Against the backdrop of national New Liberal Arts construction and manufacturing transformation toward intelligence and high-quality development, product design has evolved into a highly interdisciplinary field integrating art, engineering, humanities and market application. However, persistent gaps between undergraduate teaching and industrial talent demands, including outdated curriculum frameworks, insufficient practical training, weak engineering implementation competence of students, and oversimplified assessment systems, have been widely documented in design education research, yet empirical reform evidence from local teaching practices remains limited. Based on a 5-year longitudinal frontline teaching practice, questionnaire surveys of 216 undergraduates, 3-year graduate tracking (124 valid samples), and in-depth interviews with 12 enterprise design managers, this study adopts a mixed-methods approach to systematically identify and verify core constraints in current product design education. A multi-dimensional teaching reform framework is proposed, covering curriculum restructuring, innovative teaching modes, practical platform construction, faculty development and diversified evaluation mechanisms. Pre-test/post-test comparative analysis reveals that the reform significantly enhances students’ innovative design and engineering practical abilities, raises the graduate professional employment rate from 55. 2% to 77. 8%, and shortens the average post-adaptation period from 4.2±1.1 months to 1.5±0.6 months. This evidence-based reform framework provides a reproducible reference for interdisciplinary design education reform under the New Liberal Arts initiative, addressing the lack of empirical validation in existing product design teaching research. 

Yihuang Lin. Reform and Practice of Product Design Teaching under the New Liberal Arts Initiative:Problem Identification and Evidence-Based Optimization. Frontiers in Educational Research (2026), Vol. 9, Issue 4: 125-131. https://doi.org/10.25236/FER.2026.090419.

[1] Liu G Z. Introduction to Industrial Design[M]. Changsha:Hunan Science & Technology Press, 2020. 

[2] Yanan Wang. Research on Strategies for Improving the Teaching Quality of Product Graduation Design Driven by Cultural Industry [J]Frontiers In Educational Research, March, 2025, Volume 8, Issue 3, 186-190. 

[3] Jin Yanhong, Peng Juan. Construction and Implementation of Practical Teaching System for Product Design Major - Taking the School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Anhui University of Engineering as an Example [J]. Furniture and Interior Decoration, 2015(09):50-51. 

[4] Wang Kun, Li Tianran, Li Qi. "Industry-Education Integration, Cross-Innovation":Exploration and Practice of Innovative Talent Cultivation Mode for Industrial Design Major in the Context of New Engineering[J]. Packaging Engineering, 2024, 45(51):608-613

[5] Naiyu Shi. Practical exploration of talent training mode of integration of production and education in digital design and manufacturing specialty[J]. Frontiers in Educational Research. Volume 7, Issue 11. 2024. 

[6] Yanfang Song. The Construction and Exploration of Practical Teaching Courses for Product Design under the Background of New Engineering[J]. Communication & Education Review. Volume 1, Issue 10. 2020. 

[7] Yi Tang. Research on the Teaching Reform of Product Design Courses in Universities Under the Background of Artificial Intelligence[J]. Education Reform and Development. Volume 8, Issue 1. 2026. PP 80-86.