ABSTRACT
This study examines the use, interchange, and efficacy of profession-based vocabulary employed by architecture and engineering students when collaborating on a conceptual design. The two professions have their own specialized vocabulary for expressing design ideas with precision, but difficulties in understanding and exchanging these terms can impede communication and negatively impact design efficacy. A design experiment was used to assess how extensively advanced student designers employ disciplinary language when paired with partners of the same or the other profession. Communication characteristics and final design statements of same-wise pairs were compared to diverse pairs to determine if more engaged communication correlated to designs that better addressed disciplinary criteria. The dialogues of the diverse teams were also analyzed for dominant behaviors in their cooperation. While the disciplinarily diverse teams did not perform notably better, more discussion within pairs generally related to better addressing the final criteria, showing how communication can impact collaboration.
