The metaphoric perceptions of architectural design students on the concept of jury system in architectural design education

The core of the architectural curriculum is based on the design studio which focuses on learning by doing. The learning process in the design studio is takes place in critic sessions. These sessions are kind of communication of ideas and transmitting of knowledge from instructor to student. In contrast to other disciplines, in the architectural design education the evaluation and the assessment are the important part of the learning and teaching process. The Jury system is a traditional architectural learning assessment tool. In this system the student present his/her work in the front of the jury and get feedback or criticism. According to Webster (2006), Jury is the most performative stage of education where the student and agency (the discipline of architecture-as represented by the critics) actually interact (Webster, 2006). The aim of this study was to reveal the perceptions of architectural design students’ about the ‘Jury system’ as a grading system in architectural design studios. The participants for this study included second, third and fourth grade architectural design students enrolled in the Department of Architecture at the Faculty of Architecture of Mersin University during the 2014-2015 school year. To collect data, each participant was asked to complete the prompt “A jury is like . . . ...because . . . .....” . Phenomenological design was used in the study. The content analysis technique was used to analyze and interpret the study data. The detailed discussion will be presented in full paper.


Introduction
Architectural education is based on design studio where active learning occurs with transmitting knowledge from instructor to students.But this transmission of knowledge is different from other disciplines throughout the university.In the most of the other disciplines, instructors teach by lecturing, assigning homework and assessing student performance through exams.In the architectural studio, teaching and learning activity is different from the traditional environment.Schön (1985Schön ( , 1987) ) describes the activities in the design studio as learning to 'think architecturally', meaning that the student must experience 'learning by doing', 'knowing by-action', and 'reflection in action'.Students learn through working on a design problem under the supervision or guidance of an experienced instructor to provide an effective solution.Unlike a lecture courses, in a design studio, students are evaluated through a series of presentations and discussions.They present their drawings and physical models in front of a jury which is consist of their own instructors, two or three local architects and the instructors from other studios at the same school.With presenting their work and receiving feedback from the instructor, the students can revise their designs.Oh, Ishizaki, Gross and Do (2013) called this feedback as critiquing and described it as 'a predominant way through which architecture students acquire design expertise from their instructors'.The critique is the backbone of the design studio which is the tool used to communicate with the student and the instructor.John Dewey, a 20th century American philosopher describes criticism as a useful tool in the communication of ideas and evaluation of designs.
In a design research literature there isn't too much studies about design evaluation and assessment system in studio education.Salama (2010) studied students' reactions to the jury system in the Arab world.He used questionnaire to understand the students' view of their previous learning experiences during the juries, jury mechanism, jury composition, jury scheduling, jury dynamics and their feelings and behaviors.Results indicate that most of the problems that have been mentioned by the students are stem from the communication aspects.The other problems are come from the lack of presentation skills and verbal expressions in the educational program.In this research Hassanpour, Utaberta, Zaharim & Apdulah (2011), studied all the evaluation techniques of design studio through the perspective of students perceptions.Second year architectural students were asked to rate through six evaluation techniques (one to one evaluation, studio pin ups, peer evaluation in verbal form, self-evaluation and one to one desk critique.)Results of the research shows that the existing assessment model and grading policies of the design studio is not satisfied enough for them.They found it unclear and undefined.This study also investigates the evaluation and assessment system of architectural design studio and how students perceive this evaluation system in the context of Malaysia (Hassanpour et al., 2011).
The studies of the perception of design students about the evaluation and assessment system (jury system) of architectural design studio are all about local researches.The evaluation and assessment system which is based on critiques are essential pedagogical tools in the design studio.For these reasons the jury system which is the part of the evaluation and assessment system of the architectural design education has an important role in the every stage of the design education.The purpose of this study is to find out the perceptions of the architectural design students have about the concept of 'Jury System' through metaphor.Metaphors are one of the strong cognitive tools which orient, control and reconstruct our thoughts about people and occurrence of incidents (Soysal, 2012;Miller, 1987;Tsoukas, 1991).Starting from this point of view, the answer to the question 'what are the metaphors of Architectural Design Students about the jury system?' has been searched for.

Participants
2.2.The study was conducted in the Department of Architecture at Mersin University in Turkey.The participants were 38 second year, 41 third year and 31 fourth year students studying architecture during the 2014-2015 academic year.

Data Collection
While doing this research the participants were informed about the metaphor technique.While collecting the data from the students, each student was filled the statement 'Architectural Jury System is like……………….because……'

Data Analysis
The data was analyzed by descriptive analysis.(The metaphors were first sorted out and categorized and statistically evaluated) 110 architectural design students participated to the study.Metaphors of 102 participants were taken in to consideration.The metaphors developed by the architectural students were analyzed at five stages; (1) classification stage; (2) elimination stage; (3) reorganizing and compilation stage; (4) category development stage.

Findings
The answers of the participant students being able to make meaningful metaphors were evaluated in our study.There were 68 valid metaphors about the concept of Jury System in design education was made by the students of architectural design students.The metaphors were collected based on 7 different categories in terms of common features (Table 1.).
The metaphors of the concept of Jury system made by architectural design students have a negative approach.They resemble the system as 'nightmare, horror film, death, etc……'.All these negative feelings, indicate that they can't understand the jury mechanism in the architectural design education.

Results and Discussion
The evaluation and assessment system in architectural education refers to the presentation of students' design proposal to a jury of invited architecture practitioners and academicians, for providing feedback of progress of the project.Each student exhibits his/her works containing drawings, diagrams, physical models of the design and digital representations of his/her work.He/she has a short time to deliver an account of the work, its conceptual basis and the description of the design outcome.Then jury provides feedback to the student for the development of his/her project.By looking at the metaphors stated by the students, they see the jury as horrible, fearful and exciting situation.
Students should tell and describe their work in front of a jury both with oral presentations.This situation may make them anxious.Because of this, the metaphors they stated can be stem from their lack of communication ability.This study emphasized that the instructors in the architectural education should give importance to the student-instructor communication.

Conclusion
In our study it was aimed to find out the metaphors of the architectural design students based on their experience related to the jury system in their education.
According to the results of the research, metaphors formed by the architectural design students in relation to jury system concept are mainly gathered under the feelings of fear, excitement and tension.Students see the evaluation and assessment system of architectural education is not as part of their education.They are not aware of the importance of the jury system.Students have not mentioned the jury system as academically.
The results of this study verify the other researches' findings based on the educational value of the jury system.Most of the problems that have been mentioned by the students were stem from the communication aspects.As Salama (2010), mentioned in his study the other problems were stem from the lack of presentation skills and verbal expression of the educational program.
This study provided several outcomes: (i) Students gain the self-awareness of their perceptions of assessment and evaluation system of architectural education, (ii) also instructors learn about students'

Table 1 .
The Metaphor categories of the students of the Architectural Design about the concept of Jury System