ABSTRACT
The role of student motivation in education has long been appreciated and the nature of motivation has been variously deconstructed to reveal the need to expose learners to challenge, risk and reward. This chapter examines the vital stimulus of motivation in undergraduate product design education. It seeks to illuminate how students might develop their motivation through strategies such as stimulating conflict, embracing failure and effective self-management that are sympathetic to design ideation and creative evaluation. The chapter focuses on the work of John Keller, who neatly provides a framework for understanding and applying motivation. On entering the 1990s the fit between what was possible and what was desirable was shaped by research from the field of psychology and particularly educational psychology, on motivation. Thus the design professions, ranging from communication design to urban planning, face radically new responsibilities concerning their ability to act as interpreters and transformers of conflict.
