Integrating Design Thinking and ICT to Foster Creative Problem-Solving Skills in EFL Classrooms

Abstract

The increased demand for twenty-first-century skills has shifted English as a Foreign Language (EFL) education from linguistic accuracy towards learners' creative problem-solving, collaboration, and innovation. Despite the positive effects of Design Thinking (DT) and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on teaching and learning, existing research is still disjointed and rarely explains the systematic integration of both approaches in developing creative problem-solving skills in EFL classrooms. This study aims to synthesize the current evidence of Design Thinking and ICT integration, identify the current research trends and gaps, and propose an integrated pedagogical framework that supports authentic problem-based language learning. A Systematic Literature Review (SLR) was conducted following a rigorous procedure of search, screening, eligibility, and thematic synthesis. A total of 32 peer-reviewed studies published mainly between 2020 and 2025 were identified from key academic databases through predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria. The results indicate that ICT serves as a cognitive and collaborative scaffold across the five iterative phases of DT, including empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test, by enabling learner interaction, multimodal communication, reflective feedback, and iterative knowledge construction. The review also shows that the integrated application of DT and ICT always improves learners’ fluency, flexibility, originality, elaboration, learner agency, and multimodal literacy while engendering meaningful interaction with authentic communicative problems. Nevertheless, the majority of existing studies are context-specific, short-term, and do not provide a comprehensive pedagogical framework that explicitly aligns ICT tools with each DT phase in EFL instruction. This review offers a new integrated DT and ICT framework that provides practical pedagogical implications for teachers and curriculum designers while extending the theoretical understanding of technology-supported creative problem-solving in contemporary EFL education.