic user collaboration as a transferable design principle for strengthening inquiry-driven D&T curricula.