The purpose of this study was to systematically investigate how novice visual representation of design ideas has been operationalized, measured, or assessed in the research literature. In the different screening phases in this systematic review, inclusion, exclusion, and quality criteria were applied. From an initial sample of 958 articles, 40 studies were included in the final step of the coding process and qualitative synthesis. Applying provisional and open coding, three broad themes and 23 characteristics were identified that researchers used to conceptualize sketching of ideas in novice design activities: Communicating Ideas, Visual-Spatial Characteristics, and Design Creativity. We propose this Three-pronged Design Sketching (3-pDS) framework to examine and better understand novice design sketches, that is, K-16.