The ways that architecture students constitute the community of practice

This thesis refers to an ethnographic study, aiming to evaluate British architecture students’ peer learning experiences in informal situations, i.e., outside formal timetables. Due to the pandemic, the study made a comparison between those learning experiences within physical and virtual environments, to find out if there are changes, difficulties, and novelties when those students were introduced to unfamiliar learning contexts.

Using the theoretical lens of the community of practice, the author conducted questionnaires from three British architectural institutions, to collect students’ learning experiences and stories when they were engaged in those two environments respectively. After getting the underlying factors which have significant effects on students’ attitudes toward those two environments, an investigation by means of interviews, focus groups, and observations was taken afterwards, and undergraduate architecture students at the Welsh School of Architecture were selected as the specific samples to research their specific peer learning experiences in detail.

It was found that there were slightly different in terms of the ways to do peer learning between 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-year students, especially the preference of their learning space and environment. Even though, the physical design studio environment and informal social aspects within it are essential to all those students’ peer learning.

Therefore, even if those students learned outside their design studio, they still tried their best to simulate a design studio environment to learn in the form of a community. Another obvious issue is that students normally lack peer-to-peer bonds with each other when they are engaged in virtual environments. Comparatively, the supports sourced from such bonds are easily to be got within the physical environment, especially the design studio. Based on the findings, future work should figure out specific architectural knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes that students developed from the community of practice.