Extended abstract

Introduction: Given that architecture universities have diverse physical characteristics, architecture education takes place in environments of varying quality despite the wide and diverse range of factors affecting architecture education, such as the academic characteristics and individual talents of professors and students. The environment, as a place for learning with educational facilities and standards that include micro-factors and various dimensions, can lead to improved learning and must be designed intelligently. Today, the way architecture is taught is the biggest problem in the faculty of architecture, so recognizing the factors affecting it is also important in improving the quality of education. Studies conducted and the evaluation of architecture students' evaluation of architecture education indicate shortcomings in the architecture education system in Iran.
During the teaching and learning process, there are experiences that are not considered in the curriculum development, but students learn and experience them. This type of education is called the "hidden curriculum". The hidden curriculum is not written anywhere, nor is it taught by any teacher, but rather the educational environment, with all its characteristics, teaches it. In short, given that architecture universities have diverse physical characteristics, therefore, architecture education takes place in environments with diverse qualities, despite the wide and diverse range of factors affecting architecture education, from academic characteristics and individual talents of professors and students to educational facilities and standards, which themselves include various micro-factors and dimensions; this research seeks to find a meaningful relationship between the qualitative components of the architecture education environment and students' creative thinking based on the theories of the hidden curriculum and environmental psychology.
Methods and Materials: This research is of applied-developmental nature, and its approach is mixed. In its first layer, a qualitative method is used to extract variables and refine components, and the results of this stage are used to develop a questionnaire with a Likert scale. The qualitative part of the research was conducted using the content analysis method, which is an appropriate method for identifying the physical components of the learning environment. Accordingly, by studying the research literature, the interview content was implemented, and after repeated rereading of the texts and data concepts, effective environmental components were extracted. The interview questions were developed based on the expansion and layering of the main research question and through a qualitative study similar to and appropriate to the research topic. In the next step, after the determined concepts were identified, an attempt was made to extract related concepts in a higher abstraction as the main research codes. Interviews were continued until theoretical saturation, until finally 20 participants of this research saturated the research data. The interviews in this study were conducted in-depth using open-ended questions to explore environmental factors affecting creative thinking. The interviews were semi-structured and content analysis was used to analyze the data. After all the interview transcripts were read separately and several times to identify single categories and meanings, their transcripts were analyzed and the researchers' interpretation of the respondents' statements was determined in the form of a single meaning. In this study, the categories that were most frequently repeated or represented a number of concepts were identified and analyzed.
Findings: In the qualitative findings section, it is noted that the results obtained from the interviews are displayed in the form of spider conceptual diagrams. The initial results show the extraction of 95 codes in the data organization stage, which after summarizing and relating to the main category, the number is reduced to 29 items, and after classifying the concepts and relating the categories to each other, the number is reduced to 22 items. The components are displayed in two formats: objective and subjective. The most prominent code is related to decorations and the least is related to public areas. The distribution of data based on descriptive findings is different from inferential statistics, which should be based on inferential statistics. The correlation showed that the spatial characteristics of educational environments have more significant effects on other components and can better lead to their increase in achieving creativity, and it is necessary to pay attention to this issue for revitalizing educational centers.
Discussion and Conclusion: It seems that the use of physical components in the selected university has acted separately from other components in the spatial dimension and in relation to other dimensions and has not been able to strengthen each other. The important point is that none of the variables have an inverse relationship with each other and the presence of one does not reduce the presence of the other.
Methods and Materials: This research is of applied-developmental nature, and its approach is mixed. In its first layer, a qualitative method is used to extract variables and refine components, and the results of this stage are used to develop a questionnaire with a Likert scale. The qualitative part of the research was conducted using the content analysis method, which is an appropriate method for identifying the physical components of the learning environment. Accordingly, by studying the research literature, the interview content was implemented, and after repeated rereading of the texts and data concepts, effective environmental components were extracted. The interview questions were developed based on the expansion and layering of the main research question and through a qualitative study similar to and appropriate to the research topic. In the next step, after the determined concepts were identified, an attempt was made to extract related concepts in a higher abstraction as the main research codes. Interviews were continued until theoretical saturation, until finally 20 participants of this research saturated the research data. The interviews in this study were conducted in-depth using open-ended questions to explore environmental factors affecting creative thinking. The interviews were semi-structured and content analysis was used to analyze the data. After all the interview transcripts were read separately and several times to identify single categories and meanings, their transcripts were analyzed and the researchers' interpretation of the respondents' statements was determined in the form of a single meaning. In this study, the categories that were most frequently repeated or represented a number of concepts were identified and analyzed.
Findings: In the qualitative findings section, it is noted that the results obtained from the interviews are displayed in the form of spider conceptual diagrams. The initial results show the extraction of 95 codes in the data organization stage, which after summarizing and relating to the main category, the number is reduced to 29 items, and after classifying the concepts and relating the categories to each other, the number is reduced to 22 items. The components are displayed in two formats: objective and subjective. The most prominent code is related to decorations and the least is related to public areas. The distribution of data based on descriptive findings is different from inferential statistics, which should be based on inferential statistics. The correlation showed that the spatial characteristics of educational environments have more significant effects on other components and can better lead to their increase in achieving creativity, and it is necessary to pay attention to this issue for revitalizing educational centers.PN modeling indicates the existence of factor adhesion between the components, the increase of which will be effective in education with an emphasis on creative thinking. Finally, it is concluded that the educational system, teaching methods and education, along with physical environmental components, are important variables that can improve students' creative thinking. By instilling unique physical characteristics and components resulting from the extracted components, a hidden curriculum can be developed that prepares students to use their creative thinking.
Keywords: Environmental factors, educational environments, creative thinking, mixed method.