Tag Archive for 'practice-led research'

Action Research and Reflection

I am in the process of drafting my exegesis at the moment (in the quiet time that is the beginning of the year) The introduction is drafted and now I am moving onto summarising the research methods, which is useful as this will set up a clearer framework for reflecting on the projects. At the moment aspects of action research seem to be where things fit into place, looking back at the process retrospectively. I started with AM’s summary on the Labsome wiki. This led to an excellent article titled ‘Understanding Action Research’. In this article there are a number of valuable points like:

The best question is the one that will lead you to look at your practice deeply and engage in cycles of continuous learning from your everyday practice of your craft. These questions come from a desire to have practice align with values and beliefs. Exploring these questions helps the researcher to be progressively more effective in reaching their personal goals and developing professional expertise.

Also, these notes for the reader in the introduction are useful:

The reader needs to be invited to think about the problem at the widest level. This should answer the question –Why should a read this, why should I care about this study? This is not about the context but about the problem and how it is linked to your visions for a different future.

In terms of evaluation and reflection there are these pointers:

EVALUATION: How will you/did you evaluate the outcomes of your action?…..(Indicate your plans for your analysis in a paragraph or two).

REFLECTION: Looking back on my action with the benefit of data, I now think… and if I were to do this again I would have…. The thing that worked best was… What most surprised me from the data was…

With a overarching reflection as part of extended and detailed overview:

FINAL REFLECTION: This is where the action research really takes stock of what was learned. It might be helpful to think of a reflection as a set of connections between the past, present and future. If this section is only a summary of what was happened, it will fail as a reflection. A reflection provides a deep understanding of why things happened as they did and how those outcomes help you address your overarching question. At the end of writing a good reflection, you will know more than you did when you started it. If you haven’t gained some new insights about the problem and your actions to solve it, it is likely that you are only summarizing what happened. Reflection is a powerful learning experience. It is an essential part of action research.

The point about knowing more than when you started is important!

Another part of this evaluation is revisiting notes on the UTS Creativity and Cognition website and the section on Practice Based Research (PBR) which have been updated since my last visit including the PBR bibliography which has action research links.

There is also some useful notes on reflection in varying places. In the Questions and Answers section notes from Ross Gibson:

Ross Gibson’s view is ‘the text is not an explanation of the artwork; rather, the text is an explicit, word-specific representation of processes that occur during the iterative art-making routine, processes of gradual, cyclical speculation, realisation or revelation leading to momentary, contingent degrees of understanding. To this extent the text that one produces is a kind of narrative about the flux of perception-cognition-intuition. The text accounts for the iterative process that carries on until the artist decrees that the artwork is complete and available for critique, ‘appreciation’, interpretation, description, evaluation. All these particular practices can entail other particular texts.’

I like the “narrative” angle here. In this FAQ a number of question are posed as part of the reflective process:

Good questions to ask yourself are

  • what was proposed, discussed, decided and carried through,
  • what stumbling blocks arose and how they were addressed….,
  • whether the ideas were workable, interesting, challenging….
  • whether the collaboration worked well or not
  • reasons for success or otherwise,did the solutions work well, if not why not?
  • whether there were different viewpoints between you and your collaborating parties
  • whether lessons were learnt from failures.
  • labsome exegesis (production orientated)

    In the notes on project-based Honours research in labsome AM in his discussion on this type of research as an introduction for examiners, sums up what is expected in the exegesis. There are two approaches to this type of research, The first is production focused with the objective to produce media objects. The second is research on “professional or industry practice”. In the summary on production focused research he states:

    The exegesis would contextualise the project in terms of what it sought to explore, how successful its realisation has been, and what the student has learnt, through the project, about their practice. It should orientate the work in relation to contemporary media practice.

    Also, he points out that the exegesis needs to show and explain what was done as in things that may not be evident in the actual end result. Often with blog reflection, I find the processes that went into creating a work as relevant to understanding the research as the media object itself. Finally, in regards to context, “asethetics” is also covered where connections are made between the production logistics and the research approach.

    facing the bleeding obvious

    In my last GRC, my revised summary of my research took a nose-dive into the trash as what I seem to have been avoiding came back and bit me on the behind. Now, as I look at the 40-odd thousand words ahead and writing up the projects I have been cooking for the last few years it is time to dig deep into what my practice is all about. But, for some reason and I am not sure why? - this seems like hitting the couch for a quack session. So, I stand poised ready to tip tap with mixed feelings of sarcasm and excitement. With the enthusiasm weighing in on top off the procrastination. I think part of this shake down is accepting that for me the good sh** lies in the doing and always has rather than as a late entry to academia in the theorising from theory. Here we go then the next bit of the journey into practice-led research and the practice generating theory…and a photo from a recent field trip that says it all - only half the time being so close to it I am the last to see it (it being what I seem to want to do when it comes to making stuff)

    field

    …the parrots have gone (no not more birds) or wombats or other wildlife.. this time mountains and lakes

    http://www.sethkeen.net/vg_one.gmap/index.html

    GRC November 2008

    I have not written much about a project that myself and the VD collective have been working on for the last few months with an International NGO. Mainly because it involves the applied commercial development of the VD system. But with another School Graduate Research Conference (GRC) looming in a week, I think it is time to break the drought. Funnily enough, without reflection on my blog I have also been slipping behind in the documentation of this project.

    Last semester my June, GRC panel provided the following feedback to consider for this GRC:

    “…who is the audience of your research and what is the contribution you are making to them.”

    “Your work touches on a lot of technology issues that are here or on the near horizon, yet this is only one aspect. You also engage with different forms of narrative construction, temporality and user experience as well. What is the priority and how will you work with all of these?”

    These are key points that I am now considering amongst a busy time of marking and more project production within the next couple of weeks. This is a new project on top of the NGO gig. I have been reflecting on these pointers and recently revised the research summary as one step towards beginning the process of writing up this research towards submission. Taking into consideration the development of the projects, particulary VD the following evolved:

    //non-video/new-video/net-video Online video is a growing phenomenon on the Internet that has predominately involved the distribution of televisual and cinematic content on this system. I would argue that this is an approach that fails to respond to the materialities of the Internet as a media form. A practice-led, poetic research model is used to determine how online video can be utilised to articulate and disseminate knowledge on the Internet. Design is used to invent online video systems that explore the affordances of the Internet and Social Media technologies. These systems are developed collaboratively through an iterative process of content production and evaluation. Situated within the field of Media, I examine both the formal and cultural issues that the Internet poses for independent online video practitioners.

    I think this is moving in the right direction with another 1-2 steps to go to finalise this towards being an abstract for the exegesis. Supervision work with Labsome Honours students really helped me clarify more and more, the practice-led research process and introduced me to some of AM’s notes on poetic research. Nothing like thinking through a process when you are teaching it to others. The poetic research concept started for me with Terrance Rosenberg’s article. A concept I plan to tease out more in my exegesis for this research.

    Another phase of re-writing this summary is also revising the research questions. It was interesting to work hard on the clarfication of some research questions with the Honours students this semester. In such a short timeframe this helped us both understand what was being undertaken, on the premise that they could be revised and tweaked towards the end of the research.

    Picking up on the point of how I plan to work with all of the themes mentioned above I picked up on the need to locate a framework that brings all these themes together around one point of inquiry. Something I noted in an earlier post around an mcd presentation. It is not really an issues addressing all these themes as long as they are handled from one unifying perspective. I also picked up or reminded myself that the theory, this framework and the dominating themes being explored emerge from the practice. This is all about reflecting on projects which brings me back to the current NGO project. I have been thinking about what this project is bringing to the surface and what a number of blog posts would cover.

    A quote form Rosneberg’s article on poetic research.

    In the case of the “poetic” the focal territory is found through a process. It is iterative, working in the space between substantiation and deviation. Backgrounding and foregrounding happen in a dynamic process and this produces a research context. Poetic enquiry evolves its field of focus whereas conventional research sets in advance its focal channel. (See figures 3 and 4). The focal territory in poetic research is established in open water.