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Empirical Design Research: Student Definitions, Perceptions, and Values
Author(s) -
Dickinson Joan I.,
Marsden John P.,
Read Marilyn A.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
journal of interior design
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.229
H-Index - 13
eISSN - 1939-1668
pISSN - 1071-7641
DOI - 10.1111/j.1939-1668.2006.tb00309.x
Subject(s) - likert scale , interior design , research design , perception , scale (ratio) , value (mathematics) , architecture , mathematics education , psychology , survey research , empirical research , undergraduate research , medical education , pedagogy , engineering , sociology , medicine , mathematics , applied psychology , social science , geography , civil engineering , statistics , neuroscience , developmental psychology , cartography , archaeology
Third and fourth year undergraduate interior design students in Colleges of Architecture or Human Sciences at three different research universities were surveyed to compare their: (1) perceived value of research in interior design practice, (2) perceptions of who should conduct research, (3) attitudes toward research in interior design education, and (4) definitions of research. A survey instrument was developed that consisted of one open‐ended question and 29 questions using a Likert scale. Questions were adapted from the Chenoweth and Chidister (1983) scale that measured landscape architecture attitudes toward research, and from the Dickson and White (1993) scale administered to interior design practicing professionals. A total of 89 undergraduate students were surveyed from the three universities. The majority of the students were Caucasian (n = 79) and female (n = 84). The results indicated that, overall, students valued research for the profession regardless of their college or university affiliation. However, their definitions of research were pragmatic in nature, and they often regarded research as the gathering of information rather than the generation of new knowledge. The students were also unclear about who should be conducting interior design research. College affiliation revealed that students who were in an architecturally‐based program put a higher value on research at the undergraduate level than those students housed in a College of Human Sciences; similarly, College of Architecture students had a better understanding that research advanced a profession.