Comparative analysis between virtual and direct education in architecture fundamental courses, case study: architectural design basic courses at Apadana and Eram Institues of Higher Education, in Shiraz, Iran

This paper attempts to demonstrate and compare some challenges and opportunities between virtual and direct education in architecture, specifically in fundamental courses in Iran. Two different educational methods, direct and virtual, have been run in two instituations of higher educations, Apadana and Eram, in Shiraz, Iran. for two successive architectural design basic courses. Both cases were observed accurately by the authors during two semesters and all the datas were collected and assessed carefully. The main questions of this paper are: what are the advantages and disadvantages of virtual and direct education? And which method leads to a better result in education for architecture fundamental courses? The query is based on the case study method (Groat & Wang, 2002, pp. 341-373), using a combination of strategies and content analysis techniques. The information is collected through library and fields studies, and completed through questionnaire and analyzing it's components by the statistical software “SPSS”.