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Corporate Apprenticeships in Design Research: Interdisciplinary Learning Practices of an Emergent Profession

Freese, Lauren N
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3757-4422
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1535465775968169

Abstract Details

2018, MA, University of Cincinnati, Arts and Sciences: Anthropology.
Since the inception of the discipline, anthropologists have been interested in expertise. We have long recognized our informants as vital sources of knowledge that only they, as experts in their culture, can convey. Over time, this attunement to expertise has become a distinct field of study, one that seeks to answer questions about how the designation of “expert” is acquired through socialization, evaluation, validation, and authentication within institutions and other authorizing bodies (Carr 2010). Anthropological studies of expertise have predominately focused on either “skilled knowing,” or expertise marked by a possession of specialized, institutionally-sanctioned knowledge (e.g., scientists, lawyers, doctors), or “skilled doing,” expertise predicated on mastery of corporeal skills (e.g., designers, craftsmen, agriculturists), setting up an implicit, if unintended dichotomy of expertise between knowing or doing, mind or body (Boyer 2008). My study investigates a form of expertise that sits between skilled knowing and doing. I examine the learning practices of design researchers, professionals who possess a blended expertise that draws from the fields of design and social science. As an emergent discipline, there are few pathways to design research within the academy so aspiring design research professionals, often previously-trained designers, learn to do research on the job through what I call “corporate apprenticeships.” By studying the blended professional vision of design researchers, individuals whose training and work practices include both design (skilled doing) and research (traditionally regarded as skilled knowing), this thesis extends the literature of expertise by drawing attention to the uninvestigated space between the two dominant themes and provides evidence of the complexity of expertise beyond the current dichotomy. To understand how design research as a discipline is teaching its members, I used an ethnographic approach that allowed me to participate in on-the-job training while occupying the role of a design research intern at Vaxa, a midwestern research consultancy. Drawing on data collected via participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and my own career experiences, I illustrate ways that design research has created a learning community outside of the dominant education paradigm that relies on elements of familiarity, immersion, embodiment, and collaboration to socialize members of the discipline.
Stephanie Sadre-Orafai, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
Clement Jeffrey Jacobson, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
75 p.
Cultural Anthropology
Expertise; Design; Design Research; Qualitative Research; Socialization; Learning

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Freese, L. N. (2018). Corporate Apprenticeships in Design Research: Interdisciplinary Learning Practices of an Emergent Profession [Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1535465775968169

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Freese, Lauren. Corporate Apprenticeships in Design Research: Interdisciplinary Learning Practices of an Emergent Profession. 2018. University of Cincinnati, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1535465775968169.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Freese, Lauren. "Corporate Apprenticeships in Design Research: Interdisciplinary Learning Practices of an Emergent Profession." Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1535465775968169

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin1535465775968169
611
© 2018, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Corporate Apprenticeships in Design Research: Interdisciplinary Learning Practices of an Emergent Profession by Lauren N Freese is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.