Phenomenographic analysis of students' learning approaches in the first year of architectural design study

Purpose This paper presents the phenomenographic analysis of students' approaches to learning in the first year architectural design coursework; thereby correlating contextualization in the architectural curriculum. Design/methodology/approach This paper reviews phenomenographic data of first year architecture students' learning experience through a comparative analysis of first- and fourth-year students' approaches to learning in the design studio; further co-relating this analysis to the final classification involving all five years of students' learning approaches in the architecture program. Findings Five meta-categories of the comparative analysis and nineteen meta-categories of the final classification are evaluated using first-year students' learning approaches – to understand the importance of contextualization in curriculums of architecture. Practical implications This phenomenographic analysis of first-year students' learning experience represents the onward journey from surface-to-deep approaches to learning that is encountered in their learning approaches, pertaining to the design process in the design coursework during five years of architectural education. Originality/value This paper systematically extends the discussion of first year architecture students' engagement in the design process that leads to deep learning; further delving into the static dimension of knowledge and its extension to the dynamic dimension of knowing architecture.