Cultivating Innovative Literacy in Middle School Art Education: From Design Thinking to Curriculum Practice
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.63808/isgr.v2i3.350Keywords:
Design Thinking, Innovative literacy, Middle school art education, Curriculum practice, School governanceAbstract
Middle school art education has long been confronted with the contradiction between the innovation-oriented policy objectives and the technique replication model. This study aims to develop the middle school art curriculum based on the five-phase design thinking model, including the phases of empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test, with the school governance conditions incorporated in the design of the curriculum implementation. A quasi-experimental design was adopted with the intact Grade 7 students from a Chinese urban public middle school as the participants. One class was assigned as the experimental group (n=38) receiving the design thinking curriculum for 12 weeks, and one class was assigned as the control group (n=36) receiving the conventional curriculum with the same teacher. A mixed-methods approach was employed for the curriculum evaluation with the use of the Innovative Literacy Scale (ILS), artwork assessment rubrics, student reflective journals, and teacher interviews. ANCOVA results showed that the adjusted total score of the experimental group was significantly higher than that of the control group (F(1,71)=18.67, p<0.001, partial η²=0.21), with the highest effect size for the cognitive dimension (Cohen’s d=0.68), followed by the behavioral (d=0.53) and affective dimensions (d=0.38). The experimental group outperformed the control group significantly in originality, process quality, and iteration evidence, but no significant difference was found for the dimension of presentation. These results indicate that the distinctive value of the design thinking curriculum lies in fostering innovation process competencies, defined as the integrated cognitive, behavioral, and affective capacities for systematic creative problem-solving, rather than technical skills alone. The design thinking structure reduced creative anxiety and ensured inclusive participation for students of different abilities. Flexible timetabling, process-oriented assessment, and peer-based teacher training were identified as critical school governance conditions.
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