Board 2A: WIP:Opportunities in Cultural Dimensions between Architecture and Civil Engineering students in Ecuador

Nowadays, due to the great demand for infrastructure, the expertise of architects and civil engineers in their respective fields of knowledge has been valued, generating a greater need for collaboration and an effective workflow. However, from the educational foundations, a gap has been created between these branches of construction to the point that their teaching approaches are different, thus forming a deficiency of understanding between them and complex working environments in professional life. This study seeks to understand the cultural differences between civil engineering and architecture students, based on Hofstede's theory of cultural dimensions. Five dimensions are evaluated: Individuality, Power distance, Uncertainty avoidance, Masculinity, and Long-term orientation. Data were collected from four groups: civil engineering students pre-pandemic and post-pandemic and architecture students' pre-pandemic and post-pandemic to determine if the new teaching methods associated with the COVID 2019 pandemic, may cause variations in the results giving openness to further research. All surveys were administered to students at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito USFQ, in Spanish, and reviewed by native speakers. The results provided statistical information on the significant differences in cultural dimensions between engineers and architects so that it was possible to discuss the possible causes of the creation of the gap between the two branches of construction as well as to understand variations in pre-pandemic and post-pandemic student outcomes and recommendations that can be taken to reduce barriers to cooperation between civil engineers and architects.