How to teach design thinking to non design students: enablers and barriers to transfer design research practices.

The scientific debate on how and why teach design thinking to non-design students is strongly evolving. However, literature shows a significant gap in defining which are the key elements to train and teach a specific aspect of the design thinking process: how to deal with design-based research. Which kind of pedagogical framework can be adopted to teach design research to non-design students? Which are the main enablers and barriers that students encounter while conducting a design-based research process? An exploratory inquiry on 70 students involved in a design studio placed in a Management Engineering Master Degree has been run to find answers to those questions. Results derived through the use of descriptive statistics show that students encounter a lot of difficulties in abstracting ideas from real situations. On the other side, what acts as an enabler is the possibility to work on a real project that provides the experience of learning by doing in a team.