Long-term trends accentuate the import of creative and critical thinking skills developed by design thinking and ill-defined questions

Abstract

The economic, financial, and political trends such as stagnating standards of living, fiscal pressure, and an escalating mistrust of government were set in motion during the 1960s and 1970s. Due to the duration of the trends, the magnitude, but not the nature, of the challenges confronting the health care, nonprofit and public sectors has changed. Consequently, with the exception of adding topics relating to strategies for securing voluntary compliance and effectively interacting with constituents who are increasingly angry and opposed to government intervention, the Great Recession and subsequent Age of Austerity do not appreciably affect the Master in Public Administration (MPA) curriculum’s content. However, the intractable nature of the challenges accompanying the trends places a premium on cultivating the students’ critical thinking and creative skills. Meeting this challenge necessitates the adoption of learning strategies that shift to students a greater share of the responsibility for learning. One of the options for achieving the outcome is to provide students with the foundational materials and an ill-defined problem that, in conjunction with design thinking, maximizes the students’ freedom to independently define the problem, identify the requisite information for analysis, and develop solutions. The article provides examples of the learning strategy that has been applied in several courses.

Keywords

Problem-based learning design thinking stimulus-response learning pedagogy health care finance public budgeting public administration andragogy

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Akpalu

Normanyo

(2014) Illegal fishing and catch potentials among small-scale fishers: Application of an endogenous switching regression model. Environment and Development Economics 19(2): 156–172.

Barrows

(1986) A taxonomy of problem-based learning methods. Medical Education 20(6): 481–486.

Bendersky

(2014) Resolving ideological conflicts by affirming opponents’ status: The Tea Party, Obamacare and the 2013 government shutdown. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 53(July): 163–168.

Brett

Olekalns

Friedman

. (2007) Sticks and stones: Language, face, and online dispute resolution. The Academy of Management Journal 50(1): 85–99.

Brown

(2008) Design thinking. Harvard Business Review 86(6): 85–92.

Bureau of Census (2016a) Table P-16: Educational attainment—People 25 years old and over by median income and sex: 1991 to 2014. Available at: https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-income-people.html (accessed February 2016).

Bureau of Census (2016b) Table P-4: Race and Hispanic origin of people (both sexes combined) by median and mean income: 1947 to 2014. Available at: https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-income-people.html (accessed February 2016).

Bureau of Census (2016c) State government finances. Available at: http://www.census.gov/govs/state/historical_data.html (accessed February 2016).

Bureau of Labor Statistics (2016a) Databases, tables & calculators by subject: Labor force statistics from the current population survey. Available at: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000 (accessed February 2016).

10.

Bureau of Labor Statistics (2016b) Databases, tables & calculators by subject: Labor productivity and costs. Available at: http://www.bls.gov/lpc/prodybar.htm (accessed February 2016).

11.

Carson

Crespin

Finocchiaro

. (2007) Redistricting and party polarization in the U.S. House of Representatives. American Politics Research 35(6): 878–904.

12.

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (2014) National health expenditures by type of service and source of funds, Calendar Years 1960–2014. Available at: https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/NationalHealthExpendData/NationalHealthAccountsHistorical.html (accessed April 2016).

13.

Clayton

Pickerill

(2004) Guess what happened on the way to revolution? Precursors to the Supreme Court’s federalism revolution. Publius: The Journal of Federalism 34(3): 85–114.

14.

Cooke

Suski

Arlinghaus

. (2013) Voluntary institutions and behaviours as alternatives to formal regulations in recreational fisheries management. Fish and Fisheries 14(4): 439–457.

15.

Dedual

Sague

Pla O

Arlinghaus

. (2013) Communication between scientists, fishery managers and recreational fishers: Lessons learned from a comparative analysis of international case studies. Fisheries Management and Ecology 20(2–3): 234–246.

16.

Dehghani

Carnevale

Gratch

(2014) Interpersonal effects of expressed anger and sorrow in morally charged negotiations. Judgment and Decision Making 9(2): 104–113.

17.

Dunne

Martin

(2006) Design thinking and how it will change management education: An interview and discussion. Academy of Management Learning & Education 5(4): 512–523.

18.

Executive Office of the President of the United States (2014) The labor force participation rate since 2007: Causes and policy implications. Available at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/labor_force_participation_report.pdf (accessed April 2016).

19.

Gijbels

Dochy

Van den Bossche

. (2005) Effects of problem-based learning: A meta-analysis from the angle of assessment. Review of Educational Research 75(1): 27–61.

20.

Glen

Suciu

Baughn

(2014) The need for design thinking in business schools. Academy of Management Learning & Education 13(4): 653–667.

21.

Halpern

(2015) Inside the Nudge Unit: How Small Changes can Make a Big Difference. London: WH Allen.

22.

Harden

Davis

(1998) The continuum of problem-based learning. Medical Teacher 20(4): 317–322.

23.

Kraak

SBM

(2011) Exploring the ‘public goods game’ model to overcome the tragedy of the commons in fisheries management. Fish and Fisheries 12(1): 18–33.

24.

Lewandowsky

Ecker

UKH

Seifert

. (2012) Misinformation and its correction: Continued influence and successful debiasing. Psychological Science in the Public Interest 13(3): 106–131.

25.

Lord

(2008) Darn it, professor. Just tell us what we need to know to pass your course. Journal of College Science Teaching 37(3): 71–73.

26.

Musgrave

(1979) The tax revolt: Causes and cure. Social Science Quarterly 59(4): 697–703.

27.

Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration [NASPAA] (2014). NASPAA Accreditation standards. Available at: https://accreditation.naspaa.org/resources/official-standards-policies/ (accessed April 2016).

28.

Nostbakken

(2013) Formal and informal quota enforcement. Resource and Energy Economics 35(2): 191–215.

29.

Office of Management and Budget (2014) Table 2.2—Percentage composition of receipts by source: 1934–2021. Available at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals (accessed February 2016).

30.

Office of Management and Budget (2015) Table 3.1—Outlays by superfunction and function: 1940–2021. Available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals (accessed February 2016).

31.

Peters

(2014) Promoting the use of higher level cognitive processes in a quantitative analysis course. Teaching Public Administration 32(1): 39–54.

32.

Peters

(2015) Anchored learning and the development of creative, critical thinking and life-long learning skills. Teaching Public Administration 33(3): 221–240.

33.

Pew Research Center (2011) U.S. Politics & policy. Press widely criticized, but trusted more than other information sources. Views of the news media: 1985–2011. Available at http://www.people-press.org/2011/09/22/press-widely-criticized-but-trusted-more-than-other-institutions/2/ (accessed February 2016).

34.

Pew Research Center (2015) U.S. Politics & policy. Public trust in government: 1958–2015. Available at: http://www.people-press.org/2015/11/23/public-trust-in-government-1958-2015 (accessed February 2016).

35.

Rios

DeMarree

Statzer

(2014) Attitude certainty and conflict style: Divergent effects of correctness and clarity. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 40(7): 819–830.

36.

Rowen

(2016) Memorable quotes from U.S. presidential debates. Available at http://www.infoplease.com/us/government/memorable-quotes-from-presidential-debates.html (accessed March 2016).

37.

Salamon

(2012) America’s Nonprofit Sector, A Primer, 3rd ed. New York: The Foundation Center.

38.

Skeel

(2014) The art of the deal: Detroit’s restructuring proposal. The Weekly Standard 19(30): 16–17.

39.

Steinbeck

(2011) Building creative competence in globally distributed courses through design thinking. Comunicar 37(October): 27–34.

40.

Taylor

(2016) The demographic trends shaping American politics in 2016 and beyond. Available at: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/01/27/the-demographic-trends-shaping-american-politics-in-2016-and-beyond/ (accessed March 2016).

41.

The Constitution Project (2014) One person, one vote. Available at http://www.theconstitutionproject.com/portfolio/one-person-one-vote/ (accessed March 2016).

42.

The Economist (2014) Jobs are not enough: New figures show that the speed at which America’s economy can grow without stoking inflation has fallen [Briefing]. 19 July, 23–24.

43.

The World Bank (2014a) Health expenditure, total (% of GDP). Available at http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS (accessed October 2016).

44.

The World Bank (2014b) Mortality rate, infant (per 1,000 live births). Available at http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.IMRT.IN (accessed October 2016).

45.

Timeline on the Great Recession (2013). The Christian Science Monitor (September 8). Available at http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2013/0908/Timeline-on-the-Great-Recession (accessed November 2016).

46.

VanZant

Kray

(2014) “I can’t lie to your face”: Minimal face-to-face interaction promotes honesty. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 55(November): 234–238.

47.

Webster

(1992). Demise of the solid South. Geographical Review 82(1): 43–55.

48.

Woolley

Peters

(2016) The American presidency project: William J. Clinton, XLII President of the United States: 1993–2001. Address before a joint session of the Congress on the state of the union. 23 January 1996. Available at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=53091 (accessed March 2016).