The first year of tertiary studies is vital for students, as they must adapt and settle into university life. First-year students must explore learning challenges and make positive transitional adjustments. The unprecedented pandemic has changed students' learning experiences from the physical classroom to the online realm. This chapter seeks to identify first-year architecture students' learning experiences in an online environment during the COVID-19 pandemic. A set of survey questionnaires is used to collect data on their learning experiences with architectural studio-based learning. The elements considered for the research are learning experience, learning platforms, and the student's readiness with the virtual architectural studio learning environment during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study's findings suggest that students positively impact learning experience, have high satisfaction levels on learning platforms, and are well prepared for online learning. This study will help schools of architecture in Malaysia to develop appropriate responses in the post‐COVID-19 settings.
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The first year of tertiary studies is vital and critical for students, as they must adapt and settle into university life. Many studies have reported that having an excellent First-Year Experience (FYE) may significantly affect first-year students' academic performance, social relationships, and self-esteem. Therefore, a holistic student support framework covering students' wellbeing, curriculum design, social support, and access to resources is vital to address first-year students' learning challenges to help them make positive transitional adjustments. These university students are considered a unique social group with an active lifestyle based on relationships, physical and university activities, fieldwork, and gatherings (Villani, Pastorino, Molinari, Anelli, Ricciardi, Graffigna, & Boccia, 2021). Unfortunately, the last two years have been unprecedented and have brought significant challenges to these students.
The stringent precautionary measures such as physical distancing and strict standard operating procedures have changed their lives drastically and consequently, have affected their overall health, including their social, physical, and mental health. According to Chambel and Curral (2015), as cited in Capone, Caso, Donizzetti, & Procentese (2020), mental wellbeing is essential for university students. It has been associated with substantial outcomes, such as educational aspirations, academic engagement, academic achievement, and student retention. This concurs with the findings of many international research studies that recognize university students as a vulnerable group for mental wellbeing, especially at crucial transitional points along their education journeys (Liu, McCabe, Dawson, Cyrzon, Shankar, Gerges, Kellett-Renzella, Chye, & Cornish, 2021).
This is particularly critical during this unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic, where students' learning experiences have also changed from the physical classroom to the online realm (Al-Kumaim, Alhazmi, Mohammed, Gazem, Shabbir, & Fazea, 2021; Pownall, Harris & Blundell-Birtill, 2021; Combrink & Oosthuizen, 2020; Dhawan, 2020). This has also greatly affected how architectural education is conducted. The core of architectural education is the design studio, where student-centred pedagogy is adopted to address project-based problems (Yusoff, Ja'afar & Mohammad, 2019; Board of Architects Malaysia, 2013). The learning experience in conventional architectural education encompasses various approaches such as 'crit' sessions (short for critique), site visits, and workshops. The crit serves as the primary student learning experience via open assessment of design presentations by a jury (Flynn, Dunn, Price & O'Connor, 2020; El-Latif, Al-Hagla & Hasan, 2020). The crit adopts the constructivist paradigm by guiding students' critical thinking and creative problem-solving skills to enhance their knowledge from their experiences.
However, the Covid-19 pandemic has significantly affected architectural education worldwide, where many architectural education institutions are forced to adopt remote learning to conduct lessons. Palansamy (2020) reported that on the 27th of May 2020, the Higher Education Ministry in Malaysia announced that all university teaching and learning activities must be conducted online until the 31st of December 2020. As educators and scholars are concerned with online studio-based learning as an emergency response to the pandemic (Iranmanesh & Onur, 2021; Bernardo & Duarte, 2020; Hilburg, 2020; Gerfen, 2020; Nair & Raja, 2020; Varma & Jafri, 2020), its impact on first-year architecture students has not been well studied or documented. This study addresses this gap by assessing first-year architecture students' learning experiences and wellbeing during the Covid-19 pandemic.