The way that architecture students experience informal learning between peers within the design studio learning environment beyond formal timetable activities

Wang, Jierui 2024. The way that architecture students experience informal learning between peers within the design studio learning environment beyond formal timetable activities. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

This thesis refers to a study to investigate British architecture students’ informal learning experiences between peers when students are outside formal timetables, to find out if the design studio learning environment had a significant impact on those learning experiences. The author initially conducted a small-scale interview with students from the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University to collect students’ learning experiences and stories when they were involved in physical and virtual environments respectively, to identify the significant effects of the design studio learning environment on those learning experiences of those students toward those two environments. Subsequently, using the theoretical lens of the community of practice, an investigation through observations, interviews, and focus groups was subsequently carried out, and more undergraduate architecture students at the Welsh School of Architecture were invited to explore their specific informal learning experiences in detail. Based on the theoretical lens of the community of practice, the findings discovered that the design studio learning environment is essential to almost all those students’ informal learning. Therefore, even if these students studied outside their physical design studios, they still did their best to simulate a design studio learning environment to learn in the form of a small-scale learning group, a large-scale learning community, and/or a no-specific-scale learning guerilla. It was also discovered that there were some differences in the forms of informal learning between peers among 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-year students. Due to the characteristics of informal learning between architecture students within and outside physical design studios, this thesis summarises the corresponding modes of communities of practice, which are “homogenous community of practice”, “dispersive community of practice”, and “intermodal community of practice”. These findings address the research question “What are architecture students’ modes of informal learning experiences between peers within the design studio learning environment outside formal timetable and characteristics of such modes, via the lens of the community of practice” in details. Based on the findings, a model was generated to identify the specific mode of the community of practice constituted by those learning experiences. Future work should figure out the ways that learning spaces are reformed to coordinate different communities of practice composed of architecture students’ informal learning experiences between peers, as well as the specific architectural knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes that students developed from these communities of practice.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Schools > Architecture
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	5 March 2025
Last Modified:	05 Mar 2025 15:30
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/176643

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