(A)symmetric Developments in Professional Education: A Cross-Cultural Investigation with Students of Architecture

Architects’ judgments on physical environments were found to be distinguishable from the judgments of nonarchitects. Dissimilarities between value sets were attributed to the professional education of architects. Level and school differences were also found to have significant effect on judgments. This article focuses on the judgment differences between students of a Polish school of architecture and a Turkish one in order to exemplify the dimensions of culture and level (dis)similarities. 2^nd and 4^th year students (N=160) of schools were asked to judge 45 building images in terms of practical and theoretical concerns. A control group of eminent design teachers (n=13) scored each image for concrete and abstract attributes (N=25). Results were checked through 2 successive Lens Models which correlated 2^nd 2^nd and 4^th 4^th year responses with the scores of the control group. The constancy of the correlations for the theoretical concern variable was a noteworthy finding supporting previous studies that claimed the presence of an underlying judgment structure gained through architectural education. On the other hand, the findings indicated an asymmetric development of culture groups, i.e. earlier development of Polish students in terms of internalizing the typical value sets compared to their Turkish peers. Value sets were found to get more congruent as students progressed in education. Results underline the homogenizing effect of the professional education. The study also proposes an adaptation of the Lens Model to the field of architectural research by which further comparative studies become available with the architects who adopt different tenets.