Clarisse Joy Gonzales SAR22 8/15/17

Critic Paper

The Misconception of Architectural Students: Stop the Stereotyping

There are many irrelevant details, elongated words and the hypothesis was not clearly stated.

The research paper The Misconception of Architectural Students: Stop the Stereotyping by San
Jose, Chua, Ogarte, Umali and Alberto seeks to find what are the misconceptions that an architectural
student have regarding their course and to stop it. However, the title appears to be broad for the reason
that it does not address the context of the research leading to unspecified setting and respondents. It is
not clear to whom the research is addressing to for there are a lot of Architectural students around the
world with different cultures and thoughts regarding architecture, making that as a research respondent
would make it immeasurable in a time limit.

The title also appears to be unspecified by using the word misconception for there are many
types of misconception of architectural students, considering different cultures around the world. The
research may have been narrowed if the researchers stated what is the specific misconception they are
focusing.

The title also seems to be irrelevant to the introduction in the first three pages since the first
three pages was filled with unorganized thoughts. Reading the early parts of the introduction makes it
appear to possess a topic regarding architectures role in globalization. The researchers provided
information about history of architecture and designs of architecture for a place or society and showing
problems in urbanization which can be irrelevant to the topic and the researchers are proposing which is
stereotypes in architectural students. It can be seen that the first three pages of the introduction is filled
with unnecessary discussion and could only puzzle the mind of a reader and would not make a firm
sense of what was the background of the study. It would be better if the researchers would be precise
and avoid unnecessary information.

However, the thought was narrowed down in the preceding texts in the introduction wherein
the researchers gave two variables of common misconception to an architectural student such as great
creativity in design and analytical thinking & precise solving in math. The researchers also stated some
related literature to show the background and clearly introduce the problem of the study. Though it is
clearly introduced, it has a weak variable to represent the whole misconceptions that architectural
students face since the title appears to be proposing for a broad variable. Therefore, the problem of the
study is not strong enough to warrant the study that was conducted since it is only proposing two
variables out of many variables of misconceptions of architectural students. The research could have
been better if the main topic or the title proposed is specific since it would affect the whole flow of the
research. Once a part of this research is not specific, the other parts becomes unclear.

The researchers didnt give a clear theoretical rationale, hypothesis is also not stated. Overall,
the introduction is unclear on what the research is trying to prove and cant directly lead to the method
section.

In the methodology, the sample size is clearly stated but the respondents description is broad
since there are different students from De La Salle University in the world in terms of college program
Clarisse Joy Gonzales SAR22 8/15/17

and knowledge background in architecture. For the results to be accurate, relevant respondents must be
asked such as architecture students for they know what is needed in their field and obviously are the
focus of the study. The respondents must be in the context of the study.

The researchers asked the participants to sign in an agreement to complete the questionnaires
then used the methods of interviewing, wherein they used two self-reported measured to assess the
creativity and mathematical ability of participants, surveying wherein they used questionnaires. The
processes that the researcher used were relevant and can accumulate accurate result since it is taken
from an interview and informative surveys regarding the participants belief.

The discussion and conclusion of this research stated that creativity is a big asset in architecture
it is also showed that people think that architecture student can survive without having much skills in
using technology and that an architecture student dont need to be good at math to succeed. The
researchers general conclusion was slightly warranted in light of the results since the first conclusion
regarding essentiality of skills at math is debunked by the results of the survey.

The list of references of this research is sufficiently current having a list of references from the
years 2010-2017 and the works cited reflects the topic of this research.

Overall, the research was not that well written and is not that organized since the introduction
blurred out the rest of the research for it is not precise. There are many irrelevant details, elongated
words and the hypothesis was not clearly stated. But in a positive side, this article showed that some
concepts about architectural students are not true such as possessing a good mathematical skill in order
to succeed in the field of architecture.

This study can be improved by making the topic narrower and also making the introduction
precise and directly stating the points the researchers are trying to show and avoiding additional
information that is unnecessary. Also, the context of the research should be identified for the reader to
know where the study applies to. It would be difficult to assess the research without knowing what the
context is for there are different cultures, belief and people has.