ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the development of creativity in novice undergraduate learners within design disciplines. Here, in the context of these learners and creative thinking, the structure of knowledge rather than its content becomes paramount. The educational challenge of complying with Perry's scheme is attenuated in undergraduate beginning design education because of the ill-structured quality of its knowledge domain. Perry's scheme of intellectual development presents an educational challenge that is precisely the problem of beginning design education. Beginning design education faces a particularly difficult task, then: negotiate the ill-structuredness of its domain while accommodating the dualist view of its undergraduate student learner. Well-structured knowledge domains are rule-based and rely on generalization and principles that apply to many different situations homogenously. In contrast, ill-structured knowledge domains, such as architectural design, are case-based. Developed by John Sweller, Cognitive Load Theory is a response to the unique challenge of complex knowledge construction as it relates to the cognitive architecture of the mind.
