Practice Analysis and
Boyer Report
2007 Practice Analysis of Architecture and Building Community: A New Future for Architecture Education and Practice (the Boyer Report)
NCARB protects the public health, safety, and welfare by leading the regulation of the practice of architecture through the development and application of standards for licensure and credentialing of architects. Architects are the primary building professional responsible for the public health, safety, and welfare. NCARB is committed to increasing an understanding of this responsibility among the public, the profession, and the academy.
To support its mission and development and administration of the ARE and the IDP and to guide its education-related initiatives, NCARB regularly conducts a practice analysis of the architecture profession. The practice analysis obtains psychometrically valid and legally defensible data about the tasks performed by architects and the knowledge and skills necessary to adequately perform those tasks.
NCARB's most recent practice analysis underscored the findings of The Boyer Report and identified specific examples of the disparity between practice and education. The 2007 Practice Analysis of Architecture identified five domains and over 100 knowledge/skills that the architecture profession rated as important for recently licensed architects practicing independently. Seventeen knowledge/skills were identified as being acquired after licensure, despite the fact that all were designated as essential for recently licensed architects practicing independently.
NCARB noted in the NCARB Position Paper for the NAAB 2008 Accreditation Review Conference that 12 of these knowledge/skills that are currently being acquired after licensure would be most appropriately and effectively addressed at the educational stage of an architect's development:
Predesign
- Project financing and funding
Project Management
- Project budget management
- Construction conflict resolution
Project Management
- Legal & ethical issues pertaining to contracts
- Legal & ethical issues pertaining to practice
- Business planning
- Strategic planning
- Financial management
- Risk management
- Marketing and Communications
- Contract Negotiations
General Practice