An Inquiry of Practising Self-Advocacy Skills in Interior Architecture Education

In the last decades, interest in studying interior architecture education has increased, while graduates of interior architecture are facing a challenge of finding jobs, working in teams or collaborating with other profession. As the first step to every profession starts with its education, students need to learn to speak up for their needs in a safe environment and develop ownership for their rights and responsibilities. There are many studies, which focus on students with special needs that are encouraged to practise self-advocacy skills in educational mediums. When it comes to interior architecture and self-advocacy, there is no research that can be found so far. This study aims to provide a tool to guide interior architecture educators to help students practise self-advocacy skills to face existing challenges in their academic and professional life after graduation. It evolves around the question: What are the components of self advocacy that can provide deep insights to encourage interior architecture educators to promote practising self-advocacy skills by interior architecture students? Within this context, this study conducted a mixed -qualitative and quantitative- methodology by utilizing a case study approach; furthermore, multi-cases have been applied. After documenting the literature through literature survey method, observations, in-depth interviews, semi-structured interviews and questionnaires were conducted with instructors and research/teaching assistants. As a result, the study showed that interior architecture students need encouragement to practise self-advocacy skills. Moreover, the components of self-advocacy that can be practised in an interior design studio, came out as motivation, self-knowledge, self-efficacy and self-expression. For this, a method, for promoting practicing self-advocacy skills, has been designed as a guide for interior architecture educators to encourage their students.