Learning To Research: Introducing Arts-Based Research Methodology Into The Fine Arts Classroom

Author(s):

Rachel Fendler(presenting / submitting)Fernando Hernández Hernández(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

29. Research on Arts Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

29 SES 13 A, Researching in the arts

Paper Session

Time:

2015-09-11

11:00-12:30

Room:

557.Oktatóterem [C]

Chair:

Tiago Assis

Contribution

Our presentation will discuss our experience teaching the undergraduate elective Arts Based Research offered at the School of Fine Arts at the University of Barcelona, offered since 2011. In particular we are interested in discussing the following four questions:

- How can Fine Arts students engage in and learn about arts-based research methods?

- How does doing ABR generate new knowledge about ABR?

Since we began to offer this course, we have engaged in a critical inquiry into the topic, curious about how a class on ABR becomes a site for generating new knowledge and understanding within the field. By proposing that we learn by doing, the classroom becomes not only a way to learn about ABR but also a site for intervention and (perhaps) innovation. What we have attempted over the last four years (and five classes) is to not only teach students about ABR, but to do ABR with them. Through this endeavor, we have developed a deeper understanding of what ABR is, and have become more attune to the challenges we face when we try to convert the classroom into a research group.

Elizabeth St. Pierre has observed that “scholars and researchers in all disciplines have acknowledged that there are different ways of knowing the world, and thereby investigating it” (St. Pierre, 2002: 26). This sentiment is perhaps the starting point in our class, when we propose to students that we will learn about ABR by undertaking a collaborative ABR project. However, what the different ways of investigating the world could look like, the form new methods will take and the manner in which they are applied to various contexts, is answered through practice, not through classroom lecture.

For this communication, we will share a few key points that illustrate our understanding of ABR, which are based on steps we have identified as a result of our accumulated class experience:

1. Students become arts-based research through a hybrid form of action research

2. Collaborative research develops by engaging the subjectivities of the researchers

3. The work is carried out in a community of praxis

4. The work develops in a nonlinear and unpredictable inquiry process

5. ABR becomes a way for students to contribute to the production of social knowledge

Through practice, we have found that ABR initiates a mode of inquiry that not only involves the participants, but also reveals manners of establishing relationships that other methods don't allow. Scientific rigor in this context is based on reflexivity, which echoes Kincheloe and Berry's (2005) arguments for adopting a bricolage perspective within educational research. Within this framework, and building on our joint experiences, ABR emerges as a journey, where we recognize the point of departure but may not necessarily know where we are going. This means that charting the progress is key. It also means that we must reposition ourselves in relation to knowledge, learning and the pedagogical relationship.

Method

This communication analyzes the authors' experience teaching the undergraduate elective Arts Based Research for Fine Art students. Our data draws on developments in the class, which has been offered now 5 times, as we review how Fine Arts students learn ABR research methodology in an aim to improve our practice. Our primary source of data comes from the dialog that takes place at the end of each term, when students produce a report on their own learning during the class. Based on these reports, the professors enter into a discussion with students about what they have learned, looking at what has been important for their learning and what has impeded the process. After categorizing the reports, we are able to look at where the pedagogical relationship and ABR intersect. The resulting conversation reveals aspects of the lived experience of learning ABR that goes beyond the course evaluation criteria, demonstrating key characteristics that aid us in thinking about how to plan and implement this course. For example, regarding the evaluation criteria, in their reports students identified four main elements: acquisition of key concepts and theoretical framework; acquisition of methods and research strategies; class participation; demonstration of having internalized some aspects of ABR. However, the reports mostly address elements that were important to the learning process, but which fall outside the reach of evaluation, including: how ABR changes our notion of what a classroom could be; the role of the professors in a group project; the obstacles involved in group projects; important life events that affect students' ability to attend class; and finally, the tension introduced in the process by the need for a formal evaluation. This analysis provides us with a greater appreciation for the complexities of teaching research method. We have come to understand that the goal is to cultivate an environment that promotes and supports collaboration, focusing less on the course content and more on the class dynamic. The dialog generated at the end of the most recent edition of the course allows the students' experience to inform our design of the course as we move forward.

Expected Outcomes

Doing ABR in class has shown us that the inquiry process can be both a learning experience and a contribution to the field. We have discovered that ABR is not just another way of making art, or of learning in class, or with others. It is an undertaking firmly positioned within an inquiry framework, and strives to approach that which we seek to understand; it aims to question naturalized gazes and understandings and generate relationships that expand the way of knowing and being (with others). Adopting an inquiring attitude reconfigures our identity as learners, pushing us into the active role of producer/researcher. The relational space of our collaborative project is the context where this transformation can take place. While this framework is suggestive for researching with students, at the same time, it challenges us as professors. The student feedback teaches us that our anxiety about the impossibility of understanding what students learn in this class (an issue we have called “grey areas”) concerns only two members of the group, making it a minority perspective. The rest of the class is content with having had an experience where they felt challenged, were engaged and had the opportunity to experiment with new thoughts and practices. While at times we fret that the evidence of learning (objectives) is scarce, it seems that this is a case where the experience itself speaks louder than the products we create. In other words, perhaps the reflexive, evolving and critical practice of living inquiry is, in fact, synonymous to learning.

References

Fendler, R. & Hernández-Hernández, F. (2013). What does research mean for Fine Arts students? In, F. Hernández-Hernández & R. Fendler (Eds.), 1st Conference on Arts-Based and Artistic Research: Critical reflections on the intersection of art and research, pp: 227-232. Barcelona: University of Barcelona. Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/2445/45264 Kincheloe, J. & Berry, K. (2005). Rigour and Complexity in Educational Research: Conceptualizing the Bricolage. London: Open University Press. O’Donoghue, D. (2014). Revisiting the Idea of Arts-Based Research. An Unexhausted Possibility. International Journal of Qualitative Research, 7 (2), 169-183. Reed, I.A. (2011). Interpretation and social knowledge: On the use of theory in the human sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Springgay, S., Irwin, R., Leggo, C., Gouzouaisis, P. (2008). Being with a/r/tography. Rotterdam: Sense St. Pierre, E. (2002). “Science” rejects postmodernism. Educational Researcher, 31 (8), 25-27.

Author Information

Rachel Fendler (presenting / submitting)

University of Barcelona, Spain

Fernando Hernández Hernández (presenting)