The Temporal Effect of Immersive VR on Student-Tutor Interaction in Architectural Design Crits

Using Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) as a representational medium in architecture studio crits allows students and tutors to interact as they navigate in a life-scale digital display of the design, making these media relevant for the design learning process. Crits form a core component in design learning, as the setting fosters the interaction responsible for engaging students in practicing design behaviors and adopting the behaviors performed by tutors. The interaction changes throughout the crit and during the semester’s phases, to foster different pedagogical aims encapsulated in the learning process. Although extant research found IVRs supportive of studio crits, the IVRs’ temporal effect on student-tutor interaction is understudied, restricting the ways in which IVRs can be integrated to enhance the learners’ engagement. To this aim, verbalizations recorded in four early, and mid-semester crits using IVR and non-immersive (NI) media were analyzed using protocol analysis techniques to code new ideas and design issues generated during the interaction and analyze the cumulative distribution of issues generated for each medium throughout three crit phases. Findings show large differences between the tutor and the student. The IVR supported enhanced student engagement in ideation and the generation of issues, during the first and second crit phases, providing a positive indicator of the medium’s temporal support in the learning process. The methods used in this study provide knowledge for conducting further research to unfold how design is learned and taught.