Complete thesis - Murdoch University

future design studios. [...] While I understand that it is hardfor a lecturer to know of or act upon the problem of freeloaders or dominating personalties, if it is not identified. Itis also hard for those students doing the work to resolve theissue them selves i.e. while this University teaches technicalskills it has not taught soft skills especially the soft skillsneeded to motivate and manage peers.Currently the options open to students to deal with members notdoing their share of the work includes:Threatening them with eviction or evicting them. Evicting agroup member is whistle blowing which is counter cultural to theAustralian way i.e. we are brought up not to be dobbers. Leavethe team and work alone which results in the individual who wasdoing the work having to do even more work because they anindividual competing in a team event.Neither of these options is fair on student(s) who are doing thework and it treats the symptom not the cause of the problem i.e.the inability of members in the group to motivate all members towork together for the benefit of group members.This suggests that all Studios require this issue to be addressed – implying it should be raisedduring the Design Week, and alternatives provided for students to access.For the discipline of RE the Studio Learning model appeared to hold the most promise –students had been provided with a process during the Design Week, and were able to applyit in the unit, but also adapt or discard it as they perceived necessary. In this way, theenvironment supported both behaviours, and hence both the discipline and the opportunismnecessary for RE. Robillard (2005) notes that in a typical opportunistic problem-solvingactivity, individuals spontaneously rely on teammates to provide missing information. Thestudent data indicates this is occurring (each of us shares the ability or outcomes from theability e.g. ability to research (find information/knowledge), understanding a problem thatothers don’t and interpreting it into a context the other can understand so they can solve theproblem; some of the knowledge I have learnt has resulted from the interaction with my teammembers i.e. I don’t believe the level of understanding I now have, would have been achieved360