Measuring the 21st Century Skills Using Design Thinking among Polytechnic Final-Year Students

The 21st century has come with requirements of a new kind of skills which surpasses technical knowledge, especially to the final year polytechnic students who are about to join the job market. The proposed research aims at exploring the efficacy of applying the design thinking approach as a pedagogical instrument in assessing and improving the 21st century skills of polytechnic final-year students. Design thinking is a human-based and problem-solving approach that provides a semi structured and flexible framework that stimulates creative thinking, collaboration, and effective communication within repetitive and well-organized project development cycles. The study used quantitative method and the study results have managed to confirm that the design thinking process can greatly help students in acquiring and showing the skills. Students demonstrated significant progress in critical problem-solving skills, effective communication of their ideas, cooperation with peers, and the ability to find innovative solutions. The students claimed they felt more confident and engaged when using the problem-solving methods. This study has demonstrated that design thinking is not only a useful model that prepares the 21st century skills, but it also offers a viable platform through which the competencies can be evaluated in real learning contexts. These findings imply that design thinking has the potential to add value to the curriculum in polytechnics and equip students with real-life challenges in the contemporary job market. Some recommendations are provided to continue the implementation and elaboration of the design thinking in technical and vocational education.

Design Thinking, Polytechnic Education, Final-Year Projects, Product Development

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