The role of concurrent training in basic design courses on enhancing emotional intelligence, creativity and motivation of architecture students(Case study: Second preliminary architectural design)

Architecture education is one of the key issues in the growth and flourishing of Iranian architecture and drawing the future of Iranian and world architecture. In the architectural education system, the most important goal is to get students out of the linear process of high school education, and guide them in an environment of observation, discovery and creativity. Pre-university education is a one-way process of transferring knowledge from teacher to student. In architectural education the goal is to train an architect. In this training, students should be able to create artistic and architectural product in addition to acquiring knowledge, skills and relying on them. Creativity is the main discourse of architecture education and it is the most important tool to increase the designer's power in the architecture design process. Creativity training is widely integrated with engineering training to prepare students to be a creative person in the design industry. Creativity is an imaginative activity designed to create new and valuable products. Creativity is ability, a mental process, or a unique response to a problem. Creativity seeks unique solutions. Achieving excellence in creativity is achieved through encouragement, motivation and opportunities, training and practice. Creativity is a mental process that occurs in people with higher than average intelligence. The creative person has characteristics such as curiosity, high imagination, independence of opinion, and critical thinking. Generally, continuous and sustained creativity and innovation in educational approaches are needed. High motivation in architecture plays an important role in the flourishing creativity of learners. Motivation is one of the most important prerequisites in the educational process. With increasing motivation, novice learner has the ability to create new ideas. Experts have divided motivation into two main intrinsic and extrinsic groups. Intrinsic motivation is the self-desire to seek out new things and new challenges, to analyze one's capacity, to observe and to gain knowledge. It is driven by an interest or enjoyment in the task itself, and exists within the individual rather than relying on external pressures or a desire for consideration. Extrinsic motivation refers to the performance of an activity in order to attain a desired outcome and it is the opposite of intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation comes from influences outside of the individual. Motivation is the main stimulus for all human actions. Motivation can be defined as the driving force of human activity and its leading factor. Motivation is the reason for people's actions, desires, and needs. Motivation is also one's direction to behavior, or what causes a person to want to repeat a behavior. The main goal of the training of architecture is to educate graduates who are successful and capable of using the lessons to solve problems and challenges in the real environment. Inappropriate teaching methods reduce the educational motivation of the students, and the result is inadequate training of architects. We are seeing a decrease in the motivation of the students according to various methods of training designed prerequisite courses, hence, there is a need for methods to motivate students and raise their creativity. Emotional intelligence is a factor that motivates a person when he does not achieve the goal. Emotional intelligence is the use of emotion to guide behavior, thoughts, communicate effectively with colleagues, use time and how to do the work to promote results. Emotional intelligence is a set of non-cognitive skills, competencies, and abilities that determine how a person can use his or her other skills, how to handle behavior, how to cope with social problems, and how to make decisions, that leads to positive results. Emotional intelligence is mainly manifested in communication. These relationships cover the relation of the individual and the relationship of the individual to others. So we can speak of two categories of general competence in the two personal and social realms. Emotional intelligence is the product of two basic skills of personal and social competence. Self-awareness and self-management refers to the individual and social awareness and relationship management refers to the relationship of the individual with others.  The low level of emotional intelligence, motivation and creativity of the novice learners can be the result of inappropriate teaching. The tradition of incessantly undergraduate and graduate education of architecture in Iran, has been changed and separated from each other in 1999. This caused some changes in curriculum especially in the courses related to basics of architectural design. Before separating system, the introductory courses to architectural design were run in one studio and under supervision of a single group of tutors. But after separating, the courses disintegrated into several units, such as applied geometry, construction, material workshop, sketching and visual perception of built environment. Second preliminary architectural design is one of the courses in architecture, which provoking creativity is the main core and the need for motivation and emotional intelligence is high for novices. The present combined research is trying to depict the effect of studios teaching methods (Integration and disintegration of required courses), on the architecture students emotional intelligence, motivation and creativity. For this purpose, the exercises of second preliminary architectural design, for students in their third semester by two methods combination (At the same time teaching basic courses) and disintegration (Independent teaching basic courses) has been considered. The test has been carried out by two groups of 18 students. Based on research, the concept of dynamic and targeted learning was formed on the basis of combined training. The results indicate that teaching basic training courses by using a combination method improves the individual and social capabilities of the novices and enhanced their emotional intelligence. By increasing individual skills, the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation of novice’s increases and novice learner has the ability to create new ideas and will be able to expand it due to his abilities and this means that the creativity has increased. And as a result, combination education of basic courses is dynamic and targeted education due to the increased emotional intelligence, motivation and creativity of the students.