Examining the Academic Success of the Students in Drawing Techniques Course: The Case of Freshmen in Landscape Architecture

Abstract

In Landscape Architecture education the students are expected to produce a unique and creative product and express this product in two or three dimensions. For this aim drawing techniques related to visualizing the design are instructed in the first year of landscape architecture education in the Drawing Techniques course using conventional methods of expression. As a result, the students can express themselves and acquire the ability to use the lines and the pencil. Knowing how to draw enables students to obtain basic knowledge about what to express and how; acquiring the ability to use the pencil provide them the opportunity to draw quality images - good sketches. After learning these skills, it will become easier for them to transfer their thoughts to digital media and to express their designs in digital media.

In Landscape architecture education, to improve freshmen's technical drawing skills, practices related to two (plan, profile-view) and three (perspectives) dimensional drawing techniques are conducted within the scope of Drawing Techniques course. In the present study, the practices that are implemented by freshmen who took Drawing Techniques course during five semesters between 2012-2017 academic years were examined. The change in the drawing performance of the students in practices was analyzed. It was also examined whether the two or three dimensional drawing techniques led to this change and whether the type of drawing techniques utilized affected their level of making mistakes and the variety of those mistakes.