Abstract:

In the service business environment, new expertise in the development and management of services and service business is needed. The new skills required at working life have challenged higher education institutions teaching service business and service design to develop novel pedagogical solutions.

Laurea University of Applied Sciences is one of the universities to offer service design studies at the EQF7 level of the European Qualifications Framework. At the moment, Laurea offers three Master's degree programmes in applied sciences (YAMK) in which service design is approached from the theoretical perspective of service marketing and management. The programmes are intended for people working in managerial, expert or development roles who want to become forward-looking service innovators.

The purpose of this article is to deepen the understanding of the pedagogical solutions used in the EQF7-level studies in Laurea’s service design programmes. The theoretical starting point is the trialogical epistemology of innovative knowledge building communities developed by Paavola and Hakkarainen (2008). Trialogical approach refers to learning as a process of knowledge creation, which concentrates on mediated processes where shared objects of activity are developed collaboratively. This approach promotes to elicit and helps to understand the processes of knowledge progression that are important in the information society.

In this article, we assess the pedagogical solutions of the three study units of service design in the theoretical framework of innovative knowledge-building communities by comparing them against three metaphors of learning. The three metaphors of learning (monological, dialogical and trialogical) provide a valuable framework for evaluating pedagogical solutions. The results suggest that the learning process of an innovative knowledge community should include the pedagogical solutions that support the three different metaphors of learning.

Keywords:

Trialogical learning, metaphors of learning, higher education.