Developing an alternative method to formulate an efficient set of Students’ Learning Outcomes for Architectural Design Studio
Jose Rosales Mentor: Tareef Khan School of Architecture Introduction: Creativity is arguably one of the most significant contributors to Architectural Design. Most researchers agree that the skill of creativity is learned rather than a gift. Whether this skill develops through the academic progression or not, the perception of lack of gift appears to have an impact on their confidence level while designing, especially during the early academic years. The aim of the study is to derive an alternative method to formulate an efficient set of Student Learning Outcomes leading to a set of rubrics that can evaluate the students irrespective of their perception towards Design, giving an edge to all kinds of learners, not only who has the apparent giftedness. The first objective is thus to measure different kinds of perspectives the students can have towards Design. The second objective is to analyze the current set of Student Learning Outcomes (SLO) on the basis of those four different learning styles. The third objective is to correlate them to check if the current sets of SLOs respond logically with those different learning styles.The first hypothesis is that architecture students come from different learning styles. The second hypothesis is that different perceptions of the students are linked with Kolb’s different Learning Styles. The third hypothesis is that there is a significant difference in their perception at different academic levels. Kolb’s questionnaire will be used to achieve the first objective. Open-ended interviews will be conducted, followed by qualitative analysis in order to investigate students’ perceptions of creativity. Another qualitative analysis will be conducted to relate the existing SLOs with Kolb’s different learning styles in order to achieve the second objective. Finally, a statistical regression analysis will be conducted to find whether the current set of SLOs with responds to all the diverse group of students with different learning styles, and that is how objective three will be achieved. The null hypothesis states that they might not respond well to all four learning styles. If this null hypothesis is not void, then the study will suggest how to improve the efficiency of the SLOs. By developing a measurable alternate method to evaluate the SLOs, this study will give the Studio instructors to revisit their SLOs and make them more efficient. That will also help to address students of all four different learning styles through the improved set of SLOs and restore much important confidence to all or most of them, especially during the initial years of study. Methods / Materials: This research will use Kolb’s questionnaire to measure the students’ learning styles (Diverger, Accommodator, Converger, Assimilator). It will then categorize the SLOs (and their rubrics, if available) at different design studios according to Kolb’s four learning styles. A regression analysis will then check whether the students at various levels are significantly distributed according to their learning styles, followed by correlation analysis to check whether the SLOs are responding to all the students with various learning styles. The grades achieved by them will be used to verify how the students from different learning styles are responding (positively or negatively) to the corresponding SLOs. A low or negative correlation will indicate the need to revisit a particular set of SLO. This method can be used to improve not only the SLOs but also the design assessment rubrics in a way that each student, irrespective of which dominant learning style they belong to, can still be optimally benefitted through their studio projects that have a balanced set of SLOs. The initial sample will be chosen from the students of Architecture through stratified sampling. A protocol has been approved by IRB.
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