Abstract
The design studio is an active social-learning environment. However, the ubiquitous One-on-One Master-Apprentice pedagogy has arguably fostered an individualistic and competitive climate. Despite the perceived richness of collaboration and social support in design studios, few studies have explored its impact on academic performance. This pilot study addresses the gap with a randomised controlled trial, examining differences in beginning design students’ perceptions of social support (teacher-student (STR) and student-student relationships (SSR) and their impact on academic performance. The control group were taught in One-on-One desk critique settings counterpointed with the heterarchical Cross-pollinative Team Learning (CTL) experimental group. The CTL pedagogy recalibrates the asymmetrical power relations in traditional One-on-One studios and actively encourages the cross-pollination of ideas for students’ individual design projects. The cohort shared a standard project brief and assessment criteria, and a panel of three tutors averaged their grades. The Child and Adolescence Social Support Scale (CASSS) was administered to participating first-year architecture students from both pedagogical groups at the beginning and conclusion of Semester Two. The independent t-tests revealed that both One-on-One and CTL students enjoyed comparable levels of TSR (p= .067) and similar academic attainment (p= .134), but CTL students significantly perceived better SSR (p= .025). However, during the second half of the semester, CTL students perceived significantly higher levels of TSR (p= .0016), SSR (p= .0013) and academically outperformed their One-on-One peers (p= .0010). These positive findings suggest that healthy levels of TSR, catalysed by CTL, provide academic benefits when leveraged in socially driven design studios.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Architecture Education, Power Relations, Social Support, Cross-pollinative Team Learning
