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REVIEW article

Front. Educ.
Sec. Teacher Education
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1462938
This article is part of the Research Topic Navigating Trends and Challenges in Educational Professionalism View all 10 articles

Design thinking as an active teaching methodology in higher education. A systematic review

Provisionally accepted
Luis Felipe Alvarado Luis Felipe Alvarado *
  • Saint Ignatius of Loyola University, Lima, Peru

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Design thinking stands out as a methodology that promotes creativity, user-oriented approach and interdisciplinary collaboration and has emerged as an active teaching methodology that encourages the development of practical skills and effective solving of complex problems. A documentary type research was carried out whose objective was to identify studies that explore the use of design thinking as an active methodology in higher education. Methodologically, it was approached from the principles of the PRISMA declaration, establishing as inclusion parameters research included in the period from 2014 to 2024, studies disseminated in scientific publications, studies that directly address design thinking, containing at least one of the descriptors "design thinking" or "higher education", disseminated in Spanish or English and studies with open access format, which yielded a total of 28 documents included in the review. The findings of this review highlight the effectiveness of design thinking to improve the learning experience of students by encouraging their active participation, critical thinking and interdisciplinary collaboration.

    Keywords: design thinking, teaching methodology, higher education, Educational innovation, student participation design thinking

    Received: 10 Jul 2024; Accepted: 07 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Alvarado. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Luis Felipe Alvarado, Saint Ignatius of Loyola University, Lima, Peru

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.