Suggestopedia and Simplex Didactics as an Integrated Model for Interdisciplinary Design in Higher Education: Results of an Action Research Study

Abstract

This study explores the integration of Georgi Lozanov’s Suggestopedia with Alain Berthoz’s theory of simplexity as a pedagogical paradigm for inclusive and creative educational design. The research, conducted within the specialization courses for educational support at the University of Salerno, involved 230 trainee teachers engaged in a participatory action-research process aimed at translating suggestopedic principles, positive suggestion, music, and relational harmony into didactic planning. Through a combination of theoretical training, laboratory design activities, and reflective evaluation, participants produced 21 interdisciplinary educational projects assessed according to the properties and rules of simplexity. The results show a high degree of methodological coherence, aesthetic quality, and curricular inclusiveness, with music emerging as a key factor in fostering attention, cooperation, and emotional engagement. Data analysis indicates that the fusion of suggestopedic and simplex approaches promotes adaptive, modular, and meaning-oriented design processes that enhance teachers’ creativity and metacognitive awareness. Overall, the findings highlight the educational value of a pedagogy of resonance, in which body, mind, and environment interact harmoniously. The study concludes that the suggestopedic—simplex model represents a regenerative framework for contemporary didactics, capable of transforming complexity into harmony and restoring to education its aesthetic, relational, and human dimension.

1. Introduction

Suggestopedia, developed by Georgi Lozanov [1], proposes an educational approach grounded in trust, openness, and the activation of human potential. Its central aim is to unlock the latent resources of learning through the conscious use of positive suggestion, a harmonious sensory environment, and a supportive relational climate.

Emerging from an original dialogue between science and art—particularly psychology and music—this pedagogical framework integrates rational understanding with emotional and affective dimensions. In doing so, it places the learner at the center of an educational experience that values both cognitive processes and the human capacity for feeling, imagination, and engagement.

It is a pedagogy of trust and possibility, which aims to free the latent resources of human learning through the conscious use of positive suggestion, sound harmony, and relational climate. In its most authentic foundation, the Suggestopedia does not propose a method, but a vision: that of an education capable of acting on the creative unconscious of the individual, awakening his cognitive, affective, and social potential.

Rereading this perspective today means recognizing its surprising timeliness. In an educational context marked by fragmentation, hyperstimulation, and a crisis of meaning, the suggestopedic paradigm offers a way to reintegrate mind and body, emotion and knowledge, aesthetics and rationality. It invites us to consider the classroom not only as a cognitive space, but as a symbolic ecosystem, in which music, light, voice, and rhythm become structural elements of the educational experience. In this perspective, the Suggestopedia could have a connection with simplex didactics, a model that, inspired by Alain Berthoz’s theory of simplexity [2], interprets educational action as a dynamic process of adaptation, cooperation, and meaning making. In this perspective, educational planning is not conceived as a rigid or linear sequence of predefined steps, but as a flexible and adaptive process, continuously adjusted in response to the complexity of learning contexts.

While Lozanov viewed suggestion to activate inner resources, Berthoz identifies simplexity as the cognitive principle that allows complexity to be governed without reducing it. Applied to education, simplexity enables educators to transform the unexpected—not as a disruption of planning, but as an integral and generative element of the learning process—into an opportunity for learning. The present study stems from the dialogue between these two theoretical horizons and is part of an action-research conducted at the University of Salerno, aimed at teachers in training for educational support. The goal is not only to analyze Suggestopedia as a teaching method, but to explore its epistemological value in educational planning processes. The aim is to show how suggestion, music, and the aesthetic-emotional dimension can become tools for rethinking educational design in an inclusive [3], cooperative, and reflective way. Despite the growing interest in affective, embodied, and design-oriented approaches to teacher education, the ways in which these dimensions are theoretically integrated into instructional design frameworks remain uneven and often weakly formalized. Recent empirical and review-based studies document renewed attention to affective climate, emotional engagement, and aesthetic mediation, particularly within pedagogical traditions inspired by Suggestopedia and related humanistic approaches.

For instance, Ivanova and Dimova-Severinova [4] examine the role of happiness and positive emotional states in suggestopedic language learning environments, demonstrating how emotional well-being supports learners’ engagement and performance. While their study provides valuable evidence on the affective benefits of Suggestopedia, it does not address how these emotional conditions can be systematically embedded within a structured instructional design model.

Similarly, Altun [5] conceptualizes Suggestopedia as a relaxed and immersive learning environment that facilitates language acquisition by reducing anxiety and enhancing attention. The study emphasizes the importance of atmosphere, music, and teacher attitude, yet it approaches these elements primarily as contextual facilitators rather than as components of a formalized design logic guiding planning, sequencing, and evaluation.

Empirical studies focusing on learning outcomes further confirm this tendency. Budianto and Yuniar [6] report significant improvements in EFL learners’ reading comprehension through the application of the Suggestopedia method, while Sundari et al. [7] highlight its effectiveness in addressing literacy difficulties by fostering a cooperative and emotionally supportive classroom climate. In both cases, the analytical focus is placed on outcome measures and classroom dynamics, with limited attention to the underlying design principles that could render such approaches transferable or systematically replicable.

A similar pattern emerges in studies on vocabulary acquisition. Bakhromova and Ergashev [8] describe Suggestopedia as an effective method for accelerating lexical learning by activating learners’ emotional and imaginative resources. However, the study treats instructional design implicitly, without articulating a coherent framework for planning, adapting, or evaluating learning activities beyond the method’s general principles.

This orientation is further confirmed by the systematic literature review conducted by Köçeri and Aslan [9], which analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of Suggestopedia in English language teaching. While the review offers a comprehensive synthesis of empirical findings related to motivation, affective factors, and learning outcomes, it also shows that most studies conceptualize Suggestopedia primarily as a teaching method rather than as a design-oriented epistemological framework.

In contrast, pedagogical models grounded in cognitive regulation and adaptive design—such as simplex didactics, inspired by Berthoz’s theory of simplexity [2], provide explicit principles for managing complexity, modularity, adaptation, and meaning-making in educational planning. As further developed by Sibilio [10], simplex didactics offers a non-linear and systemic approach to instructional design, enabling educators to simplify complexity without reducing it. Nevertheless, existing literature on simplex didactics has largely focused on cognitive, organizational, and procedural dimensions of teaching—such as modularity, adaptability, and the regulation of complexity—while comparatively less attention has been devoted to the affective, aesthetic, and symbolic conditions that enable learning processes to emerge, particularly in teacher education contexts. In design-oriented educational research, these conditions are not ancillary but constitutive of how learning situations are perceived, inhabited, and rendered meaningful by learners.

Affective conditions refer to the emotional and relational climate that supports trust, psychological safety, and openness to learning. In suggestopedic approaches, these conditions are intentionally cultivated through positive suggestion, the reduction of antisuggestive barriers, and the construction of a supportive teacher–learner relationship. In the present study, such affective conditions were observable in design choices aimed at lowering performance anxiety and fostering cooperative engagement, for instance through the intentional orchestration of learning rhythms and the emphasis on relational trust within instructional sequences.

Aesthetic conditions concern the sensory and experiential qualities of learning environments, including rhythm, sound, spatial organization, and bodily experience. Suggestopedia operationalizes these conditions through structured devices such as concert sessions, the use of music with specific rhythmic properties, and the careful design of learning atmospheres in which sensory coherence supports attention and memory. Within the instructional projects analyzed in this study, aesthetic mediation was reflected in the systematic integration of music, visual composition, and narrative pacing as functional components of instructional design rather than as ornamental elements.

Symbolic conditions involve the ways in which meaning is mediated through narrative structures, metaphors, ritualized actions, and shared cultural references. In suggestopedic practice, learning unfolds simultaneously at conscious and unconscious levels (the principle of double flatness), allowing symbolic elements—such as musical themes, narrative frames, or repeated ritual sequences—to support sense-making and long-term integration. In the educational projects developed by participants, these symbolic conditions emerged using narrative scenarios, metaphorical framing of tasks, and the construction of shared symbolic memory that connected experiential activities to conceptual understanding.

While simplex didactics provides a powerful framework for governing complexity through adaptive and non-linear design principles, these affective, aesthetic, and symbolic dimensions have remained comparatively underexplored within its existing literature. The present study addresses this gap by showing how such conditions can be intentionally designed, observed, and analytically assessed when suggestopedic principles are integrated with simplex didactics in teacher education.

Against this backdrop, the present study addresses a clearly identifiable theoretical and methodological gap by proposing an integrated framework in which Suggestopedia contributes the affective–aesthetic and relational foundations of learning, while simplex didactics provides the structural, adaptive, and analytical grammar necessary to translate these foundations into coherent instructional design practices. The integration between Suggestopedia and simplex didactics contributes the affective–aesthetic and relational foundations of learning, while simplex didactics provides the structural, procedural, and analytical logic through which these foundations can be translated into observable and evaluable instructional design practices.

By situating this integrated framework within a researcher-led action research process in teacher education, the study advances current scholarship in two ways. First, it moves beyond the treatment of Suggestopedia as a stand-alone method, reframing it as an epistemological resource for educational design. Second, it extends simplex didactics into the domain of aesthetic and affect-sensitive pedagogy, demonstrating how complexity can be governed without reducing the experiential richness of learning. In doing so, the study contributes an innovative perspective on inclusive and interdisciplinary instructional design, addressing a theoretical and methodological gap in contemporary higher education research.

The structure of the paper responds to the need to interweave theory and practice by adopting a logic that is consistent with empirical traditions explicitly designed to bridge this gap. For example, in teacher education, case-based and curriculum designs have been shown to connect student teachers’ practical experiences with theoretical concepts through structured reflection and mediated tasks [11,12]. Similarly, design-based research studies make this interweaving explicit by iteratively translating theoretical assumptions into designed interventions and refining theory through evidence from implementation cyclesè [13]. In higher education development contexts, Lucas and Chapman [14] provide a concrete example of how a suggestopedia-informed approach was operationalized within curriculum redesign practices (storyboarding), linking pedagogical theory to staff development and design decisions. In line with these empirical approaches, this paper is organized to move from conceptual grounding to design translation and to empirical analysis, showing how theory informs practice and how practice generates analytical refinement. In Section 2, the etymological and conceptual roots of Suggestopedia are retraced, clarifying its founding principles and the role of music as a cognitive and affective mediator between rational processes and emotional experience, individual learning and the relational dimension of the educational setting. Section 3 investigates the didactic translation of these rules, highlighting how they can guide the processes of design and methodological innovation in contemporary schools. Section 4 deals with the encounter between Suggestopedia and simplexity didactics, proposing a pedagogy of resonance in which music acts as a metaphor and instrument of educational harmony. Finally, Section 5 presents empirical research carried out with a sample of 230 teachers, describing the methodology, the analysis tools, and the results related to the evaluation of twenty-one design products developed according to the criteria of simplex didactics and Suggestopedia.

To strengthen the coherence between the theoretical framework, the action-research approach, and the analysis of results, the study is guided by the following research questions:

RQ1. How do pre-service teachers translate the integrated principles of Suggestopedia and simplex didactics into concrete interdisciplinary and inclusive instructional design practices?

RQ2. To what extent do the educational projects developed within the action-research process demonstrate coherence with the properties and rules of simplex didactics, particularly in terms of adaptability, aesthetic–symbolic quality, and meaning-oriented design?

These questions orient both the design of the training intervention and the subsequent analysis of the educational products, allowing the study to connect reflective practice, design experimentation, and evaluative rigor within a coherent action-research framework.

The study ultimately intends to restore to pedagogy its poetic and generative core: educating as an act of harmonization. In this sense, the Suggestopedia is not a method of the past, but a still fertile proposal for the future of the school, capable of merging knowledge with feeling, planning with emotion, and complexity with simplex didactics. It reminds us that all authentic learning is born from listening to oneself, to others, to the world, and that music, more than any other symbolic form, can make audible the profound agreement between mind, body, and knowledge.

2. Suggestopedia: For a First Definition and Declination in Teaching

2.1. Origin, Etymology, and Theoretical Foundations

The term Suggestopedia derives from the union of two roots, namely suggesto, from the Latin suggerere (i.e.,) to place under, to inhale, and -paideia, from the Greek παιδεία, education, training. It therefore indicates a pedagogical method based on the conscious use of suggestions (i.e.,) affective and symbolic stimuli, which influences the cognitive and relational processes of learning in a non-rational but decisive way. Suggestopedia considers learning as a process shaped by affective and symbolic stimuli, which influence cognitive and relational dynamics in a non-rational yet decisive manner. The approach was conceived in the 1970s by the Bulgarian physician and psychotherapist Georgi Lozanov, founder of the Institute of Suggestology in Sofia. Lozanov defined the parent discipline, suggestology, as “the science that studies non-rational and unconscious influences on human beings” [1] (p. 4) and developed Suggestopedia as its application within the educational field.

This pedagogical approach is grounded in the belief that human beings normally use only a limited portion of their mental resources. Through processes of relaxation, positive suggestion, and sensory harmonization, it becomes possible to activate the unconscious reserves of memory and imagination. As a result, learners may enhance their capacity to learn, understand, and retain information.

The theoretical structure of Suggestopedia rests on several key principles. These include the authoritativeness of the teacher, understood as a source of security and benevolent guidance. Another principle is infantilization, interpreted as the recovery of a state of trusting openness like that of childhood. A further element is the concept of double flatness, which refers to the interaction between the conscious and unconscious levels of learning. Central importance is also attributed to intonation and rhythm in language. Concerted pseudo-passivity is described as a condition of active relaxation in which the learner remains calm while maintaining a reduced yet receptive state of alertness. Within this framework, the educational environment assumes a functional rather than merely aesthetic role in the learning process.

Rather than requiring radical structural modifications, Suggestopedia emphasizes elements that can be implemented even in large groups or in standard educational settings. Lighting, visual stimuli, and the spatial arrangement of furnishings are conceived as modulable factors that contribute to a climate of psychological safety and curiosity. Similarly, the use of music does not depend on architectural transformation but on its intentional and pedagogically guided integration into the teaching practice.

Music constitutes an integral component of this approach. Lozanov and his collaborators observed that the background use of classical music, particularly Baroque compositions characterized by a slow and regular rhythm of approximately 60 beats per minute, is associated with the production of alpha brain waves and a reduction in physiological tension. This condition predisposes learners to a more global and receptive engagement with linguistic and conceptual content.

The interaction between emotional and cognitive dimensions, fostered through these strategies, reflects a humanistic pedagogical orientation. Within this perspective, the psycho-affective well-being of learners is not treated as a secondary or optional element but as a prerequisite for the full expression of learning potential, even in complex and large-scale educational contexts. As Ivanova and Dimova-Severinova observe [4], Suggestopedia acts not only on the intellectual abilities of the left hemisphere of the brain, but also on the emotional and creative sphere of the right hemisphere, by promoting a state of dynamic balance between emotion and cognition.

This holistic dimension of learning finds a theoretical counterpart in the so-called Broaden-and-Build Theory of positive emotions [15], according to which feelings such as joy, curiosity, and interest expand the repertoire of thought and action, increasing the cognitive, social, and psychological resources of the subject in the long run. Lozanov anticipates this intuition in a pedagogical sense: the aesthetic and affective experience of the “pleasure of learning” itself is a generative condition of knowledge. Education, in this sense, becomes an integrated process in which suggestion is not manipulation, but trust, openness, and willingness to be crossed by the formative experience.

On the operational level, Lozanov organized the training course into four main phases, still recognized in the didactic literature: the presentation, the two concert sessions (active and passive), elaboration, and practice. In the first phase, the teacher introduces the topic in a relaxed atmosphere, prepares the students with positive messages, and takes care of the spatial and musical arrangement. In the active concert session, the material is read or listened to with musical accompaniment, in an alternating rhythm of voice and melody [16]. In the passive session, on the other hand, baroque music, played softly in the background, accompanies a whispered reading of the text, so that students can internalize the information in a subliminal way. The elaboration and practice phases complete the process through playful activities, role-plays, and dramatizations, which favor the fixation of contents and creative reworking. The role of music in all this is not ornamental, but structural: it acts as a mediator between body and mind, stimulates affective memory, and facilitates the multisensory association of concepts [17].

2.2. The Didactic Declination and Musical Potential

The Suggestopedia, in its contemporary educational declination, is configured as an integrated approach capable of combining the cognitive, aesthetic, and emotional dimensions of learning. Several empirical studies, conducted in school contexts of different types and levels, attest to its effectiveness. Budianto and Yuniar [6] have shown that the use of classical music in the process of teaching reading in a foreign language produces a significant increase in reading comprehension outcomes, compared to traditional methods. Similarly, Sundari et al. [7] have highlighted how, in the linguistic field, the use of Suggestopedia favors the acquisition of descriptive writing skills, thanks to the creation of a relaxed and cooperative climate in which attention and motivation are amplified. These studies confirm that the physical and sound environment of the classroom becomes an implicit “pedagogical text”, in which the aesthetic components (color, light, rhythm) contribute to the construction of a context of sense and meaning.

On a semiotic and bioeducational level, music acts as a device for desensitizing fears and resistances related to learning. Lozanov argued that psychological tension and the fear of making mistakes constitute affective filters that hinder the fluidity of the cognitive process [18]. The calibrated use of harmonic melodies makes it possible to reduce these filters, facilitating a state of alert relaxation, in which the student is simultaneously active and receptive. In this state, information is not perceived as an imposition, but as a shared experience. Learning thus takes on an aesthetic value: it becomes an act of emotional and bodily participation, an experience of listening and inner harmonization. Music, from the suggestopedic perspective, is not a simple teaching aid, but a real educational technology of the mind. As Bancroft notes [19], verbal and musical suggestions act on a subliminal level, reaching the unconscious reserves of memory and reactivating latent capacities of association and imagination. The lesson thus becomes a sort of “pedagogical concert”, in which verbal language, gesture, and sound cooperate in the construction of a field of shared meanings. It is interesting to observe that Lozanov borrowed from yogic practices the awareness of breathing and heart rhythm as tools of concentration: the rhythm of Baroque music, close to the natural beating of the heart, acts as a bridge between physiology and cognition, between the bodily and mental dimensions of learning.

On the didactic level, this awareness translates into the possibility of shaping multisensory educational environments, in which music becomes a vehicle for inclusion and participation. From a bioeducational perspective, it could be said that Suggestopedia acts as an ecology of learning: it integrates sound, visual, and kinesthetic elements to promote a dynamic balance between mind, body, and environment. Experiments conducted in non-linguistic contexts, such as mathematics teaching, confirm the transferability of this principle: Rustan and Bahru [20] found that the use of Suggestopedia, through music and relaxation, increases students’ self-confidence and active participation, improving overall performance. The strength of the method, therefore, lies in its ability to relate the affective dimension to the cognitive one, translating learning into an act of inner resonance. As Sunardi et al. [18] point out, the Suggestopedia creates a playful and creative environment that encourages authentic communication, developing moral virtues and language skills in children. The use of local songs and nursery rhymes, as in the case of the Javanese tembang dolanan, shows how music can also be a cultural and identity bridge, capable of linking school knowledge to the living experience of the context to which it belongs.

In the linguistic and communicative fields, the effectiveness of Suggestopedia is manifested in the fluency with which students acquire new vocabulary and linguistic structures, thanks to the reduction of the anxiety component and the stimulation of long-term memory. Bakhromova [8] observes that memorization by the suggestopedic method is up to twenty-five times faster than by conventional methods. This data, albeit with due methodological caution, confirms that learning, when integrated with positive emotional states, is placed in an experiential dimension and not purely mechanical. Art and music thus become epistemic devices, cognitive mediators that allow access to deeper and more intuitive forms of knowledge.

From a pedagogical perspective, Suggestopedia also represents an anticipation of current theories on aesthetic education and affective biodidactics. It shows how pleasure, trust, and beauty can be considered cognitive factors, capable of enhancing concentration, memory, and creativity. In the suggestopedic model, musical art is not accessory, but foundational: educating through music means educating to listening, resonance, and empathy, essential elements for truly inclusive teaching.

Therefore, Suggestopedia, in its first definition and in its didactic application, presents itself as a methodology in which the educational process is understood as an act of harmonization. The etymology itself, to bring under, to put in tune, reveals its profound nature: education does not impose, but attunes; it does not transmit, but awakens. Music, in this context, is the symbolic form through which education becomes an aesthetic, affective, and cognitive experience at the same time [5]. It constitutes the possibility for fully human learning, in which knowledge is born from the encounter between mind and feeling, between rhythm and word, between listening and participation. In this sense, the Suggestopedia continues to offer contemporary teaching an integrative paradigm, capable of restoring to education its originally poetic and relational character.

To clarify the operationalization of the theoretical framework, it is important to specify which suggestopedic principles were explicitly translated into the instructional design process and subsequently embedded within the evaluation grid. In the present study, core suggestopedic elements—such as positive suggestion, aesthetic and emotionally supportive atmosphere, and the intentional use of music and rhythm—were not treated as generic pedagogical values, but as design-relevant principles informing both project development and analysis.

Positive suggestion was operationalized through indicators related to the relational climate, the role of the teacher as a facilitator of trust and confidence, and the capacity of the design to reduce affective barriers to learning. The aesthetic dimension of the learning environment—including the use of visual, narrative, and sound elements—was reflected in rubric areas addressing symbolic mediation, formal coherence, and the generation of shared meaning. The use of music was considered both as a cognitive–affective mediator and as a simplex device for regulating attention, rhythm, and transitions within the instructional sequence. These elements were explicitly mapped onto rubric indicators concerned with aesthetic quality, meaning-making, modularity, and adaptation.

By embedding these suggestopedic principles within the structure of the evaluation grid, the study ensured coherence between theory, design practice, and analysis. This alignment made it possible to assess not only whether such principles were present, but how they were functionally integrated into instructional design choices, thereby transforming affective and aesthetic constructs into observable and discussable features of educational projects.

3. Suggestopedia to Improve Instructional Design Processes

3.1. From Suggestion to Educational Planning: Epistemological Foundations

The application of Suggestopedia to teaching is not only a method for accelerated learning but constitutes an epistemological paradigm capable of redefining the way in which educational design can be conceived, experienced, and transformed. The approach developed by Georgi Lozanov, a Bulgarian psychiatrist and pedagogist, assumes that human beings possess latent reserves of learning and creativity that remain inaccessible under conditions of stress or methodological rigidity. Suggestology, the mother science of Suggestopedia, studies the unconscious and affective influences that intervene in cognitive processes; from it derives the conviction that positive suggestion, understood not as manipulation, but as generative trust, can amplify memory, comprehension, and intuition.

This perspective introduces a paradigmatic turning point in didactic design: the teacher is no longer just the one who plans and transmits content, but becomes a designer of cognitive atmospheres, a director of pedagogical suggestions that direct attention, motivation, and perception of the possible. From this point of view, the design process is not a linear sequence of objectives, contents, and verifications, but a dynamic and sensory organism in which the aesthetic and affective dimensions are intertwined with rationality.

According to Caskey and Flake [21], Suggestopedia acts by bypassing the antisuggestive, logical, affective, and ethical barriers, which limit the reception of formative stimuli and reduce cognitive flexibility. When these barriers are suspended through relaxation techniques, music, and storytelling, learning is transformed into a self-organizing process, in which the person accesses intuitive and design resources that are normally inactive. Lozanov identified in this condition of vigilant relaxation (concert pseudo-passiveness) the key to holistic learning, capable of integrating perception, emotion, and reason in a single experiential field. The transformative potential of Suggestopedia, in the context of educational planning, therefore, lies in the ability to foster a connectionist, non-linear thinking, open to the contamination of languages and the construction of relationships between knowledge. Lucas and Chapman [14] have shown how the use of suggestopedic strategies, integrated into storyboarding, can act as a driver for the university design curriculum, promoting reflective and creative design thinking in teachers. In such experiences, suggestions are used not to orient the content of learning, but to solicit generative questions, break predefined patterns, and encourage a narrative and systemic vision of knowledge. The integration of the Suggestopedia in educational design also involves a reconsideration of educational time and space. As Humeniuk et al. [22] observe, the suggestopedic approach transforms the learning environment into an “educational concert” in which the rhythm of the music, the arrangement of objects, and the body posture contribute to the coherence of the training process. In this framework, design is no longer an abstract planning, but an experiential choreography: the teacher, like an orchestra conductor, harmonizes the different elements, linguistic, visual, and sound, to generate an aesthetic and cognitive tension that favors memorization and creativity.

Music takes on an epistemic function. According to Lozanov and later confirmed by Caskey [21], Baroque compositions, due to their rhythmic structure of about 60 beats per minute, induce a state of alpha relaxation, synchronizing the heartbeat and brain waves with a rhythm that facilitates the deep assimilation of information. From a biodidactic point of view, this condition of sensory harmonization produces an effect of cognitive coherence, in which didactic design can be experienced as an educational flow experience. In this sense, the Suggestopedia can be interpreted as a pedagogy of a vital project, in which the design process becomes an opportunity for the discovery of one’s own latent resources and for the reactivation of dormant creative potential. The student not only plans a task, but also himself in relation to knowledge, emotions, and others. This perspective appears consistent with contemporary theories of self-determination and educational autopoiesis, in which design is seen as a form of dynamic self-construction and not as a mere execution of a pre-established plan.

3.2. Applications of Suggestopedia in Educational Design Processes

In the context of educational design, Suggestopedia offers a double potential: on the one hand, as a tool for the training and self-efficacy of teachers in the conception and planning phase; on the other hand, as a methodology to stimulate creative and interdisciplinary design processes in students. Both dimensions converge in the concept of evocative design, understood as a form of experiential design that integrates cognition, emotion, and imagination. The experience reported by Lucas and Chapman [14] at the University of Cumbria provides a concrete example of this approach, not because the pedagogical techniques employed are in themselves unique or innovative, but because of the way they are intentionally framed and mobilized within a curriculum redesign process. Elements such as a calm and modulated voice, the use of reflective pauses, and open visual questions are well-established features of effective teaching and are commonly found across a wide range of pedagogical traditions, including those considered more “traditional” or foundational [22].

What distinguishes the contribution of Lucas and Chapman is that these affective and paraverbal dimensions are not treated as implicit teaching skills or background conditions, but are explicitly foregrounded as design-relevant resources within a structured professional development intervention. Drawing on suggestopedic principles, the authors render these typically tacit aspects of teaching visible, discussable, and intentionally aligned with course redesign activities—specifically through the use of storyboarding as a reflective design tool.

This repositioning is consistent with research in teacher education that emphasizes the importance of making implicit pedagogical knowledge explicit in order to support professional learning and reflective practice [23]. From a design perspective, it also aligns with approaches that conceptualize teaching as a form of educational design in which pedagogical choices—often taken for granted—are deliberately examined, articulated, and negotiated [24].

As widely acknowledged in the literature on effective teaching and teacher education, pedagogical resources acquire their educational significance not primarily through novelty, but through intentionality, visibility, and reflective use within structured design processes. In this sense, the relevance of the example lies in its capacity to demonstrate how affective and relational dimensions of teaching can be systematically integrated into instructional planning and professional development, rather than remaining implicit or informally enacted. This environment enabled participants to engage more deeply in storyboarding activities, which were used as a reflective tool to rethink the structure, sequencing, and pedagogical coherence of their courses. In this sense, suggestive techniques did not function as instructional content in themselves, but as facilitators of attention, reflection, and meaning-making during the process of course redesign. In these sessions, each participant drew the “story” of his or her teaching, visually representing the links between objectives, activities, and evaluations. The questions asked followed the logic of progressive suggestion: “Now look again… How could you connect these elements?”, creating an atmosphere of relaxed concentration and stimulating spontaneous design insights.

The outcome of these experiences shows that Suggestopedia, applied to didactic design, favors a transition from the logic of problem solving to that of sense making, in which the educational designer not only tries to solve problems, but to generate meaning through the connection between apparently disjointed elements. In this way, design becomes an aesthetic and reflective act, based on listening and sensory awareness. At the same time, on the student side, the Suggestopedia can be adopted to strengthen collaborative learning design processes. Recent studies conducted in technical-scientific and linguistic fields [25,26] show how the use of music, storytelling, and role playing in design workshops promotes the development of metacognitive and design skills, while increasing motivation and self-efficacy. In these experiments, the Suggestopedia has been used not only to improve language learning but to promote planning and problem-setting skills: students, immersed in an atmosphere of trust and play, are led to explore alternatives and generate creative solutions in complex contexts.

The musical and narrative component acts as cognitive design devices. Through music, the rhythm of thought relaxes, allowing a profound restructuring of mental models and favoring the generation of new ideas. As Deswarni notes [27], Suggestopedia creates a motivating environment that reduces performance anxiety and encourages cognitive risk-taking, essential elements for authentically innovative design. In this way, music and suggestion become catalysts for divergent and systemic thinking, indispensable for dealing with the complexity of contemporary educational processes. In interdisciplinary design workshops, Suggestopedia can be adopted as a methodology for empathetic design thinking [28]. The phases of the method, presentation, active and passive consultation, reworking, and play, lend themselves to being reinterpreted as stages of a design path: exploration of the problem, sensory immersion, creative incubation, and prototyping. The use of calibrated musical backgrounds, the alternation of moments of concentration and relaxation, and the use of narrative visualization techniques allow for to creation of an experiential continuity between conception and realization.

From a pedagogical point of view, the Suggestopedia also offers an ethical and aesthetic model for inclusive educational design. Its attention to the emotional and bodily environment of learning favors the participation of subjects with different cognitive and sensory styles. Learning thus becomes a multisensory and dialogical experience, in which everyone can contribute according to their own perceptive modalities. This perspective is particularly relevant in lifelong learning and adult education contexts, as shown by the studies conducted in Sweden on the linguistic reintegration of migrants through suggestive techniques [29]. These experiences show how the Suggestopedia, even in non-school training environments, can restore dignity and agency to the participants, transforming the educational design into an act of identity co-creation. In the future, the integration of Suggestopedia in teacher training and university courses in design pedagogy could redefine the concept of educational design competence. In fact, it implies the ability to generate suggestive learning contexts, to use paraverbal and musical language as tools of cognitive facilitation, and to take care of the emotional dimension of design as an integral part of the teaching process. As Rahmasari et al. [30] suggest, suggestopedic methodologies increase motivation and the capacity for imaginative representation, making the project a lived experience and not just a planned one.

The result is that Suggestopedia, applied to didactic design, is not simply a technique, but a philosophy of integral educational design. It invites us to rethink education as an act of care and shared creation, in which music, voice, narration, and silence become tools to harmonize mind, body, and knowledge. In an era marked by complexity and fragmentation, the Suggestopedia restores to design its poetic and relational nature, offering contemporary teaching a paradigm capable of combining rigor and inspiration, structure and imagination, method and beauty.

To address this concern, it is important to clarify how the principles discussed translate into higher education contexts. In university settings, Suggestopedia is not proposed as a prescriptive or idealized model of teaching, nor as a radical transformation of institutional structures. Rather, it operates at the level of micro-design decisions within existing courses, seminars, and workshops.

In practical terms, this translation concerns how teachers structure learning sequences, manage time and attention, and design moments of engagement and reflection. For example, in lecture-based courses, suggestive elements may be introduced through the modulation of voice, the intentional use of pauses, or the integration of brief musical or narrative cues at key moments of conceptual transition. In seminars and design studios, these principles inform the pacing of activities, the alternation between collective discussion and individual reflection, and the use of visual or narrative prompts to support meaning-making.

In higher education, where student autonomy and cognitive load are particularly relevant, Suggestopedia contributes by fostering conditions that support sustained attention, reduce performance anxiety, and encourage exploratory thinking. These outcomes are not framed as normative ideals, but as observable effects emerging from the intentional design of learning environments. In this sense, the approach complements existing pedagogical practices in HE, such as active learning, problem-based learning, and reflective design, rather than replacing them.

Thus, Suggestopedia translates into higher education not as a theory of “how teaching should be,” but as a set of design-oriented principles that can be adapted to disciplinary, institutional, and cultural constraints. Its value lies precisely in its capacity to inform concrete pedagogical choices while remaining compatible with the realities of contemporary university teaching.

4. Simplex Teaching and Music for a Pedagogy of Resonance

4.1. Simplex Didactics and Music as an Educational Paradigm of Adaptation and Meaning

In contemporary educational contexts, characterized by continuous change and increasing complexity, pedagogical reflection is called upon to identify forms of mediation capable of integrating cognitive processes with affective and sensory dimensions, and scientific rigor with experiential vitality. Within this perspective, simplex didactics is configured as a paradigm capable of responding to unpredictability and plurality, offering teachers a flexible framework of meaning within which to plan, act, and reflect. The concept of simplexity, introduced by Alain Berthoz [2], refers to the capacity of living systems to cope with complex situations through simple—but not simplistic—adaptive strategies. When transposed into the educational field, this model supports the construction of learning paths that remain immersed in contextual and relational complexity while simplifying without reducing, enhancing without trivializing, and restoring order and meaning to the flow of educational experience [31,32].

Within this vision, music represents a privileged ally not merely as an expressive medium, but as a pedagogically structured device that exemplifies the logic of simplex didactics. In particular, the suggestopedic use of music—such as the concert sessions articulated by Lozanov—transforms the multiplicity of auditory stimuli into a coherent experiential structure. Through the intentional synchronization of curricular content with Baroque music characterized by slow and regular rhythms, suggestopedic practice translates complexity into harmony, dissonance into interpretative possibility, and the unexpected into creative movement [33].

Teaching through music, in this sense, does not imply a generic aesthetic enrichment of instruction, but the activation of a form of knowledge in which cognition and feeling are dynamically intertwined. As in living systems, musical activity proceeds according to rules and properties that closely correspond to those of simplex thought: separation of functions and cooperation, flexibility, memory, anticipation, and meaning. In suggestopedic contexts, these properties are operationalized through devices such as the alternation of active and passive concert phases, the principle of double flatness—addressing learning simultaneously at conscious and unconscious levels—and the construction of a symbolic learning environment oriented toward trust and receptivity. The teacher who works musically thus becomes not simply a facilitator, but a director of relationships and rhythms, capable of orchestrating differences within an educational polyphony.

The encounter between simplex didactics and music is grounded, first, in a shared principle of adaptation. Music, like any living form, reacts to context: it varies, deviates, improvises, and maintains coherence while transforming itself [34]. This dynamic resonates with the suggestopedic conception of learning as a continuous reorganization of perceptual, emotional, and cognitive schemes. According to Sibilio [35], the simple educator does not follow a linear trajectory, but constructs flexible paths that integrate action, reflection, and perception. In this sense, suggestopedic musical experience functions as a privileged laboratory of simplex didactics, in which learners experience the plurality of languages, the reciprocity of roles, and the necessity of attuning individual action to collective rhythm.

At the cognitive level, music operates as a technology of attention and memory. In suggestopedic practice, musical rhythm and structured repetition support processes of stimulus selection, inhibition of the superfluous, and sustained concentration—processes that correspond to the rule of inhibition and rejection identified by Berthoz as foundational to intelligent behavior. Learners engaged in musical listening or performance learn to recognize silence as a meaningful component of structure, and rhythm as a regulator of time and relational coordination. The same cognitive economy that governs musical performance thus informs simplex didactic action: knowing when and how to intervene in order to avoid dispersion and enhance available resources.

From an emotional and relational perspective, music enables the enactment of cooperation and redundancy. In musical ensembles and choirs, individual differences become functional components of a collective balance, and meaning emerges only within shared structures. Suggestopedic learning environments explicitly leverage this dynamic, using music as a non-verbal mediator that reduces affective barriers, fosters empathy, and supports inclusive participation [36]. In this sense, musical inclusion constitutes an operative expression of simplex didactics: through sound, educational contexts rediscover their capacity to integrate order and diversity, structure and freedom.

Another point of convergence between simplex didactics and music concerns speed and anticipatory regulation. In musical performance, as in teaching, decision-making readiness is crucial: musicians and educators alike must respond to contextual signals and modulate their actions in real time [36]. In Berthoz’s framework, such rapidity emerges from the integration of perceptual, motor, and mnemonic processes. Similarly, suggestopedic musical education stimulates embodied cognition, in which body, voice, and mind operate in synergy [37]. Within the simplex paradigm, memory is not mere conservation, but the capacity to reorganize experience in anticipation of future action. Music functions as a dynamic archive, evoking past experience while continuously reinventing it, thereby offering a model for educational memory and curriculum design understood as an open, rewritable score [38,39].

A further analogy concerns the rule of deviation, understood as the capacity to move beyond predefined patterns in order to explore alternatives. In music—particularly in practices such as improvisation, variation, and modulation—deviation is not disorder, but a regulated source of creativity. Suggestopedia explicitly legitimizes this principle by transforming error, imagination, and play into generative resources for learning. Within simplex didactics, deviation thus becomes a pedagogical strategy for invention, allowing complexity to be transformed into formative energy. Among the rules identified by Berthoz, meaning represents the generative nucleus of the entire system: meaning is not applied to experience, but emerges from the alignment of perception, action, and intention [2]. Music, more than any other language, exemplifies this unity, arising from the interaction between gesture, vibration, and emotion.

Teaching with music, therefore, entails educating learners to meaning through embodied and symbolic experience. In this perspective, music education—interpreted through a simplex lens and operationalized through suggestopedic principles—constitutes a pathway of emotional, aesthetic, and relational literacy, in which learning is not only cognitive but fully human. This orientation is also reflected in the National Guidelines for the Curriculum [40], which recognize music as a means of connecting cognitive, cultural, and communicative dimensions of knowledge. Within this framework, simplex didactics provides the theoretical tools to understand how such objectives can be pursued systemically and adaptively, enabling educational contexts to function like an orchestra: a complex system in which each voice finds its place through dialogue, resonance, and shared meaning.

Finally, simplex didactics and music converge on a shared ethical horizon. Both educate responsibility, reciprocity, and recognition of the other. The simplex teacher, like a conductor, does not impose but coordinates; listens, regulates, and gives rhythm to participation.

4.2. From Pedagogy of Resonance to Evaluative Criteria in Instructional Design

Music thus becomes both a metaphor and a concrete pedagogical practice of democratic education, not in a generic or rhetorical sense, but insofar as it structures learning situations in which freedom and rigor, individuality and community, are intentionally held together. Within suggestopedic practice, this democratic dimension is enacted through collective musical experiences—such as shared listening during concert sessions or coordinated expressive activities—in which individual participation acquires meaning only within a common rhythmic and symbolic framework. In this way, music does not merely represent harmony, but actively produces it by regulating attention, emotional attunement, and relational coordination.

When intertwined with the theory of simplex didactics, these suggestopedic musical devices contribute to restoring one of the school’s core educational tasks: the capacity to harmonize the complexity of reality without denying it, translating multiplicity into shared forms of meaning. The classroom thus becomes a laboratory of resonances not by virtue of an abstract ideal, but through concrete design choices that allow knowledge to resonate simultaneously at bodily, emotional, cognitive, and symbolic levels.

From this perspective, the integration between Suggestopedia and simplex didactics can be understood as a possible pathway for renewing contemporary educational design. Suggestopedia, through structured devices such as positive suggestion, the orchestration of affective climate, the alternation of active and passive phases, and the principle of double flatness, offers a coherent system for acting on the experiential and symbolic conditions of learning. Simplex didactics, rooted in the adaptive and generative functioning of living systems, provides the epistemological and procedural framework through which these experiential conditions can be translated into intentional, analyzable, and transferable design choices.

In this reciprocal relationship, Suggestopedia contributes the affective–aesthetic dimension of learning, restoring centrality to the body, voice, rhythm, and aesthetic experience, while simplex didactics governs the organization of action by transforming harmony into method, resonance into design logic, and intuition into a reflective and evaluable formative process. Their integration does not result in a prescriptive or linear synthesis, but in an emergent hybrid model of didactic planning in which affective resonance and structural regulation mutually constrain and reinforce one another. Education, in this model, is not reduced to a procedural sequence, but is understood as an act of meaning-making and embodied dialogue, capable of combining scientific rigor with the human depth of the educational experience.

Within the present study, the notion of pedagogy of resonance is therefore not employed merely as a metaphorical description of harmonious learning environments. Rather, it is explicitly operationalized as a set of evaluative dimensions guiding both instructional design and analytical interpretation. Resonance is defined as the dynamic alignment between cognitive, affective, relational, and symbolic components of the learning experience, and is translated into observable and discussable design features.

Within the evaluation grid, pedagogical resonance is articulated across multiple criteria. At the structural level, it is reflected in the coherence and modularity of instructional sequences, indicating the capacity of the design to maintain continuity while allowing adaptive variation. At the relational level, resonance is captured through indicators related to learning climate, cooperation, and role distribution, which assess whether the design supports reciprocal engagement rather than unilateral transmission. At the aesthetic–symbolic level, resonance is evaluated through the intentional integration of music, narrative elements, visual language, and bodily experience—understood, in line with suggestopedic principles, as mediators of meaning rather than ornamental additions. Finally, at the cognitive and metacognitive level, resonance is operationalized through indicators addressing sense-making, reflective documentation, and the generation of shared memory, consistent with the suggestopedic emphasis on long-term integration and symbolic retention.

By distributing the concept of resonance across these evaluative dimensions, the study translates an otherwise abstract pedagogical construct into a concrete analytical framework. This approach makes it possible to identify, discuss, and compare forms of resonance across instructional designs, ensuring that the concept functions as an operative criterion within the research process rather than as a purely rhetorical or aspirational notion.

4.3. Simplex Didactics and Suggestopedia

Rather than constituting two parallel or merely complementary frameworks, Suggestopedia and simplex didactics operate in this study as interdependent dimensions of a single design logic. Suggestopedia contributes not generic affective teaching techniques, but a set of pedagogically specific and historically situated principles that shape the conditions of learning at an affective, aesthetic, and embodied level.

More specifically, Suggestopedia operationalizes learning through structured devices such as the concert sessions (active and passive), in which curricular content is intentionally synchronized with Baroque music characterized by a slow and regular rhythm (approximately 60 beats per minute), aimed at inducing a state of alert relaxation and facilitating global perception and long-term memory. Additional suggestopedic principles include the rule of double flatness—addressing learning simultaneously at conscious and unconscious levels—the intentional use of positive suggestion to reduce antisuggestive barriers, and the symbolic construction of authority and trust as pedagogical resources rather than as control mechanisms.

These elements are not conceived as isolated techniques, but as a coherent system that configures the learning environment as a sensory and symbolic ecology, in which music, rhythm, narrative, and spatial organization function as cognitive mediators rather than as decorative additions. In this sense, Suggestopedia acts on the conditions of possibility of learning by systematically lowering cognitive and affective barriers, fostering receptivity, and activating latent attentional and imaginative resources.

Simplex didactics, in turn, provides the structural and procedural grammar through which this evocative potential can be translated into coherent, adaptive, and analyzable instructional design choices. Through principles such as separation and cooperation, deviation, memory, and meaning, simplex didactics enables educators to govern the complexity generated by affective and aesthetic mediation without reducing it, transforming suggestopedic devices into modular, transferable, and context-sensitive design components.

Their integration does not result in a linear synthesis, but in an emergent hybrid model of didactic design, in which affective resonance and structural regulation mutually constrain and reinforce one another. While Suggestopedia configures the experiential and symbolic ground of learning, simplex didactics organizes action and reflection, allowing educational design in higher education to be simultaneously emotionally generative and methodologically robust, and to support reflective planning, adaptive decision-making, and meaningful learning trajectories.

5. Presentation of an Action Research Study

5.1. Introduction to the Study

For the sake of conceptual clarity, it is important to specify the methodological positioning of the present study with respect to action research traditions. While the research design draws inspiration from action-oriented and reflective approaches, it does not fully correspond to the paradigm of participatory action research (PAR) as defined by Kemmis and McTaggart [38] or by Reason and Bradbury [39]. In PAR, participants are explicitly engaged as co-researchers, contributing to the formulation of research questions, the design of inquiry, and the collective analysis of data at a meta-reflective level. In the present study, by contrast, the research framework, objectives, and analytical criteria were primarily defined by the researchers, while participants were involved as reflective practitioners within a structured formative intervention.

More precisely, the study aligns with a research-led action research model, in which participants actively engage in cycles of experimentation, reflection, and redesign within their professional practice, but do not assume a full co-constructive role in the epistemic governance of the research process. Their participation was substantial in terms of pedagogical decision-making, design implementation, and self-reflective documentation; however, the responsibility for methodological framing, data aggregation, and interpretative synthesis remained with the research team. This positioning situates the study closer to a practitioner-oriented action research approach rather than to a fully participatory action research model in the strict sense.

Nevertheless, the participatory dimension should not be understood as absent, but as situated at the level of pedagogical practice rather than at the level of research design. Participants were invited to interpret theoretical constructs, experiment with suggestopedic and simplex principles, and reflect critically on their design choices through self-assessment tools and collective discussion. In this sense, participation operated primarily as a formative and professional-learning device, coherent with the aims of teacher education in higher education contexts, rather than as a meta-research process. This methodological choice was intentional and consistent with the study’s focus on instructional design quality and professional development, rather than on the co-production of theory.

Accordingly, the term participatory is used in this study in a didactic and professional sense, referring to the active engagement of teachers in reflective practice and design-based experimentation, and not in the stricter epistemological sense associated with participatory action research. Clarifying this distinction allows for a more precise alignment between the research questions, the methodological framework adopted, and the analytical claims advanced by the study.

5.2. Participants and Study Duration

The study involved 230 pre-service teachers enrolled in a specialization program for educational support during the 2024–2025 academic year at a single higher education institution. Participants were attending the second semester of the program and were primarily preparing for roles in inclusive and interdisciplinary educational settings across different school levels. The institutional context was characterized by a structured teacher education curriculum combining theoretical instruction, laboratory-based activities, and supervised design practice.

The research was conducted over a period of seven months, from November 2024 to May 2025, and followed a researcher-led action research design articulated into three main phases: (1) an initial training phase focused on the theoretical and methodological foundations of Suggestopedia and simplex didactics; (2) a design and experimentation phase in which participants developed interdisciplinary instructional projects in small groups; and (3) a reflection and evaluation phase involving project presentation, self-assessment, and external evaluation using a structured rubric.

A purposive convenience sampling strategy was adopted, based on participants’ enrollment in the specialization program and their voluntary consent to take part in the study. This approach ensured alignment between the research aims and the participants’ professional learning trajectories, while remaining consistent with the exploratory and context-sensitive nature of action research in teacher education.

The training course was organized in three phases, for a total duration of 20 h spread over three weeks.

• First phase (10 h): theoretical-practical training on the fundamentals of Suggestopedia [1,11] and Simplex Teaching [2,30,31,35], with in-depth studies on the rules of simplex didactics and suggestopedic strategies applied to interdisciplinary teaching design.
• Second phase (5 h): instructional design workshop activity in small groups, aimed at building interdisciplinary educational projects based on reality tasks.
• Third phase (5 h): presentation and collective discussion of the design products created, from a reflective and evaluative perspective.

The entire course was developed according to the research-action methodology [38,39], which allowed teachers to alternate moments of experimentation, discussion and self-reflection, in a laboratory context centered on cooperation and experiential learning.

The study was conducted in accordance with established ethical standards for educational research in higher education contexts. Participation was entirely voluntary and took place within an institutional training framework. Prior to the beginning of the research activities, participants were informed about the aims of the study, the nature of the proposed activities, and the use of the collected materials for research purposes. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants, who were explicitly informed that their decision to participate—or to withdraw at any stage—would have no impact on their academic evaluation or professional standing.

To ensure confidentiality and data protection, all collected materials (design products, reflective logbooks, observation notes, and self-assessment grids) were anonymized before analysis. Each project was assigned an alphanumeric code, and no personally identifiable information was included in the dataset. Data were stored on password-protected institutional platforms and accessed exclusively by the research team for the purposes of analysis.

The analysis focused on pedagogical artifacts and reflective documentation rather than on personal or sensitive data. Results were reported in aggregated form, ensuring that individual participants could not be identified in publications or presentations. Given the educational and non-invasive nature of the intervention, and the absence of risks beyond those encountered in standard teacher training activities, no formal ethics committee approval was required under institutional guidelines. Nonetheless, particular attention was paid to principles of transparency, voluntariness, and respect for participants’ professional agency throughout the research process.

5.3. Procedures and Data Analysis

To enhance transparency and replicability, this section clarifies the procedural sequence of the study and the roles assumed by instructors, participants, and researchers throughout the action-research cycle. The research followed a structured, researcher-led action research design articulated in three iterative phases: planning, action, and reflection.

This phase was designed and coordinated by the research team, who defined the research questions, theoretical framework, training objectives, and evaluation criteria. During the initial sessions, instructors introduced participants to the core principles of Suggestopedia and simplex didactics through lectures, guided discussions, and exemplifications. At this stage, the researchers also presented the instructional design framework and the evaluation grid derived from the properties and rules of simplex didactics. Participants’ role in this phase was primarily formative and reflective: they engaged with the theoretical content and clarified its implications for educational design, but did not participate in the construction of the research instruments.

In the second phase, participants worked in small interdisciplinary groups to design authentic educational projects. Participants acted as practitioner-designers, applying the proposed theoretical principles to concrete instructional contexts. Instructors facilitated the workshops, supported group work, and ensured methodological coherence, while researchers adopted a non-interventionist observational role. Data collection occurred during this phase through multiple sources: design artifacts produced by the groups, reflective logbooks compiled by participants, and structured observation notes recorded by the researchers.

In the final phase, projects were presented and discussed in plenary sessions. Participants conducted structured self-assessments using the evaluation grid, reflecting on design choices, strengths, and areas for improvement. In parallel, two members of the research team independently evaluated each project using the same grid. This dual perspective enabled triangulation between self-assessment and external evaluation.

Regarding data analysis, the primary unit of analysis was the educational project produced by each group. Scores were generated by assigning ordinal values (1–4) to each indicator in the evaluation grid. These indicators had been defined a priori based on established simplex didactics properties and national curricular guidelines. The grid was validated through expert review prior to its use and piloted during the initial training sessions to ensure clarity and usability.

Inter-rater reliability was calculated using Cohen’s Kappa to assess consistency between the two external evaluators. Discrepancies were addressed through negotiated agreement sessions, during which evaluators revisited the descriptors and justified their judgments with reference to concrete evidence in the artifacts. Qualitative notes accompanying the scores were analyzed thematically to support and contextualize quantitative results, enhancing interpretative credibility.

By explicitly distinguishing phases, roles, instruments, and analytic procedures, the study provides a replicable model for implementing and evaluating suggestopedic–simplex instructional design interventions in higher education contexts.

5.4. Tool Used

For the evaluation of the products developed by the trainees, a grid for the observation of reality tasks was adopted (

Table 1. Evaluation grid generated based on the properties and rules of simplex didactics, as well as the National Guidelines for the 2012 curriculum [40]. Pedagogical and curricular coherence.

Indicators	Description	Basic Level (1)	Intermediate Level (2)	Advanced Level (3)
Alignment with the aims of the curriculum	Consistent with the rules of centrality of the person, citizenship, and new humanism [40].	Weak consistency with competence goals.	Partial coherence, centered on individual disciplinary areas.	Full coherence, unified vision of goals, and transversal skills.
Inclusive orientation	The product responds to the rules of a school for each and every one.	Consider only common needs.	Integrate partial adaptations.	It provides for differentiation, accessibility, and participation strategies.
Disciplinary transversality	Ability to integrate different knowledge and languages.	Isolated disciplinary approach.	Some interdisciplinary connections.	Transdisciplinary and systemic approach.

,

Table 2. Evaluation grid generated based on the properties and rules of simplex didactics, as well as the National Guidelines for the 2012 curriculum [40]. Teaching and design structure.

Indicators	Description	1	2	3
Clarity of learning objectives	An explicit and verifiable definition of objectives consistent with the objectives of competence.	Implicit or generic objectives.	Objectives formulated but not always consistent.	Clear, measurable objectives, consistent with the goals.
Sequentiality and modularity (Properties: Separation of functions and modularity)	Structure is divided into functional phases, with progressively connected activities.	Rigid or fragmented sequence.	Partial sequence with weak connections.	Modular and integrated structure, consistent with cognitive processes.
Adaptability (Properties: Flexibility and adaptation to change)	Ability of the product to be adapted to different contexts, levels, or disciplines.	Limited flexibility.	Adaptable with substantial modifications.	High transferability and contextualization.

,

Table 3. Evaluation grid generated based on the properties and rules of simplex didactics, as well as the National Guidelines for the 2012 curriculum [40]. Quality of cognitive and metacognitive processes.

Indicators	Description	1	2	3
Cognitive activation	Promotion of analysis, synthesis, problem problem-solving processes.	Prevalence of reproductive activities.	Activities that partially stimulate reflection.	Research, exploration, comparison, and construction activities.
Metacognition	It stimulates awareness of one’s own learning (“learning to learn”).	Not present.	Inserted in some phases.	Systematically integrated into the pathway.
Generalization (Properties)	Ability to transfer learning to new contexts.	Limited applications.	Some transfer situations.	Spontaneous and creative generalization.

,

Table 4. Evaluation grid generated based on the properties and rules of simplex didactics, as well as the National Guidelines for the 2012 curriculum [40]. Relational and social dimension.

Indicators	Description	1	2	3
Cooperation and redundancy (rule)	The product enhances the cooperative dimension and the plurality of roles.	Individual activity.	Occasional collaboration.	Stable and functional cooperative structure.
Learning climate	Ability to create a welcoming and motivating environment.	Neutral or competitive environment.	Partially collaborative environment.	Inclusive, participatory, and reflective climate.
Valuing differences	Attention to cultures, cognitive styles, and individual potential.	Differences not considered.	Differences are considered at a descriptive level.	Differences are valued as an educational resource.

,

Table 5. Evaluation grid generated based on the properties and rules of simplex didactics, as well as the National Guidelines for the 2012 curriculum [40]. Methodological innovation and mediation.

Indicators	Description	1	2	3
Conscious use of technologies	Integration of digital tools for meaningful learning.	Marginal or technical use.	Single-step functional use.	Conscious, critical, and integrated use.
Symbolic and linguistic mediation	Use of multiple languages (iconic, bodily, sound).	Predominantly verbal language.	Partial linguistic plurality.	Coherent semiotic and symbolic multilingualism.
Enhancement of the body, art, and music	Presence of aesthetic and bodily experiences in a formative function.	Absent.	Present but not integrated.	Central to design and evaluation.

,

Table 6. Evaluation grid generated based on the properties and rules of simplex didactics, as well as the National Guidelines for the 2012 curriculum [40]. Temporality and memory of the process.

Indicators	Description	1	2	3
Documentation and reflexivity	The path is accompanied by observation, recording, and analysis of the phases.	No or fragmentary documentation.	Partial and descriptive documentation.	Reflective and interpretative documentation.
Memory (Properties)	The product generates a shared “memory”, the basis for new learning.	No traces or memories.	Presence of final products.	Narrative, visual, and symbolic memory, useful for re-design.
Formative assessment	Self-assessment is an integral part of the process.	Not foreseen.	Activated at certain times.	Structured in a continuous and dialogic way.

,

Table 7. Evaluation grid generated based on the properties and rules of simplex didactics, as well as the National Guidelines for the 2012 curriculum [40]. Operational simplex didactics and design simplex didactics.

Indicators	Description	1	2	3
Complexity-simplex didactics ratio (Rule of simplex didactics)	The product simplifies complexity while maintaining cognitive depth.	Oversimplification or technicality.	Partial equilibrium.	Effective reduction of complexity in a significant way.
Deviation and creative adaptation (rule)	Ability of the product to introduce production variations and alternatives to the given model.	Methodological rigidity.	Some controlled detours.	Conscious and flexible innovation.
Probabilistic anticipation (rule)	The project includes possible scenarios and responses to unforeseen events.	No predictions or adaptations.	Partial forecasts.	Anticipatory and adaptive structure.

,

Table 8. Evaluation grid generated based on the properties and rules of simplex didactics, as well as the National Guidelines for the 2012 curriculum [40]. Aesthetic quality and sense.

Indicators	Description	1	2	3
Formal care and harmony	Aesthetics, balance, and legibility of the product.	Neglected aspect.	A neat but inconsistent presentation.	High aesthetic consistency, harmony, and legibility.
Presence of meaning (rule)	The product is significant for students and teachers; it generates shared value.	Implicit or confusing intent.	A sense linked to specific objectives.	Strong educational intentionality and value resonance.
Ethical and value consistency	Respect for constitutional rules and educational rights.	Not always consistent.	Consistent but limited to certain areas.	Explicit promotion of the values of dignity, citizenship, and solidarity.

,

Table 9. Evaluation grid generated based on the properties and rules of simplex didactics, as well as the National Guidelines for the 2012 curriculum [40]. Evaluation dimension and improvement.

Indicators	Description	1	2	3
Self-assessment and feedback	The product provides for review and improvement mechanisms.	Not provided.	Planned but not very operational.	Integrated into the design process.
Reliability (Ownership)	The product maintains consistency and functionality over time.	Ephemeral or non-replicable.	Partially stable.	Solid, replicable, and adaptable.
Speed (Properties)	Efficiency between resources, times, and results.	Expensive and ineffective.	Adapted to school times.	Optimal balance between depth and sustainability.

,

Table 10. Evaluation grid generated based on the properties and rules of simplex didactics, as well as the National Guidelines for the 2012 curriculum [40]. Summary of the rules and properties of simplex didactics.

Category	Elements
Property	Separation of functions and modularity; Rapidity; Reliability; Flexibility and adaptation to change; Generalization; Memory.
Rules	Inhibition and the rule of rejection; Specialization and selection; Probabilistic anticipation; Detour; Cooperation and redundancy; Sense.

and

Table 11. Evaluation grid generated based on the properties and rules of simplex didactics, as well as the National Guidelines for the 2012 curriculum [40]. Overall assessment.

Dimension	Weight (%)	Score (1–3)	Notes
Pedagogical and curricular coherence	15%
Structure and design	15%
Cognitive and metacognitive processes	15%
Relational and social dimension	10%
Methodological innovation	10%
Temporality and memory	10%
Design simplex didactics	10%
Aesthetic quality and sense	10%
Evaluation and improvement	5%
Grand total	100%

), built based on the MIUR Guidelines for design by skills and integrated with the rules and properties of simplex didactics [2,35]. The grid included five main viewing areas:

• Curricular and inclusive coherence: ability to integrate disciplinary and transversal objectives, attention to accessibility and participation.
• Design structure and modularity: clarity in the teaching sequence, presence of distinct but interconnected phases (properties of separation and cooperation).
• Methodological innovation and flexibility: creative use of strategies suggested by the Suggestopedia (music, relaxation, empathic role of the teacher) and adaptation to the context (rule of deviation).
• Aesthetic dimension and meaning: presence of musical, visual or narrative elements capable of generating motivation and shared meaning (rule of meaning).
• Formative assessment and reflexivity: ability to integrate self-assessment processes and to document the path (memory properties).

Each area was rated on a four-level scale (1 = initial, 2 = intermediate, 3 = advanced, 4 = excellent), with an open space for qualitative notes. The grid, validated through a peer review process by three experts in inclusive teaching and educational research methodology, was administered to both teachers in training (self-assessment) and trainer-researchers (hetero-assessment), to compare internal and external perceptions.

5.5. Collection and Analysis of Products

During the second and third phases of the training course, the participants were divided into 30 interdisciplinary working groups, each of which developed an educational project based on authentic tasks and linked to real-life situations. The materials produced included design sheets, concept maps, storyboards, multimedia materials and short oral presentations accompanied by musical or audiovisual supports.

The collection of products took place through a digital platform (Google Classroom) and storage in the research repository of the Department of Humanities, Philosophy, and Education. Each paper was coded with an anonymous identification number and analyzed through a two-level process:

• Descriptive analysis: Categorize project content based on the five grid areas, with frequency counts and score averages.
• Thematic qualitative analysis: Textual examination of the narrative and reflective sections of the projects to identify recurring indicators of simplex didactics (flexibility, adaptation, cooperation, meaning).

The analysis was conducted by two independent researchers; the inter-evaluator agreement index (Cohen’s Kappa) [38] was equal to 0.87, indicative of a high interpretative consistency. Of the 30 projects analyzed, 22 fully met the criteria set out in the grid, showing a high degree of consistency between objectives, methodological strategies, and interdisciplinary integration; the remaining 8 have, however, highlighted elements of innovation and potential for improvement.

In parallel, participants’ logbooks and direct observations of trainers were collected and used to triangulate data and verify consistency between declared design and emerging practices.

The twenty-one educational products identified can be found in full within the shared folder, accessible via the QR code below (Figure 1). The QR code shown in Figure 1 provides access to the full set of educational products developed by the participants. Among these materials, the twenty-one projects listed and analytically discussed in

Table 12. Educational Products Evaluation Table (n = 21).

	Curricular and Inclusive Coherence	Structure and Design	Innovation and Flexibility (Simplex Didactics)	Aesthetic Dimension and Meaning	Cognitive and Cooperative Processes	Overall Rating
Product 1	Excellent—consistency with competence and inclusion goals.	Well-structured and modular.	High adaptability.	Formal care and visual clarity.	It stimulates cooperation and reflection.	Excellent
Product 2	Good—clear and consistent goals.	Effective teaching sequence.	Moderate flexibility.	Harmonious presentation.	Trigger scan jobs.	Rattling good
Product 3	Excellent—inclusion and active citizenship.	Planning is divided into phases.	Evident methodological innovation.	Rich aesthetic value.	It promotes teamwork.	Excellent
Product 4	Good—responds to disciplinary goals.	Linear and clear structure.	Adaptable to different contexts.	Well-groomed appearance.	It encourages participation.	Rattling good
Product 5	Excellent—oriented to the vertical curriculum.	Well-defined modularity.	It introduces the rule of creative deviation.	High visual harmony.	Activate metacognition.	Excellent
Product 6	Good—attention to diversity.	Clear and progressive logic.	Good balance of simplex didactics and complexity.	Consistent presentation.	Functional cooperation.	Rattling good
Product 7	Excellent—strong pedagogical coherence.	Integration of languages and disciplines.	Controlled and flexible innovation.	Rich in meaning.	Activates critical thinking.	Excellent
Product 8	Good—referring to the school curriculum.	Effective and sustainable structure.	Good adaptability.	Well-groomed appearance.	It values teamwork.	Rattling good
Product 9	Excellent—integrated training purposes.	A well-defined approach for competences.	High flexibility and generalization.	Graphic care and sense of beauty.	It stimulates cooperation and reflection.	Excellent
Product 10	Good—clear and measurable goals.	Structured in effective modules.	Introduces functional adaptations.	Linear presentation.	Good cognitive activation.	Rattling good
Product 11	Excellent—oriented towards active citizenship.	Integrated design.	It provides for alternative scenarios (anticipation).	Accurate aesthetics.	Strong cooperative component.	Excellent
Product 12	Good—adhering to curricular purposes.	Clear modular structure.	Limited but consistent innovation.	Well-groomed appearance.	It promotes active participation.	Rattling good
Product 13	Excellent—attention to constitutional values.	Didactic and methodological coherence.	Creativity and adaptability.	Symbolic and communicative value.	Integrate thought and action.	Excellent
Product 14	Good—focused on key competences.	Functional structure.	Flexible and replicable.	Clean presentation.	Stimulate collaboration.	Rattling good
Product 15	Optimal—balance between educational and cognitive purposes.	Articulated and sustainable design.	It introduces rule of cooperation and meaning.	High aesthetic consistency.	Promotes metacognitive reflection.	Excellent
Product 16	Good—responds to disciplinary goals.	Clear teaching sequence.	Effective adaptation.	Nice looks.	Good level of interaction.	Rattling good
Product 17	Excellent—strong value dimension.	Well-calibrated structure.	Adopt rule of simplex didactics.	Formal and symbolic care.	Enable deep analysis processes.	Excellent
Product 18	Good—consistent and inclusive objectives.	Functional modularity.	Some innovative solutions.	Harmonious presentation.	Good student engagement.	Rattling good
Product 19	Excellent—pedagogical and curricular coherence.	Interdisciplinary design.	It provides alternative and adaptive scenarios.	High expressiveness.	It fosters collaborative skills.	Excellent
Product 20	Good—centered on digital skills.	Clear and transferable structure.	Good balance between simplex didactics and innovation.	Curated presentation.	Active participation of the group.	Rattling good
Product 21	Excellent—systemic and inclusive vision.	High design coherence.	Introduces flexibility and process memory.	Aesthetics and meaning integrated.	It activates collective reflective processes.	Excellent

correspond to the subset selected for systematic evaluation using the rubric described in this study.

All the materials presented demonstrated full adherence to the evaluation criteria previously illustrated, responding consistently to the methodological, pedagogical, and inclusive rules established by the National Guidelines for the curriculum [40] and by the parameters adopted for this analysis (Table 12 and

Table 13. General summary.

Dimension	Aggregate
Consistency with National Guidelines [40]	All products are consistent with the goals of competence and the rules of an inclusive and formative school.
Integration of the rules of simplex didactics	High: the products show flexibility, modularity, speed of adaptation and attention to the educational sense.
Methodological innovation	Widespread, with a strong presence of laboratory and cooperative approaches.
Aesthetic-symbolic quality	Very high: the products manifest care, harmony and expressive value.
Cognitive and metacognitive complexity	Good ability to activate reflection, analysis and generalization.
Overall outcome	Overall rating: Excellent—high design quality, curricular coherence and educational value.

).

The primary unit of analysis in this study was the instructional design product developed by each group. The 21 projects selected for evaluation constituted the core dataset for examining how suggestopedic principles and simplex didactics were concretely instantiated in interdisciplinary and inclusive instructional designs. In addition to the design artifacts, the study collected complementary qualitative materials—participants’ reflective notes/logbooks and researchers’ field notes recorded during workshop sessions—which were used to contextualize rubric-based judgments and to support interpretative claims through triangulation.

To enhance transparency and replicability, the evaluation grid was applied through a standardized scoring workflow. Step 1 (rater alignment): before formal scoring, evaluators reviewed the rubric descriptors together and conducted a brief calibration exercise on pilot materials to clarify the interpretation of indicators. Step 2 (independent scoring): two evaluators rated the 21 projects independently, assigning ordinal scores for each indicator and documenting qualitative notes linked to observable evidence in the artifacts. Step 3 (aggregation): scores were aggregated by rubric area to generate descriptive summaries at both the project and dataset levels. Step 4 (resolution of discrepancies): divergent ratings were discussed in reconciliation meetings, using the rubric descriptors and the documented evidence as the basis for negotiated agreement, and the final dataset was updated accordingly.

Although the manuscript references methodological literature on inter-rater agreement, a formal reliability coefficient (e.g., Cohen’s Kappa) was not computed in the present analysis. For this reason, the study does not make statistical claims regarding inter-rater reliability; instead, credibility was supported through independent scoring, explicit documentation of scoring rationales, and a structured discrepancy-resolution procedure.

5.6. Contextual Boundaries, Claims, and Triangulation

The findings of the present study must be interpreted within clearly defined contextual boundaries. The research was conducted in a single institutional setting and involved a specific cohort of pre-service teachers enrolled in a specialization program for educational support. Participants shared comparable professional trajectories, levels of experience, and institutional conditions. Consequently, the results should not be read as universally generalizable, but as context-sensitive insights emerging from a situated action-research process. This positioning is consistent with the epistemological stance of action research, which privileges depth of understanding and reflective transformation over statistical generalization.

For this reason, claims regarding the “excellence” of the design products or the emergence of a “regenerative” pedagogical model should be understood as analytical characterizations grounded in this specific context, rather than as assertions of global validity. The results indicate that the integration of suggestopedic principles and simplex didactics functioned effectively within the examined setting, generating promising design practices and professional learning outcomes. However, their transferability to other institutional, cultural, or disciplinary contexts remains an open empirical question that warrants further investigation.

With respect to triangulation, the study primarily relied on the systematic evaluation of instructional design products as the main source of data. This product-centered analysis was complemented, where applicable, by participants’ reflective narratives and researchers’ observational notes collected during workshop and presentation sessions. These additional materials were used to contextualize rubric-based judgments and to support interpretative claims, particularly in relation to meaning-making processes and perceived pedagogical coherence. Nevertheless, it is important to acknowledge that the core evidentiary base of the study remains the design artifacts and their structured evaluation.

This methodological choice represents both a strength and a limitation. While it allows for a focused and replicable analysis of instructional design quality, it limits the extent to which claims can be extended to enacted classroom practices or long-term learning effects. Explicitly acknowledging this constraint reinforces the study’s credibility and aligns with the reflective and non-prescriptive orientation of action research.

By situating the findings within their institutional context, qualifying strong claims, and clarifying the scope and limits of triangulation, the study presents its contributions as robust yet provisional, inviting further research to explore how the suggestopedic–simplex framework may operate across diverse educational settings.

5.7. Discussion of Data

The overall analysis of the twenty-one projects developed by the students returned a positive picture, characterized by a high degree of methodological coherence, expressive originality and professional maturity. All the works, despite the diversity of the topics addressed and the disciplines involved, showed a solid understanding of the theoretical rules underlying the integration between Suggestopedia and Simplex didactics, translating them into concrete, dynamic and student-centered design practices.

A first relevant aspect concerns the quality of interdisciplinary design. Teachers in training have been able to overcome the traditional disciplinary fragmentation, building educational paths that intertwine languages, contents and perspectives. In the excellent products, a full awareness of the value of integration emerges music, literature, science and physical education are brought back to a single experiential framework, capable of generating meaning and connections. This result confirms the validity of the simple model, which conceives knowledge as a network of relationships rather than as the sum of isolated segments [22]. Music has proved to be a powerful catalyst for inclusion and cognitive resonance. All the groups used the language of music not as a simple aesthetic ornament, but as an epistemological tool: through rhythm, melody and the symbolic dimension of sound, the participants recreated harmonious and stimulating learning environments. In many projects, music serves as a common thread between disciplines, as in the case of paths that connect linguistic analysis, art history and biology through the theme of harmony in nature. These choices testify to a profound understanding of the simple function of music, understood as a means of ordering complexity and restoring unity to the multiple.

From a methodological point of view, the projects are distinguished by the adoption of suggestive teaching strategies: empathic narration, conscious use of the sound environment, care of the relational climate, enhancement of play and relaxation as ways of access to concentration and memory. In all the experiences analyzed, the educational relationship assumes a central role: the teacher is no longer a mere transmitter of content, but a facilitator of experiences, an emotional guide and director of collective processes. This reorientation of the didactic action highlights a clear professional maturation of the participants, capable of recognizing the formative value of the affective dimension and translating it into operational practice. In terms of cognitive processes, the projects show a remarkable ability to activate divergent thinking and creativity in learners. The proposed activities favor exploration, discovery and production, rather than mechanical repetition. This translates into a non-linear but circular approach to knowledge, in accordance with the rules of simplex didactics, which sees learning as a process of continuous adaptation and transformation. The papers demonstrate how the teachers have been able to reorganize complexity in accessible and meaningful forms, while ensuring didactic rigor and interpretative openness.

Another strength that emerged from the analysis concerns the inclusive dimension. In each project the intent to build welcoming educational environments is visible, in which diversity is perceived as a resource and not as an obstacle. The use of music, images and cooperative activities encourages the active participation of everyone, including students with special educational needs. The teachers showed that they know how to design in an empathetic and flexible way, applying the rule of adaptation typical of simple systems: the activities are continuously modulated according to the group’s responses, in a dynamic of constructive feedback that makes learning authentic and shared.

From an organizational point of view, the modularity of the paths is one of the most successful elements. Each project is articulated in coherent but interdependent phases, exploration, experience, reflection, restitution, which reflect the properties of separation and cooperation identified by Berthoz [2]. This structure allows you to maintain order in complexity, offering the teacher the opportunity to intervene quickly and precisely without interrupting the flow of the activity. The ability to alternate moments of relaxation with moments of high concentration, borrowed from the suggestopedic method, gives the paths a rhythmic dynamic that stimulates attention and supports motivation.

A further element of positivity lies in the reflective documentation that accompanies the projects. Participants took care of the memory of the process through logbooks, maps and audio-visual recordings, showing metacognitive awareness. Reflection on one’s own practice, a key element of simplex didactics, was experienced as an opportunity for self-training and continuous improvement. This self-reflective dimension has helped to consolidate the ability of the trainees to critically evaluate their methodological choices, strengthening the teaching professionalism. The data collected also indicates significant growth in collaborative competence. The working groups worked in synergy, highlighting cohesion and effective distribution of roles. This cooperation, consistent with the rule of redundancy and synergy, has generated choral products in which individualities merge in a common design, similar to what happens in a musical ensemble. Music, in this sense, has become a metaphor and a tool for group work: the construction of sound harmony has mirrored the relational one, making the training process an exercise in mutual listening and respect for the other’s times.

Finally, a transversal aspect that unites all the projects is the presence of meaning: each path is animated by a clear intentionality, by a pedagogical vision that recognizes education as an act of shared signification. The more mature papers are not limited to proposing operational activities, but build learning experiences that produce meaning, emotion and belonging. This orientation towards meaning, the unifying rule of simplex didactics, represents the distinctive feature of the entire experimentation.

The result is that the data collected gives the image of a group of teachers capable of translating the suggestopedic-simple paradigm into practice consciously and creatively. The projects carried out demonstrate that the synergy between music, emotion and reflection can generate truly inclusive, flexible and motivating learning environments, in which complexity is not an obstacle but a resource for the personal and professional growth of all the actors involved.

To avoid possible ambiguities, it is important to distinguish clearly between the formative dimension of the intervention and the systematic generation of research knowledge. The training process was intentionally designed to support participants’ professional development through iterative design experimentation, reflection, and feedback. In contrast, the research dimension focused on observing, documenting, and analyzing how design practices evolved across these cycles, rather than on evaluating a linear change from an initial to a final state.

Accordingly, the study should not be interpreted through an implicit “before–after” logic, nor solely through the lens of final products. Instead, it follows the spiral logic characteristic of action research, in which planning, action, observation, and reflection recur iteratively. The educational projects and the evaluation grid functioned not only as outcomes, but also as mediating artifacts within this spiral: they guided participants’ reflective redesign, informed subsequent instructional decisions, and generated data for analysis at multiple points in the process. Knowledge production thus emerged progressively from the interaction between formative practice and analytical reflection, rather than from a single summative moment.

From this perspective, the emphasis on the final design products does not imply a product-oriented evaluation model, but reflects their role as temporary stabilizations within an ongoing process of inquiry. The systematic use of the rubric across cycles enabled the researchers to trace patterns of coherence, adaptation, and meaning-making over time, thereby transforming formative activity into analyzable research evidence. Making this spiral logic explicit reinforces the methodological alignment between the action-research framework and the study’s analytical claims, while preserving the distinction between teacher learning as a formative goal and instructional design practices as objects of systematic investigation.

5.8. Critical Reflections and Study Limitations

While the results of the study point to a high level of coherence and perceived effectiveness of the suggestopedic–simplex design approach, it is important to address several critical aspects that qualify these findings. First, the research design is inherently exposed to the risk of confirmation bias, a well-documented issue in action research contexts. The dual role of the researchers as trainers and evaluators, combined with the formative and reflective orientation of the intervention, may have facilitated a convergence toward positive interpretations of outcomes. Although this risk was partially mitigated using structured evaluation grids, inter-rater reliability checks, and the triangulation of self- and external assessments, the possibility of an interpretative alignment between researchers and participants cannot be entirely excluded. Future studies could strengthen methodological robustness by involving external evaluators not directly engaged in the training process or by integrating longitudinal follow-ups to assess the sustainability of design practices over time.

A second tension concerns the institutional feasibility of holistically oriented and aesthetically grounded pedagogical approaches such as the one proposed. While Suggestopedia and simplex didactics emphasize resonance, relational climate, and adaptive design, higher education institutions are often governed by constraints related to efficiency, standardization, and accountability. The implementation of such approaches therefore requires negotiation with curricular structures, assessment regimes, and time constraints that may limit their scalability. In this sense, the present study should be read not as a prescriptive model for systemic transformation, but as an exploration of design principles that can inform micro-level pedagogical choices within existing institutional frameworks. Acknowledging this tension highlights the need for further research on how evocative and affect-sensitive design strategies can coexist with, or strategically challenge, dominant performance-oriented logics in higher education.

To further clarify the relationship between analytical categories and empirical evidence, the following examples illustrate how the study’s general findings are anchored in concrete design practices developed by the participants. For example, several projects operationalized the rule of separation and cooperation by structuring learning activities into clearly differentiated phases—such as sensory immersion, conceptual exploration, and reflective restitution—while maintaining strong narrative and symbolic continuity. In one project, participants integrated short musical listening sessions at key conceptual transitions, followed by collective mapping activities; reflective notes indicated that these moments were perceived as facilitating “cognitive slowing” and deeper conceptual linkage. Similarly, the rule of meaning became evident in projects that connected disciplinary content to lived experience through narrative or artistic mediation, as in the case of interdisciplinary tasks linking scientific concepts to musical metaphors of harmony and variation. These examples illustrate how the abstract principles of the suggestopedic–simplex framework were translated into concrete design decisions, grounding the study’s claims in observable pedagogical practices.

By explicitly addressing these limitations and tensions, and by anchoring interpretative claims in specific examples, the discussion gains in analytical rigor and theoretical depth. Rather than weakening the study, this critical positioning reinforces its contribution as a reflective and context-sensitive exploration of innovative instructional design in higher education.

6. Conclusions

The analysis of the twenty-one educational projects developed within this study suggests that the integration of Suggestopedia and simplex didactics represents a promising and contextually grounded framework for teacher education and instructional design. Rather than offering definitive evidence of effectiveness, the findings indicate that music, positive suggestion, and attention to the emotional and aesthetic dimensions of learning can function as structural design resources when systematically embedded within a coherent pedagogical framework, according to recent studies about the suggestopedia [4,5,6,7,8,9]. In this sense, the suggestopedic–simplex approach foregrounds dimensions of learning that are often marginalized in educational contexts dominated by efficiency-driven and outcome-oriented logics.

Three main insights emerge from the study. First, the quality and coherence of the design products indicate that Suggestopedia can support methodological experimentation and reflective professional learning when interpreted not as a stand-alone method but as a design-oriented epistemological resource. The use of music, narrative, and relaxation strategies was associated with the development of more modular, adaptive, and meaning-oriented instructional designs. These outcomes resonate with the simplex principle of separation and cooperation, suggesting that participants were able to articulate distinct yet integrated phases of learning while maintaining a balance between structure and creative openness.

Second, the affective and relational dimension appears to play a significant role in shaping participants’ design practices. Qualitative materials indicate that the intentional inclusion of music and aesthetic mediation contributed to the construction of a climate characterized by trust, listening, and participation. Learning was thus framed less as the accumulation of content and more as a shared process of meaning-making. This condition of emotional resonance aligns with Lozanov’s original assumptions [1] and with contemporary studies on the relationship between emotion, motivation, and higher-order cognitive processes [41,42], while remaining specific to the context and scope of the present study.

Third, the findings suggest that simplex didactics provides a useful interpretative lens for understanding the adaptive and systemic features of suggestopedic design practices. Properties such as flexibility, memory, anticipation, and meaning, as identified by Berthoz [2], were observable in the instructional projects, particularly in the ways participants managed complexity without reducing conceptual depth. Within this framework, music functioned as a mediating device that supported temporal organization, relational attunement, and embodied engagement, rather than as a purely expressive or ornamental element.

From a professional perspective, the action-research process also contributed to a shift in participants’ representations of the teaching role. Participants increasingly described teaching as the design of cognitive and relational conditions—an activity oriented toward listening, coordination, and creative facilitation rather than transmission alone. While this transformation cannot be generalized beyond the studied cohort, it highlights the formative potential of design-based and reflective approaches in teacher education, restoring an artistic and reflective dimension to the teaching profession that is often constrained by prescriptive curricular logics [43].

At the same time, several limitations must be acknowledged. The study was conducted within a single institutional context and involved a specific cohort of pre-service teachers, which limits the transferability of the findings. The primary focus on design products, rather than on enacted classroom practices or long-term learning outcomes, constrains the scope of the conclusions. Moreover, the action-research design entails an inherent risk of interpretative convergence between researchers and participants, which calls for caution in evaluating the reported outcomes.

Future research could address these limitations by applying the suggestopedic–simplex framework in different institutional settings and educational levels, by incorporating longitudinal analyses to examine the sustainability of design practices over time, and by integrating additional data sources, such as classroom observations or learner feedback. Such extensions would allow for a more comprehensive assessment of the framework’s potential and boundaries, particularly in relation to inclusive education and teacher professional development [44,45].

In conclusion, this study does not propose a definitive or universal model, but rather contributes a situated and generative perspective on instructional design in teacher education. Interpreted through the lens of simplex didactics, Suggestopedia emerges as a resource for rethinking how complexity, affect, and meaning can be intentionally orchestrated within educational design processes. In this sense, the study invites further exploration of a pedagogy of resonance that remains open, adaptive, and responsive to the specific conditions of contemporary educational contexts.