17 / 52
NTNU – THE FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE AND FINE ART
17
The Committee started work in November 2014 after the
assignment was given and the members were elected.
The Committee based the evaluation process on a set of
values and aims which were as follows:
• to establish an inclusive and participatory process
• to allocate students a central and active role
in the process
• to strengthen the ownership of the leaders, teachers
and students in further developing educational provision
• to use novel evaluation methods to gain quantitatively
and qualitatively richer data
The assignment was very open and there was no prede-
termined model or process to be followed. The idea was
to plan the process in dialogue with the leaders of the
School. Instead of determining the whole process from
the outset, it was decided that the actual process would
emerge gradually in the light of what would arise from in-
teraction with the leaders, teachers, students and stake-
holders. This absence of a pre-determined plan, instead
of creating a risk for the success of the process, was, on
the contrary, considered likely to increase the useful-
ness of the results and strengthen the ownership that the
School would have in relation to future development.
During the first visit in January 2015 the School organized
the program and the main aim was to derive informa-
tion about the programs to be evaluated. Instead of only
receiving information during the visit, there was consid-
erable fruitful discussion and interaction with the leaders
and the teaching staff.
The second visit was organized in March 2015. In tradi-
tional evaluations inclusiveness is frequently achieved by
interviewing as representative a group of actors as possi-
ble – in this case leaders, teachers, students and stake-
holders. The Committee took this aim one step further
and organized workshops, where active participants from
the School discussed issues and produced evaluation data
by interacting with each other instead of only answering
questions framed by the Committee.
The workshop for 40 students representing different pro-
grams, courses and years, produced especially valuable
data – both quantitative and qualitative. The idea was
that the students were able to work in interaction with
each other, in their own space, with their own language,
drawing and writing on large posters (closer to architec-
tural working than just verbally expressing their thoughts)
and students also moved physically in space as they are
accustomed to when they study (for example, they sat on
the floor). Students collaboratively constructed their ideas
about their future as architects. They worked on how they
thought their present studies supported their develop-
ment as professionals, what were the strengths and
weaknesses of their education and in what ways their ed-
ucation could be improved (see attachment). This way of
working provided additional data to the traditional method
of interviewing students formally on the other side of a
table from the Committee and answering questions posed
by the Committee. This act of organizing a workshop also
enabled students to be active producers of evaluation data
as well as generators of ideas for improving education.
The Committee also organized four in-depth interviews
which provided deeper understanding of the students’
perspective.
Between the second and third visit the Committee analyz-
ed all the collected data and drew preliminary conclusions
and recommendations. However, instead of writing the
final report based on those findings and analyses, it was
decided to engage the teachers and students (not leaders)
in discussing and commenting on them. The idea was
to strengthen the ownership of the community over the
development activities, and the discussion of the report,
by providing a forum for interaction between the actors.
At the beginning of the third visit in May 2015, the Com-
5. Method of the evaluation