Research-as-Practice Methodology
The research methodology underpinning the development of Indoor Air Cartoon Journal cases is grounded in a research-as-practice paradigm. It supports the systematic development, testing, and refinement of design theory in relation to the purpose that the resulting communication solutions are intended to serve.
Situated within Design Theory in Engineering Education Practice, the research does not primarily seek to generate generalisable empirical laws of learning or investigate unexplained engineering phenomena. Instead, it investigates how fictional case story communication solutions should be designed to invite learners into an iterative process of developing and refining a transferable way of thinking that strengthens cognitive governance and lifelong-learning capability, thereby providing upstream readiness for value-oriented problem diagnosis and solving.
The fundamental research question guides the methodology: How should fictional case stories be designed to function as communication solutions that bridge knowing and doing in real-world practice by empowering mental model development, stimulating value-oriented questioning for cognitive capability enhancement, supporting sound judgement and decision-making, and ultimately guiding value-oriented problem diagnosis and solving?
Cognitive Problem Diagnosis
The research process begins with the diagnosis of cognitive barriers that hinder value-oriented problem diagnosis and solving in indoor air quality and sustainable building engineering. Rather than starting with a predetermined communication solution, the process starts with a cognitive problem. Engagement with professional practice, teaching, scholarly literature and real-world engineering challenges enables the identification of situations in which learners and practitioners struggle to transform information into knowledge, understanding, judgements, decisions and actions. In many cases, these difficulties arise because the individuals involved lack an appropriate mental model or possess an incomplete or inadequate mental model of the problem they are attempting to diagnose and solve.
Once a cognitive barrier has been identified, a mental model is developed to explain the problem of interest. Within this scholarship, a mental model is an internal representation that identifies an outcome of interest, the variables contributing to that outcome, and the connections and interactions among those variables. Mental model development is not intended merely to improve understanding of a topic. It provides the cognitive foundation for value-oriented questioning, cognitive capability enhancement, sound judgement and decision-making, and ultimately value-oriented action.
Design Theory Development and Refinement
The diagnosed cognitive problems and associated mental models provide the context for developing and refining the design theory underpinning the communication solutions. The central premise of the design theory is that communication solutions can be intentionally designed to train and develop cognitive governance capability by empowering mental model development, stimulating value-oriented questioning for cognitive capability enhancement, supporting sound judgement and decision-making, and ultimately guiding actions for value-oriented problem diagnosis and solving.
The design theory therefore provides the logic explaining how communication solutions can achieve their intended purpose. It is developed and progressively refined through critical and reflective thinking, abstract reasoning, logical deduction, creative imagination, engagement with scholarly literature, professional experience, educational practice, and continued reflection on the performance of communication solutions in practice.
Design Principle Derivation
Design principles are inferred from the design theory to establish what communication solutions should fulfil if they are to achieve their intended purpose. Accordingly, for a communication solution to enhance cognitive governance for value-oriented problem diagnosis and solving, it should empower mental model development, stimulate value-oriented questioning for cognitive capability enhancement, support sound judgement and decision-making, and ultimately guide value-oriented actions.
These principles provide the non-negotiable requirements that guide the design of communication solutions. They translate the explanatory logic of the design theory into prescriptive guidance for design while allowing different communication solutions to be developed in response to different contexts and cognitive problems.
Communication Solution Design
The design principles are operationalised through communication solutions published in the Indoor Air Cartoon Journal. These may take the form of fictional case stories, cartoons, dialogue-based narratives, conceptual frameworks, and other forms of cognitive scaffolding. Their purpose is not merely to communicate information. Rather, the communication solutions are intentionally designed to empower learners and practitioners to develop context-relevant mental models, generate meaningful value-oriented questions, exercise and strengthen relevant cognitive capabilities, make sound judgements and decisions, and translate those decisions into value-oriented actions.
A central feature of the communication solutions is the deliberate stimulation of questioning. Within my scholarship, questioning is treated as a primary operational mechanism through which cognitive capabilities are exercised and enhanced. Communication solutions therefore provoke curiosity, reveal uncertainty, expose competing considerations, challenge assumptions, and encourage exploration of alternative explanations, judgements, decisions, and actions.
The objective is not simply to provide answers but to create conditions that encourage learners and practitioners to generate meaningful questions and intellectually work with knowledge. Through this process, the communication solutions seek to strengthen critical and reflective thinking, abstract reasoning, logical deduction, and creative imagination as foundations for sound engineering judgement, decision-making, and value-oriented problem diagnosis and solving.
Application, Evaluation, and Experiential Evidence
The communication solutions are applied through engineering education practice and public scholarship. Their performance is evaluated through experiential evidence arising from learner reflections, discussions, assignments, educational artefacts, practitioner engagement, scholarly dialogue, and observations from educational practice. The design theory determines what evidence is relevant. Particular attention is therefore given to evidence of mental model development, value-oriented questioning, cognitive capability enhancement, sound judgement and decision-making, and improved value-oriented problem diagnosis and solving.
Within the research-as-practice paradigm, the purpose of this evaluation is not primarily to establish generalisable causal laws of learning. Rather, it is to investigate whether and how the communication solutions operate consistently with the proposed design theory and its inferred design principles and to identify where the design theory, design principles, or communication solutions require refinement.
Systematic Reflection and Refinement
The final stage involves systematic critical and reflective evaluation of the communication solutions, the design principles that guided their development, and the design theory from which those principles were inferred. Insights gained through educational practice, learner and practitioner engagement, scholarly dialogue, public scholarship, and continued design work are used to identify strengths, limitations, inconsistencies, and opportunities for improvement. Where evidence from practice challenges the proposed theoretical logic, the design theory is reconsidered and refined. Corresponding design principles are then revised where necessary, and subsequent communication solutions are redesigned accordingly.
The methodology therefore operates iteratively: cognitive problem diagnosis → mental model development → design theory development/refinement → design principle derivation → communication solution design → application → experiential evidence → systematic reflection → refinement of design theory, design principles, and communication solutions
Through repeated cycles of investigation, the research progressively develops and refines transferable design knowledge about how communication solutions can be designed to strengthen cognitive governance for value-oriented problem diagnosis and solving.
Design Theory Underpinning the Communication Solutions
The central premise underpinning the fictional case stories is that failure to diagnose and solve real-life indoor air quality and sustainable building engineering problems can arise fundamentally from inadequate cognitive governance rather than merely from inadequate technical knowledge. The protagonists initially lack context-relevant mental models that adequately represent the variables contributing to the problem and the relationships and interactions among those variables.
Consequently, they fail to generate meaningful value-oriented questions capable of stimulating the cognitive capabilities required to interrogate, refine, and expand their mental models. Without appropriate mental models, meaningful value-oriented questioning, and the cognitive capabilities required to reason with and refine those mental models, judgement and decision-making can become compromised. This can consequently lead to actions that fail to diagnose and solve the real-life problem in a value-oriented manner.
The fictional case stories are intentionally designed to reverse this process by empowering the development of context-relevant mental models that represent the variables contributing to the problem and their relationships and interactions. These mental models provide the basis for increasingly meaningful value-oriented questions, which stimulate the cognitive capabilities required to interrogate, refine, and strengthen the mental models. This iterative interaction between mental models, questioning, and cognitive capabilities supports increasingly sound judgement and decision-making, which in turn guides value-oriented actions for problem diagnosis and solving.
Accordingly, the fictional case stories are designed as communication solutions that facilitate the internalisation of a transferable value-oriented way of thinking. The intended outcome is therefore not the memorisation of the fictional cases themselves. Rather, the cases provide contexts through which readers repeatedly practise developing mental models, generating value-oriented questions, exercising cognitive capabilities, making judgements and decisions, and considering the value implications of alternative actions.
Through repeated engagement, this transferable way of thinking can progressively become internalised and subsequently govern how readers approach unfamiliar problems. When confronted with new indoor air quality or sustainable building engineering problems, they can develop context-relevant mental models, ask meaningful value-oriented questions, exercise relevant cognitive capabilities, make sound judgements and decisions, and take value-oriented actions appropriate to the new context. The design theory and its inferred design principles are not treated as fixed. They remain subject to systematic investigation and refinement through research-as-practice as new communication solutions are designed, applied, evaluated, and reflected upon.
Copyright and Licence
All fictional case study articles and learning materials published in the Indoor Air Cartoon Journal are licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licence.
Educators, learners, researchers, and members of the public may access, download, share, and use the materials for non-commercial educational, learning, and scholarly purposes, provided appropriate attribution is given to the original source and author.
The materials may not be modified, adapted, translated, transformed, remixed, or redistributed in derivative form without prior written permission from Dr Moshood Olawale Fadeyi. This restriction includes, but is not limited to, the development of animations, videos, films, derivative educational resources, modified case studies, adapted storylines, or other derivative works based on the fictional case study articles and learning materials published in the Indoor Air Cartoon Journal.
