AbstractHigher education academics are lacking the knowledge on how to implement Design
Thinking for transdisciplinary design studies that would produce Fourth Industrial
Revolution Workforce Skills (4IRSkills), due to the sparsity in literature and
implementation guidelines. This research aims to develop a Teaching and Learning
Framework (TLF) for transdisciplinary design studies with a desktop-based Virtual
Reality Learning Environment (VRLE) simulation of studio-based learning. The TLF
builds on Selander’s Learning Design Sequence (LDS) with the embedded Design
Thinking process complemented with social constructivist pedagogies of project-based
and situated studio-based learning. The study employed a sequential explanatory
mixed-method approach with triangulation protocols to examine the effectiveness of
the TLF with VRLE on 30 undergraduate transdisciplinary students. A quasiexperiment
was conducted on a control and treatment group over two different fully
online academic sem.....