Relay Thinking in Action: A Hong Kong Case Study

Relay Thinking in Action: A Hong Kong Case Study

A comparative study of "relay thinking" was conducted with design students in secondary school and university in 1997. As well as finding significant differences in the performances of the two types of students, some suggestions were made at that time for future studies in relay thinking, regarding: (a) the environment, (b) the time arrangement, (c) the sequence of team members, and (d) the possibility of adding a group discussion component at the end of the relay thinking task. In January 1998, five groups of secondary school Design and Technology students were asked to use relay thinking to solve an assigned problem under different settings and arrangements. The objective of the study was to explore the suggestions above in order to improve the structure of relay thinking. The results of this study indicate that modifications to the initial structures of relay thinking have resulted in significant differences in the students' performances, and, to a certain degree, in the final solutions.