Kristina Shin

Metacognitive development and moving away

It is now largely accepted that social and cultural factors have a significant impact on cognitive development in children. Piaget acknowledged the impact of social factors and peer interaction on cognitive development. However, there has been relatively little work on the impact of social and cultural factors on the development of metacognition in first‐year university students. Using the Learning and study strategies inventory (LASSI) as a measure of metacognition, this study samples first‐year undergraduates in Hong Kong (N = 1815) and identifies significant differences in metacognitive abilities between students living in their home environment and those who have moved away from their family and, in some cases, culture, to pursue undergraduate education.

Impact of problem‐based learning on student experience and metacognitive development

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of problem‐based learning (PBL) in higher education based on a large sample of first‐year undergraduates from two programmes at a Hong Kong University (n=132). One programme uses an entirely problem‐based approach to learning, whilst the other uses traditional methods.Design/methodology/approach – Using the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI) as a measure of metacognition, differences in metacognitive development are explored between each group of students between the beginning and end of their first 15 months in each programme.Findings – Despite significantly weaker entry scores on the LASSI, the mean final scores, taken after 15 months and three semesters of study in the different curriculum environments demonstrate dramatic improvements in metacognition for the PBL group. In addition, analysis of student learning experience measured at the end of the programme revealed that the PBL group reported significantly higher scores...

Patternmaking for the underwired bra: New directions

Abstract This article considers the history of patternmaking, the evolution of flat patternmaking, and brassiere patternmaking. The literature related to patternmaking for the brassiere and the underwired brassiere is reviewed, and the author considers the secrecy currently surrounding the practice of patternmaking and the extent to which this has restricted the growth of innovative practice in this area. The effect this has had on the development, learning and teaching of patternmaking practice is reviewed, and the author presents and evaluates a new approach to bra patternmaking which marks a move away from traditional ‘copy’ methods to a single innovative approach which is practical and provides for further development of patternmaking practice in this area. This study tests the new approach against the traditional method, using industry professionals in both conditions at each of the key stages of patternmaking, cutting, sewing, and fitting. A subsequent double-blind comparison of the product and fitting revealed that experienced patternmakers and fitters were unable to distinguish which bra had been produced using the new method. Feedback from the industry professionals involved in the trial demonstrates a marked preference for the speed and simplicity of the new method.

User-centred design approach for hydrotherapy wetsuit

ABSTRACT This paper describes a user-centred design approach to hydrotherapy wetsuit prototype development for people with limited mobility. Current hydrotherapy devices are not versatile enough to meet the varied rehabilitation needs and it usually requires the involvement of at least two helpers. This makes the hydrotherapy less cost-effective amongst other physical therapies and thus less desirable to public healthcare providers. Therefore, the project aims to design a hydrotherapy wetsuit that would reduce the hydrotherapy cost while improving the patients quality of life. With close user involvement throughout the development process, a user-operated adaptive hydrotherapy wetsuit is designed and tested.

An Expanding Market: Asian Mothers-to-be

Abstract Nowadays many fashion marketers search for specific niches in emerging countries in the hope of identifying needs to fulfil. For any potential niche, they scrutinize demographic and psychographic variables to determine preferences in style and elements of the buying decision process. This study classifies Asian mothers-to-be as a specific target market. It highlights criteria considered important throughout the purchasing process for maternity-wear. Because body size/shape changes rapidly during pregnancy, it identifies the needs for particular garments during precise periods of pregnancy. Additionally the uniqueness of the Asian culture influences maternity-wear preferences. This paper provides insights on: when and what type of maternity-wear is wanted/needed; what type of marketing channels purchasers rely on; where they purchase new garments or obtain previously owned garments; and which variables are important to the purchasing decision: price, brand, quality, etc. We confirm Asian mothers-to-be as an important and growing niche for fashion merchandisers and marketers to consider. Day (1990) defines a target market as a group of homogenous people, identifiable so that they can be reached; durable so that profit can be realized before the characteristics of the segment disappears; measurable in terms of sales volume and rate of growth; substantial to justify the allocation of resources to serve the segments; and sufficiently distinctive in behavior in the marketplace. Based on this description, Asian mothers-to-be constitute a specific and never ending target market of its own. The questions that arise are: How do Asian women manage the acquisition of garments when they become pregnant and their body morphology and shape changes so radically? When do they start to search for maternity-wear? What type of garments, style and fabrics are Asian mothers-to-be looking for? How do they discover what to look for? Where do they prefer to shop for these maternity clothes (specialty or department stores, vintage stores or borrowing pre-owned clothes)? How well their needs are being met? Our results indicate that the majority of Asian mothers-to-be sampled do procure new garments during their pregnancy. Furthermore, close to 60% need new shoes. The need for a new bra appears during the first trimester for 40% of our sample, which validates the literature. Surprisingly the same percentage mentions the need for new panties and pants as early as in the first trimester, which is not commonly known, based on the literature reviewed. According to our results more than fifty percent (53%) of our sample rely on word-of-mouth regarding where to find maternity wear, seeking information from their family and friends. Only 30% rely on advertising found in leaflets, magazines or billboards. For specific, fitted, intimate garments such as bras, panties and tummy belt, most of our respondents (52%, 47% and 60% respectively), like to purchase these items at maternity stores. For the less fitted items or clothes less specific to pregnancy, a respectable percentage purchases them through department stores. For clothes that aren’t specific to maternity such as sleepwear and socks, a substantial percentage (30%) is bought from informal markets: the ubiquitous and vibrant outside markets of China. Designer stores and online retailers are barely utilized by our respondents. The majority state they prefer to buy new clothes instead of buying vintage clothes or wearing borrowed clothes, although they don’t have a negative perception of vintage maternity clothes. The most important criterion in the purchasing decision is size and fit. Women either stated it was an extremely important criterion (55%) or an important criterion (35%). This is followed by the quality and the price. According to our results, women of our sample are either neutral or pay little attention to criteria such as the brand, the trend and the salesperson’s opinion. When asked to rate each garment separately for size and fit (bra, panties, pants, blouses, one-piece dress, sleepwear, sportswear, jeans, socks and tummy belt), the item that had the poorest fit appreciation is the one piece dress (44% being dissatisfied) followed by the jeans (16%). Broadly, our study reveals that Asian mothers-to-be prefer the one piece dress to separates, whether a top and pant or top and skirt. Additionally, there is a preference for natural textiles/fabrics such as cotton suitable to the warm, humid Hong Kong climate and jersey knit or stretchy material (over 50%), suitable for pregnancy. Increasingly, women continue to work during pregnancy and practice activities such as yoga and swimming. Asian mothers-to-be need garments that ‘fit’ professional and leisure activities; this research identifies the opportunities for the apparel industry, from manufacturers, to retailers and merchandisers, to expand into this target market. When the one child policy expires in 2015, one can expect the maternity market in China to expand for two reasons. Families will likely choose to have more than one child and rising incomes will allow the mothers-to-be to purchase more maternity clothing worthy of the family lineage. Even a small percentage change, given the very large population base, will reward the apparel industry for its attention to this target market. The successful firms will produce the right product, at the right time, with the right styling and fit for this distinctive market. This research serves as a starting point to investigate Asian women’s perception of their morphology’s transformation during pregnancy and their need and appreciation for apparel offered on the market. Aesthetics and fit, price, brand, etc. contribute importantly to the purchasing decision; if properly understood, the consumer (in this case pregnant Asian women) can help to clarify the most important factors affecting their purchase decisions. A pilot test group plus a convenient sample of 203 pregnant or previously pregnant women in one specific area, Hong Kong, yields results which could easily be replicated on a larger scale or in another geographic area. We seek greater clarification on which type of activities/sports are practiced by pregnant women in order to correlate activity/sports practiced with the sportswear wearability and fit, for example, the need for and satisfaction with maternity bathing suits. To the extent that manufacturers identify and address regional differences, the greater the consumer satisfaction and resulting business success.

A geometrically based flattening method for three-dimensional to two-dimensional bra pattern conversion

This article proposes a robust algorithm for three-dimensional (3D) surface reconstruction of a bra fitted to an underlying mannequin via scanned polylines and a novel approach for bra pattern flattening based on linear least squares optimisation. This pattern flattening method projects a patch from the current viewing direction to a two-dimensional (2D) plane, with an orientation into 3D space by mesh reconstruction. The intersection of polylines is checked and a patch adjacency graph is built to form a closed patch surface, which is fitted to a mannequin. The conformity between the 3D bra patch and the 2D projection shows shape preservation when the 3D bra is flattened to 2D patterns using the proposed method. The preservations of shape entities include boundary coordinate preservation, mean value coordinate preservation, edge length preservation and adjacent surface flattening. An algorithm for calculating the local projection plane, which is used for the calculation of best fit mean value coordinate for local surface flattening, is also provided.

Incubating practice-based fashion design research

I am pleased to inform readers that the call for papers for the First International Symposium for Creative Pattern Cutting was a success. This is one of our journal’s initiatives to provide a platform where fashion design researchers can exchange their research findings. This symposium will be held at the University of Huddersfield in the UK in February 2013, and selected papers from this will be published in a special issue of International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education (IJFDTE) in July 2013. Because this type of conference is rare, the opportunity which this new symposium offers is much appreciated by practice-based fashion design researchers. This overwhelming response from practice-based researchers reflects the contemporary research environment. Practice-based research is defined as a practicebased investigation undertaken in order to gain new knowledge, and was introduced to higher education through art and design field research degree programmes in the early 1980s. Despite this relatively long history and diverse research fields, our design research community continues to struggle to define what practice-based research is all about (Krippendorff 2010). This is partly because of our need to understand research in more traditional contexts without disrupting the current educational system (Candy 2006). However, it has to be said that measuring the impact of practice-based research output (e.g. artefacts and exhibitions) is not an easy task and therefore, ‘a one size fit all approach’ (e.g. number of citations) should not be used as a sole measure of research performance. It remains surprising that no assessment protocol for practice-based research is available and no higher education institutions seem particularly willing to share how they assess this type of research. In fact, the panel’s summary report of the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) in the UK (2008) indicates difficulties in assessing creative research output. This issue touches everyone in the design discipline because to some extent it defines who we are as a researcher. Therefore, I hope the coming Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014 (http://www.ref.ac.uk/) will set a precedent for creative output assessment which will take us forward. In contrast to the ambiguity in research impact assessment, prospects of commercial gain from the creative industry prompted governments and policy makers to invest in creative, practice-based research (Wilkie et al. 2010) and hence, practice-based researchers became an agent for change by bridging between the creative industry and the research. It is important that practice-based researchers maximise this opportunity. I wish to thank our authors and reviewers for making this edition possible and sincerely hope the First International Symposium for Creative Pattern Cutting is a success and will continue for many decades to come.

Omni-channel education

Welcome to the International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education (IJFDTE)!The year of 2014 has been an eventful year for all of us, filled with bad news and good news. One piece of ...

Facing the future with Karl Popper

Having just finalised the grading for this semester we inevitably feel sorry for some students whose final grade does not live up to their efforts. From time to time students enquire about the rationale behind their grade, especially when their feelings are bolstered by the many hours of study they have put in. Unlike some other disciplines such as ‘mathematics’ or ‘engineering’, the assessment criteria for fashion design-related subjects are not always so straightforward in terms of total objectivity. However, most of our students trust our assessment methods and graciously take the feedback and move on. This is a similar situation for most practice-based creative research assessment. In the not too distant future, the University Grants Committee (UGC) of Hong Kong will announce the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2014 results, which will determine the future for many Hong Kong academics in terms of their individual career progress as well as each Hong Kong University’s standing in our highly competitive Higher Education sector. As I have mentioned in a previous editorial (Shin, 2012), no adequate assessment protocol for practicebased research is available and few higher education institutions seem willing to share any of their own research assessment methods adopted for this type of research. However, we remain hopeful, perhaps far too optimistically that RAE2014 will set a precedent for creative output assessment which will take us forward. If it turns out to be another transitional outcome, we probably have little alternative but to accept the assessment methods used, and the subsequent results not because they are necessarily valid, but because of the absence of falsifiability, wearily applying the principles of the ‘problem of demarcation’ from Popper (1963) into this situation. Thus, we should remain gracious and hopeful in the same way as the students I mentioned at the beginning of this editorial. Our core business and our future are our students. As Popper stated: ‘Admit that all knowledge is human; that it is mixed with our errors, our prejudices, our dreams, and our hopes; that all we can do is to grope for truth even though it be beyond our reach.’ On that rather challenging note, I wish to thank our authors and reviewers for making this edition possible, and contributing to new knowledge for now and for future generations.