Phillips, Cara and Dickinson, Joan Exploring Interior Design Education and Perception of Soft Skills: Communication, Collaboration, and Empathy. 2025. Radford University, Thesis. Radford University Scholars' Repository.
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Abstract
Communication, collaboration, and empathy are essential soft skills that determine how successful we are in our personal and professional lives. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, professional interior designers were suggesting that students graduate without enough soft skills. Yet, research studies imply that students who graduate with improved soft skills are more likely to get hired after an internship. While it appears that communication and collaboration are experienced through group projects, there was little data about how communication, collaboration, and empathy are taught in interior design programs. The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to use survey methodology and design-thinking strategies to explore interior design educators’ perceptions about teaching soft skills, including communication, collaboration, and empathy, to determine how these soft skills are taught to undergraduate students, and to create techniques to enhance these skills within existing curricula. Results from the study's first phase, involving a questionnaire sent to Council for Interior Design Accredited (CIDA) school's program directors and/or department heads (n = 50), found that interior design educators are more confident in teaching collaboration and communication, and less confident in teaching empathy. Interviews with interior design educators (n = 10), discovered that students lack soft skills for the following reasons: assumptions, measurability, and instructional gaps. Educators might assume students are naturally empathetic and capable of collaboration without explicit instruction. Soft skills are difficult to quantify compared to hard skills, making them less prioritized in curricula, and there is a tendency to assign group projects without teaching the foundational philosophy of collaboration and empathy. Three themes became evident from the questionnaire and interview data. Holistic Design Education: Emphasis on the importance of integrating various forms of communication and interactive experiences to cultivate well-rounded design professionals. Collaborative Learning and Team Development: Encompasses the importance of collaboration and the development of communication and professional skills through diverse learning activities and assignments. Empathy in Design Education: Integrating student engagement, storytelling, social justice, collaboration, accessibility, and community involvement. For the last phase of the study, design-thinking workshops with educators (n = 6) were held that explored ideas about how soft skills are taught. Examples included inter-department projects for collaboration, storytelling to teach empathy, and real-world communication with clients. The findings from all phases of the investigation were combined into a Quick Reference Guide developed by the student researcher that summarizes key principles on soft skill development that can be incorporated into existing curricula. The findings from this study bridge the gap between what soft skills practitioners need and what the students have when they graduate with an undergraduate degree in interior design.
| Item Type: | Thesis |
|---|---|
| Subjects: | N Fine Arts > NX Arts in general |
| Divisions: | Radford University > College of Visual and Performing Arts > Department of Design |
| Date Deposited: | 31 Jan 2026 18:30 |
| Last Modified: | 21 Apr 2026 14:32 |
| URI: | http://wagner.radford.edu/id/eprint/1306 |
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