Browsing by Author "Laukkanen, Marilla"

Objectives. The objective of this study is to determine the opportunities and challenges regarding customer-inspired teaching entities in handicrafts in comprehensive school, in which the students design and make crafts for someone other than himself or herself. These customer-inspired teaching entities are a timely research topic, as in our individualism centered culture it is more important than ever to teach children and youth to consider the opinions and feelings of others. These teaching entities are strongly linked to user-inspired design, which is increasingly used in the development of products and services. The research questions are: 1. How have customer-inspired teaching entities been implemented in handicrafts in comprehensive school? 2. What challenges do customer-inspired teaching entities face? 3. Why are customer-inspired teaching entities used? Methods. This study was carried out as a survey utilizing both quantitative and qualitative methods. The research material was collected from comprehensive school handicraft teachers using an electronic questionnaire containing both open and closed questions. 45 handicraft teachers completed the survey. The closed questions were analyzed quantitatively using SPSS. The answers to the open questions were analyzed using different sorts of content analyses. Results and conclusions. It seems that there are usually no more than three customer-inspired teaching entities in a school year, and they account for under 20 % of all handicraft’s teaching entities. Students had made handicrafts mostly to their family members or other relatives and acquaintances or the school itself. Customer’s participation to the design process of the product varied, but participation to the assessment was less common. Sometimes students had designed and made products as a group, but this was rather rare. The biggest challenges were motivating the students, their low skill levels and lack of time. Customer-inspired teaching entities were seen particularly fit for teaching collaboration, interaction and design skills, as well as for teaching empathy and to take others into account. Most respondents held it important to utilize customer-inspired teaching entities in handicrafts in comprehensive school.