Analog or Digital:

Gathering Student Points of View

Abstract

In teaching design communication, judgments must be made regarding the amount of time and type of emphasis given to particular methods of expression. This is especially true with regard to analog and digital approaches to design communication. The majority of these judgments are made by individual instructors, who are guided by personal experience and by researching the work of other educators. The judgments are made, in part, by faculty committees responsible for establishing curricular requirements in response to National Architectural Accreditation Board (NAAB) student performance criteria. Students rarely have any input into these decisions, except as written comments in course evaluations after the fact. In order to be more certain that our teaching methods and emphases are reaching their targets effectively, student points of view regarding design communication must be taken into account. If instructors assume that students arrive at school as a clean slate or, worse, if they assume certain established skills and cultural make-up, then their teaching strategies may lack the appropriate focus. This study attempts to establish a method for determining student points of view with regard to design communication issues, and in particular those issues regarding digital and analog methods of communication. To ask students about their experiences and opinions regarding design communication methods, I administered an anonymous survey to architecture students at the University of Idaho. In March 2005 I conducted a pilot study, and in March 2008, I gathered a significant number of additional responses. My aim was to develop a framework through which the questions could be posed and data collected in a rigorous way. This paper presents the survey results gathered to date, as well as brief analysis of the findings.