THE MAKING OF AN ARCHITECT : THE PROFESSIONAL SOCIALISATION OF ARCHITECTURE STUDENTS IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

Professional socialisation studies in the past have indicated that students under any sort of professional training will acquire the values, attitudes and self-concept of a professional, in addition to the learning of relevant technical skills. However, studies of this nature conducted in Singapore were scarce and only covered the fields of medicine and law. This study then attempts to analyses the transformation which architecture students are expected to undergo as a result of their training. A cross sectional study was conducted as a sample consisting of only the first and fifth year students of the School of Architecture in the National University of Singapore. The first chapter outlined the major aspects of the research problems, the effect of the School in terms of the role of significant others (lecturers and peers) and the students' academic performance. The main dependent variables of this studv were the students' acquisition of occupational values: their development of a professional self-image as well as their orientation to the architectural profession. A review of the available literature was also made. A symbolic interactionist approach was hence adopted for this study. Structured interviews were conducted individually with the respondents. The data was processed with the aid of the computer. Chapter Two highlighted the major hypotheses of the research problem as well as the operational definitions of the variables to be tested. Analysis of the findings were presented in the next three chapters. Only a handful of variables were found to be significant e.g. the students' professional self-image scores and their perception of the architectural profession. Although other variables were not statistically significant, they nevertheless did suggest the presence of professional socialisation within the School. That is to say, the students appeared to have developed a progressive adherence to the values, attitudes and self-conception that typify the professional. The final chapter gives an overall summary of the findings of this study as well as some suggestions for future research.