To explain the relationship between the growth of design thinking and pre-reflective awareness of architecture students.

One of the goals of architectural education is to develop students' design thinking. Design researchers have shown that, in the course of this development, students' reflective awareness is beneficial for expanding the scope of knowledge utilized in design. Various factors can influence the growth of reflective awareness and, consequently, the development of architectural design knowledge. It seems that some of these factors can also be identified and introduced based on the philosophy of embodied perception by Maurice Merleau-Ponty. This research was conducted with this aim and in search of answers to the research questions: "What is the factor or factors influencing the growth of reflective awareness in architecture students based on the philosophy of embodied perception?" and "What is the method for strengthening this factor in architectural design education?" This research was carried out based on a coherent and developed theoretical framework. The formulation of this theoretical framework is the result of years of research by the author, which gathered, organized, and structured disparate and uncoordinated materials from various studies. This framework serves as the theoretical foundations of the research, providing the premises for logical reasoning, with the relevant materials collected through library research and correspondence with other researchers in this field. The research method is logical reasoning, the results of which were ultimately tested empirically among architecture students at Payame Noor University, Yazd Center, and the results are also presented. This research showed that in the process of developing architectural design thinking, the growth of students' reflective awareness is dependent on the growth of another type of awareness called pre-reflective awareness, which serves as a precursor to reflective awareness. Strengthening this type of awareness was carried out through enhancing the architectural visualization skills of the mentioned students, and strategies for strengthening this ability were also provided. In conclusion, it was inferred that the growth of pre-reflective architectural awareness among students is one of the most important factors in the development of design thinking through the expansion of knowledge used in architectural design. According to most design researchers, the development of students' reflective awareness about architecture is effective on their design thinking. Various factors can affect this developing. But the students' pre-reflective awareness about architecture is one of the most important factors. The reflective awareness plays a role in the accumulation of knowing. The knowledge that using in the designing can be concluded the pre-reflective awareness and provide the prerequisites for reflective awareness. This issue needs more research and investigation, which pursuing in this article. The current research seeks to answer “what is the most important factor that affecting the development of reflective awareness of architecture students? What is the solution to reinforcement of this factor in architectural design education? We try to identify the important and preliminary factor that affecting the development of students' reflective awareness of architecture in the development of their design thinking. The research is based on a coherent theoretical framework. This framework is constructed by the logical arrangement of opinions and theories based on William Morris Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology.