Does Personality Provide Indicators of Design Thinking Capacity?

Abstract

Design thinking takes an adaptive and holistic view toward product and user needs. It involves engaging in observation, fast learning, visualization, prototyping, and enhancing customer experience. Personality traits have been widely examined in the education field and at the same time design thinking is the main topic of design education. However, until now, there has been a lack of related studies investigating these two variables. As a result, the purpose of the current study is to examine the relationship between design thinking and personalities among Chinese design undergraduates. Convenience sampling was used to recruit 95 first-year Chinese fashion design college students in Taiwan. Two major findings were recorded. Based on zero-order correlations, some variables of personality and of design thinking were positively correlated among our Chinese undergraduates; however, taken as a whole, the structural equation modeling did not support this relationship. Further, age and gender did not play a role in these relationships.