Computer Literacy and Architectural Education

The importance of some degree of computer literacy to the practice of architecture is constantly being emphasised yet what constitutes computer literacy in the context of architectural education has yet to be defined and appropriate guidelines for the teaching of CAD established. Currently the course structure of a CAD option is simply decided by the staff involved in teaching the option. Many course designs are possible, not all of which are likely to give equal educational returns. There is thus a need for empirical evaluation of existing course structures in order that the relative merits of the various possible designs may be usefully compared. This paper reports the outcome of one such study which focussed on student evaluation of the structure of the CAD option taught at Edinburgh.