The Status and Characteristics of BA Design Studio I in University of Kashan and the Importance of Learner's Individual Differences in It

The teaching of architecture has historically undergone a variety of developments and is currently based on university systems. Many experts have found design courses as the core of the curriculum. Being learners’ first experience, Design Studio I is particularly important in this respect. The one-to-one teaching system, together with the concept of doing as learning have made individual differences important in this system. It is aimed here to scrutinise this importance on one hand, and revisit theories of temperament in this regard and investigate how they can be put into use to assess performance in this course on the other. To do this the status of the course is investigated in the official national curriculum, followed by a closer case study on the University of Kashan. Using statistical analyses of student performance in the course, temperamental differences are studied. These analyses are based on design research theories. The research confirmed the special status of Design Studio I: firstly because of the need to pay special attention to learners’ characteristics, and secondly because of its relevance for the studies regarding the relation between learners’ individual differences and their performance. Employing fresh views on temperamental characteristics of students, it is concluded that the warmer and wetter the temperament, the better the performance.