Teaching Infection Control to Students of Architecture: Defining a Needed Pedagogy and Technique

Context: The world has been reeling under the COVID-19 pandemic. This also led to infection control being a matter restricted to healthcare facilities and to every building which has any form of stranger interaction or public gathering. Architecture students must be taught basic infection control in their formative years. Aims: There are two aims of this study. First, to define pedagogy for teaching Infection Control to undergraduate students in architecture. Second, to take feedback from students after the course about the program's effectiveness. Settings and Design: An elective was proposed in the Department of Architecture in the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, for a semester from August 2020 to December 2020. Fourteen students in the fourth and fifth year of the Bachelor of Architecture course were offered this elective. This paper discusses nine innovative exercises the tutor conducted during the elective course. These include theory-oriented and design-based practices that ground infection control methods in the students who are being trained to be architects. Methods and Material: The elective used a unique nine-point technique to teach infection control to undergraduate architecture students. At the end of the program, the tutor provided the students with a feedback survey based on five points Likert Scale. The feedback was evaluated using basic arithmetic. Results: Seven of the 11 responded that the elective content was unique and was not already taught in other subjects of the Bachelor of Architecture curriculum. Six students out of 11 reported somewhat of a no when questioned regarding the awareness of infection control in the built environment. Conclusions: The students provided positive feedback to the survey and responded positively to the suggestion of including this elective in the standard curriculum for architecture students.Posted as Preprint on October 1st 2022