Inter-Disciplinary Professional Education: Addressing the Uncertainties of Worth and Structure

WHYTE, Andrew, Dr.¹ & EDGE, Martin H., Dr.²

School of Construction, Property and Surveying, Facutly of Design, Robert Gordon University, Garthdee Road, Aberdeen, United Kingdom
¹ a.whyte@rgu.ac.uk
² m.edge@rgu.ac.uk

Abstract: Construction Professionals continue the processes of learning and developing their beliefs, feelings and behavioural tendencies throughout their working life, however vocational higher education in the UK must accept responsibility for a large part of the process of attitude evolution. Often, the methods taught to different engineering and building disciplines result in differing approaches, inter-professional dissonance and conflict within the construction design team. Latent hostile attitudes formed at the formative stages make mutuality difficult and this has repercussions in the working environment. Bringing the prospective professionals together at an early stage of their development is suggested as a way to reduce conflicting relationships. At present however, an educational consensus towards an open agreed approach to facilitate inter-disciplinary relationships does not exist.

Higher Educational Institutions, seeking to integrate different disciplines by the introduction of common subjects across schools, cannot be sure that timeous resource assessment and reorganisation will result in the desired improvement in professional relations. Topics, other than profession-specific subjects, regarded as important to a multi-disciplinary industry are less clearly identifiable than traditional 'core' and 'supporting' technical and construction-management subject areas. For this very reason the alternative to common-core curricula approaches, inter-disciplinary role-play project work seen as a vocational cultural exchange, carries much uncertaincy in its introduction and application.

A case study is presented that explores these factors as well as the nature of inter-disciplinary relationships in the construction-design team at its formative stage. Information presented goes toward a recognition that the collaborative processes of design must be addressed if the final products is to be successful.

Keywords: communication, integration, multi-disciplinary education

1 Introduction

This paper considers the importance of specialist knowledge bases in realising solutions to today's complex design problems, in the context of the need for the specialists themselves to work together within an industry that still has a relatively traditional, linear flow of information. Whilst acknowledging that good design may still be partly a product of individual 'creative' effort, discussion hinges on the opportunities for specialist participation in innovative projects. The integration of both specialists and specialisms is a central theme. A case study is presented exploring the extent to which professional culture develops and in turn influences multi-disciplinary interaction.

2 Procurement and whole-life development

Specialist input in today's increasingly technologically complex engineering industry is essential. Multi-disciplinary teams are necessary to satisfy the complex requirements of clients for complex built environments.

The way in which the specialist disciplines which make up the design team participate to fulfil specific project briefs, it is suggested, affects their performance and hence the innovative process and the efficacy of the specific end product. There are important differences, in qualitative as well as quantitative terms, between different types of participation, which have been recognised in a number of different fields [Cairncross et al. 1990]. That is, the involvement of particular professions may range from merely being a lowly part of a strict, hierarchical command structure, to being empowered as part of a genuinely collaborative team [Atkinson 1997] Unfortunately, Cook [1991] is not alone in suggesting that a cultural development of traditionally procured construction design team relationships affords little opportunity for multi-disciplinary participation of the latter kind. The traditional UK (building) design team is suggested by many to be more of a hierarchical information transfer system which exhibits relatively little prospect for more meaningful participation in the overall rationale underlying the decision making process [Lansley & Riddick 1991]. This paper is primarily concerned with the barriers to such collaborative participation.

If designs are to benefit from specialist professional knowledge, traditional procurement procedures require attention. Becher [1991] differentiates between on the one hand, a 'relay race' model of communication in the design process, in which information generated by one group or discipline is handed off to another group in a sequential process and a 'rugby' model of the product development process on the other. In the rugby model, different disciplines interact in a dynamic constantly fluctuating fashion. Leadership shifts as the nature of the project evolves. The hallmark is that all 'players' are involved from the beginning. It is argued that the design of complex environments can benefit from such an approach.

At present, traditional project procurement and working practice appears as very much a 'relay race' of information transfer. The initial design, based upon the specialist knowledge of the 'first runner', is very difficult to influence after the original concept has been established. Kirk and Dell'Isola [1995] argue that one of the principal reasons for unnecessarily high 'whole-costs' (life-cycle costs) has been the single discipline approach used by designers. They continue that a multi-disciplinary approach to optimise the building as a system, produces substantially more desirable results.

3 Innovative design and group-work processes

Design remains a creative process and it must be recognised that a multi-disciplinary approach should not seek to stifle invention and creativity, however we may choose to define it. Participation in engineering design must instead address innovation, in terms of design team process as well as design product. Innovative design is about more than just the early stages of inception and the 'art' of conceptual design, but extends to the functional, as well as aesthetic success of the final product [Pierce & Delbecq 1977]. Yet the nature of the functional solution is often set very early on with the early employment of an idea which allows invention to become an innovative design. Whilst the designer is charged with the initial creative art of invention, it is the specialist skills of the whole building design team, employed throughout the design process from the beginning that should, theoretically, be responsible for an innovative design.

Complex problems require solutions that combine specialist knowledge bases and group participation in the decision making processes of design is of necessity iterative. Unfortunately, inter-disciplinary communication problems present a major barrier to optimum building performance; something that the construction industry has long recognised with its plethora of reports and action plans [Andrews & Derbyshire 1992].

In general terms, problems do arise from the fragmentation of the design process and can be argued to affect performance negatively, but fragmentation is difficult to address since it's roots lie in the historical development of the professions in the UK [Whyte & Edge 1996]. In the extreme case, the post-renaissance development of the architectural profession in a 'Beaux-Artes' classical tradition, is in stark contrast to that of other built environment professions in terms of philosophy, educational experience and practice [Milner & Edge 1997]. It is argued that addressing fragmentation in the design process is contingent on dealing with fragmentation between the widely differing professions involved in that process.

Fragmentation creates professional dissonance and this is bad for innovation. Powell and Newland [1995] argue that if professionals are to grow in understanding and work better together they need to know the pattern underlying any data set in their own and other people's terms. In other words, empathy with other professionals and acknowledgement of the potential of specialist input and hence specialist data-bases, irrespective of the mode of communication, is required. Higher education has long been argued to provide the best foundation for empathy within the design team [Latham 1994].

4 Pedagogic philosophies for the integration of construction disciplines

To gain an up-to-date picture of the nature of multi-disciplinary education for courses in subjects related to the built environment, an investigation of Higher Educational Institutions in the UK was conducted. Consultation with academics knowledgeable in the field was carried out. This consultation process sought to clarify the current state of inter-disciplinary design, building and engineering education in the UK.

All UK Higher Educational Institutions, who offered more than one building design discipline, were identified. [British Qualifications 1992] These Institutions were sent a written request for information. Letters requested knowledge and information of in-house and/or external research into the examination and measurement of sociometric perception of students from disparate disciplines, who had taken part in multi-disciplinary educational initiatives. Letters requesting information were sent to relevant Faculty Deans, Heads of School, and Tutors teaching in Higher Educational Institutions in the UK cities of:

Comments received as a result of a written request for information, made to academics involved in cross-disciplinary education for vocational courses concerned with the built environment, found that the individual Higher Educational Institutions have different ideas on how to organise their own specific resources. Clearly any generic educational approach which seeks to improve professional integration through education must also address more localised differences in available resources.

Interpretation of the information received emphasises several areas of contention in the field of multi-disciplinary education:

(i) There is a great deal of tutor difference of opinion regarding the needs and merits of educational integration for disparate design, building and engineering courses,

(ii) Much difference exists in what is perceived to be the preferred stage to introduce integration initiatives,

(iii) Relatively closer links exist between architecture and engineering than between other building disciplines, and,

(iv) Controversy exists as to whether commonality and attendance at common core lectures, or, integrated project work, or, a combination of commonality and project work, or, an isolated undergraduate status quo, or, an overarching post graduate course is the best approach to achieve effective integration of a disparate student body.

An overview of the processes adopted by select departments providing inter-disciplinary education of a form described in point (iv) above was obtained. More formal discussions concerned trends towards integrated education for students of the built environment, and concentrated on finding the extent of work done in an examination and measurement of the sociometric perception of students from disparate disciplines, who had taken part in multi-disciplinary educational initiatives. The research project sought to ascertain whether the effects of participation in educational projects, on student perceptions of the status of self and peers, had been quantitatively studied elsewhere. It was found that little attention is given to professional attitude development.

Contemporary multi-disciplinary educational initiatives appear to offer no extrinsic means to test, or determine the extent of, success or failure in terms of improving inter-professional relationships. Little opportunity is found to exist for objective assessment or improvement in, what may be stated simplistically as professional relations programmes. Yet an examination and measurement of the attitude development towards peers, of students who take part in multi-disciplinary educational initiatives, can provide much essential information. Establishing a sample for the longitudinal comparison of attitude scale questionnaire responses was imperative.

Previous sections have highlighted dissatisfaction with the traditional isolated curricula of tertiary education for construction professionals. Dual-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary educational initiatives represent contemporary philosophies in the pursuit of a more integrated professional educational process. The choice of sample for the experimental case study needed to be representative of the various approaches to cross-disciplinary education employed by the Higher Educational Institutions. The location chosen for case study had to exhibit a number of important pedagogic factors: (i) the opportunity to investigate both full time and part time students, (ii) the opportunity to investigate sandwich year returning students, (ii) the opportunity to investigate a full range of vocational initial stage, intermediate stage, and final stage students, (iii) investigation of common-core units for students, (iv) the opportunity to assess joint undergraduate design courses, and, (v) investigation of different types of collaborative projects/workshops.

5 Methodology

Much previous research, argues that differences in dealing with people are largely a matter of values and attitudes, and that these attitudes can be modified by 'training'. Indeed it is argued that what a specialist does when dealing with other disparate disciplines, is determined by what their attitudes let them do [Hastings 1986]. The way to improve interactive skills, therefore, is argued here to be largely a function of influencing positively professional attitudes and behaviours.

An internally developed Likert-style attitude-scale, developed to examine public domain beliefs, feelings and behavioural tendencies, was subject to the standard procedures of validation and reliability testing [described in full in Whyte 1996]. The attitude-scale (described to participants as a 'questionnaire') charts the evolution and development and potential for change of professional attitude. The 24-item questionnaire seeks the respondents attitudes towards disciplines, other than their own, making up the building design team and highlights attitudes towards creative motivation, orientation to other people, mental habits, purpose and responsibility, information handling, social status, level of training received, level of education received, contribution to the building process, usefulness of information provided, and, leadership.

Experimental case study sample groups were identified. Sample groups were made up of students from separate vocational University Honours Degree courses. These University disciplines, and their respective course make-ups, were held to be representative of the building professions and professional differences. Respondents were categorised by University, course, stage of study, and as pertaining to either of two educational approaches. The first of these approaches was to teach the different disciplines in isolation, the second involved participation in educational initiatives designed to encourage multi-disciplinary building-design activities (periodic integrated workshops involving several other courses in role-play projects).

6 Research findings: the development of antagonism

A key finding indicated that attitudes towards other disciplines gets worse as students progress through their respective academic courses. A comparison of attitudes displayed by full-time cost-orientated Quantity Surveying students as they progress from the initial stages of vocational education to the final stages of vocational education, display a significant drop in favourability towards their design team colleagues after stage 1 (Appendix A). A similar trend, although not statistically significant, is displayed by Architectural respondents (Appendix B). Clearly participation in the educational process affects negatively student affinity towards the 'disparate' design team colleague. Whilst there are many variables that may influence this sudden significant drop in attitude score towards disparate professional colleagues, it appears logical to suggest that the full-time student's realisation of their own professional worth to the building design process, may be a major factor. Developing knowledge base(s) in an isolated academic environment, vocational full-time students quickly (findings suggest after stage 1) come to see their role to be more than simply: (i) providing specialist support to the traditional team leader in the case of the Quantity Surveyor, or alternatively, (ii) providing the initial design information for development by others, in the case of the Architectural students

Stage-1 Architecture part-time students displayed a significantly less favourable attitude towards non-design oriented (QS) profession than full-timers in terms of the non-design discipline's aptitude for contribution, management skill, organisational skill, perceptiveness, and helpfulness. Stage 3 QS full-time student respondents, who are more attuned to developing and promoting their own specialist skill in an academic environment, and less attuned to performing in the traditional hierarchy of practice, are significantly less willing to accept the (Architectural) design professions prestigious place, ability to lead, and ability to recognise responsibility to other specialists in the design process than part-timers at the same stage. It becomes clear that full-time students in a relatively isolated academic environment appear to develop attitudes dissimilar to their part-time student colleagues, who are more attuned to the restrictive nature of the traditional building design team. Indeed it has been said that higher education may instil students with too high an opinion of their own relative worth(s) to the building design team; and that less problems would arise if they were simply prepared only for those tasks which are required by the traditional building design process [Whyte 1996].

Whilst such an assembly-line manufacturing-outlook may indeed represent a logical solution to the problem of difficulties in communication between disparate professional disciplines, innovative building design requires a more holistic approach from its specialists. Good building design requires professionals able to go beyond a production-line mentality of semi-skilled operators only able to bolt on their respective parts without knowledge of the whole picture. Higher Education must continue to inspire students if building and construction is to be effective, efficient and innovative. Higher Education must also however encourage empathy among disparate specialists.

At present it would appear that full-time vocational education, instilling a wish to realise fully a dynamic professional potential, develops attitudes that are at odds with the co-operative multi-disciplinary approach demanded by today's technologically complex construction industry.

7 Research findings: inter-disciplinary project work

One experimental training programme seeking to integrate 'disparate' building disciplines, was identified for investigation. The initiative was examined in terms of it's ability to instil favourable attitudes towards fellow-practitioners in other fields. The inter-disciplinary project, delivered at the intermediary stage of honours degree courses, sought to encourage interaction and the integration of specialist skills gained through vocational education. Summarising the results gained, when the overall attitude-scale score towards disparate disciplines before the project was compared with the overall attitude-scale score measured after participation in the project, no significant difference was found. However post-project scores were found to record a higher attitude-scale mean rank score, than those before. In other words the post-project attitude scores held towards design team colleagues were more favourable, than those before the project took place.

Generally speaking this finding indicates that this intermediate stage multi-disciplinary project instilled an overall trend towards a more favourable attitude to design team colleagues. This project shows that educational integration initiatives do indeed go towards addressing the need to bridge cultural differences instilled by vocational traditions in the educational process.

When examined more closely however, the project simply intensifies originally held positive attitudes about a profession, rather than address the potentially detrimental, negative attitudes concerning design team peers. Attitudes before the project concerning the Quantity Surveying profession's low status, unsuitability to lead, uncooperative outlook, low project contribution and limited idea development were unchanged. On the other hand, positive attitudes such as being a well trained accurate efficient pragmatist were, as a result of the project, compounded. Similarly, attitudes held towards the Architect as a good idea developer, with good specialist knowledge, were improved by the participation in the project, yet after the project, attitudes held that regard the Architectural profession as isolationist, and uncooperative in the development of ideas and information also remained unchallenged.

Examination of the attitude-scale changes indicating intensified attitudes towards the Architect being isolationist and uncooperative, and the profession of Quantity Surveying as an uncooperative yet pragmatic support profession unfortunately fail to encourage informed debate and an analytical approach to future project briefs. The development of skills in the definition and management of tasks within a group situation are largely unfulfilled; indeed 76% of respondents think that the 'other' profession simply exhibited value judgements common to their own chosen discipline, and subsequently performed 'only' their required necessary professional tasks. A key finding is that to be successful those charged to develop future educational initiatives, to improve further attitudes towards peers must firstly conduct a detailed, objective identification of variables (identifiable through attitude-scale survey) detrimental to integration.

So, are educational initiatives such as this worth the great time and effort spent in their development and implementation? The answer is yes; since detailed analysis of the experimental educational initiatives shows that it is possible to modify positively attitudes towards other professions. However it is repeated that the structure and staging of inter-disciplinary training programmes must be carefully addressed (ideally through the attitude analysis techniques described) before success, in terms of multi-disciplinary empathy, can be achieved.

8 Conclusion

This paper has argued that whilst an integrated specialist team effort is best suited to providing necessarily complex solutions, procurement in the UK, with it's relay-race transfer of information, appears to be culturally opposed to integrative processes. This opposition has been shown to be substantially generated through the process of specialist professional education. As a result innovation through the entire, interdisciplinary design process, is apt to suffer. Innovative designs must acknowledge aspects such as whole-cost and sustainability but the opportunities for doing so are restricted, to a large extent, by inter-disciplinary disharmony.

Detailed analysis of experimental educational initiatives shows that it is possible to modify positively attitudes towards other professions, if the structure and staging of inter-disciplinary training programmes are carefully addressed (ideally through the attitude analysis techniques described). Improvements in multi-disciplinary empathy can be achieved at the educational formative stage.

9 Appendices

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