Action Research Project

What is ARP?

My initial thoughts centred around self-designed research project, democratised method of research? 1:1 supervision? In-person sessions? Knowledge production and presentation in the working world of all our organisational, disciplinary knowledges? Literature as something which mobilises our thinking and action? Much about doing? Decolonising our references and citations, how social justice is not just part of the action but also about the reading? Social justice an integral component in ARP? Observation work in class, reiterative design / research? Growing work on inclusive participatory action research, culminating in a presentation of our research? Presenting to peers is part of the ARP ethos?

“The purpose of all research is to generate new knowledge. Action research generates a special kind of knowledge. Action research has always been understood as people taking action to improve their personal and social situations. Some see its potential for promoting a more productive and peaceful world order (Heron 1998; Heron and Reason 2001). A strong new theme is emerging about how action researchers can find more democratic ways of working for sustainable organizational development (McNiff and Whitehead 2000). Educational action research is coming to be seen as a methodology for real-world social change.” ‘All You Need To Know About Action Research’. 

– McNiff and Whitehead on ARP, change and democracy 1

ARP asks me what it is to be a researcher, my researcher identity, my researcher self, which writers and literatures are composing me and my researcher viewpoints and engagements.

Cohort Effects and Risk Mitigation

My initial thoughts turn to concerns of honesty, reflecting Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, whatever you study you also change. The observer effect is the fact that observing a situation or phenomenon necessarily changes it. However I am consoled in the conversation noting ‘We look at the ethics of care for the researcher and who we are researching for participants – think of care rather than risk’Dr Rachel Marsden. Sometimes the risk of harm is when we don’t do something.

“It was as if their souls were slipping messages to me, giving me hints on how I might reach them – telling me where they were hiding, where they were hurting, and, most important, what ideas they needed to take the next step in their development” 2 (p. 22) Chris Bache on classroom energy questioning the “paradigm of the private mind”.

Mitigation could be exercised by researching the mood of the cohort, ask them to set the criteria, idea of not know what direction to go in and making it as it happens. Like previous exercises expressing my own positionally, “how am I feeling and how they react to my emotion”, this could be critical to how you are effecting/affecting the world in my intervention as a researcher. “Good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher…..We teach who we are ” 3.

Ideas into a form of a question

My Question

I can no longer utilise my ‘Studio Book’ artefact, due to personal circumstances I had to alter my teaching pattern and switch from teaching final year Stage 3 to Stage 1, where I would not have a fixed student cohort for the academic year.

My initial thoughts came from my our concerns from my own positionally and research from my artefact:

Is the era of the elderly white male in Architecture finally over? ‘Everyone is white, mainly male too,’ said one survey respondent. ‘Those that teach are 95 per cent white too’. How can we generate the new counter norm?

Create an interactive map – local architect hero project close to the student
Students and tutors can offer examples to explore
Where are they born are where do they feel they come from culturally
A Design Charrette to question manifesto and assessments
Creative a new form of Review or Crit responding to students cultural
Utilise padlets for review

For reference Design Charrettes are used in the practice of architecture, it is an intensive, hands-on workshop that brings people from different disciplines and backgrounds together with members of the community to explore design options for a particular area. It differs from a traditional community consultation process in that it is design based.

Creative Research Methods

Pillars of reserArts-based research – Research using technology – Mixed methods research – Transformative research frameworks (feminist, participatory and activist research) – Indigenous methodologies

“People often think that arts-based research equals the visual arts…so are the performative arts such as the arts of theatre and dance and song, comedy even, and the written arts so fiction, poetry, playwriting, screenwriting and music is included…crossover with research using technology so video and film….storytelling; in a sense all research is made up of stories. Stories are how we learn as human beings……Numbers tell stories just as much as words do, and researchers need to write stories around the numbers, the words, the images, that they collect and interpret“. 4

Arts-based Research Methods

Conscious of interacting with Stage 1 students, new to university, new to London and new to architecture, being overwhelmed, levity in the sight of quite difficult questions could be most appropriate form as a catalyst interaction. How could this manifest?

Poetry, fiction, comic, film, make out of lego, drawing, audio story telling, card exercising, items to sort, game to stimulate discussion, cards, prompt decks, digital mapping tools. UAL provides access to Miro, Mural, Padlet, MindView, Inspiration, Xmind 6.

It can be too easy to become locked into a mindset, we discuss how these interactions could open up different lines of thinking around the data collected, data poetry could be an option.

What to do with this Research …..(beyond ARP?)

We discussed an example of Vanessa Bailey, population health nurse, Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust. Her ARP research was utilised back into professional practice, ‘Reimagining mental healthcare by looking through an intersectional lens’ 7. Highlighting that anti-discriminatory practices are needed in healthcare to avoid perpetuating the disadvantage, stigma and health inequality experienced by already marginalised groups. Intersectionality is a vital tool in this, as it considers overlapping social identities and experiences that can cause discrimination and marginalisation. A bespoke intersectionality workshop for mental health practitioners used a case study and frame of reference exercise to encourage reflection and embed learning.

Could such a process be utilised to question Architectural Education?

Bibliography

1. McNiff, J., & Whitehead, A. (2011). All You Need to Know About Action Research. A. Jack Whitehead (Contributor).
2. Bache, C. M. (2008). The Living Classroom: Teaching and Collective Consciousness. Suny Series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology
3. Palmer, P. J. (2017). The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life
4. Helen Kara. (2017). Creative research methods. National Centre for Research Methods online learning resource. Available at https://www.ncrm.ac.uk/resources/online/all/?id=20589 
5. https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/archive/aj-hosts-design-day-in-peckham
6. https://www.arts.ac.uk/students/assistive-technology/planning,-organising-and-referencing and https://canvas.arts.ac.uk/sites/explore/SitePage/45780/assistive-technology
7. Bailey V (2023) Reimagining mental healthcare by looking through an intersectional lens. Nursing Times [online]; 119: 6.
8. Jones, A., Charlton, W., Carmichael, L., Dobson, A., Gloster, D., & Watson, N. (2020). The Way Ahead: An Introduction to the New RIBA Education and Professional Development Framework and an Overview of Its Key Components. Royal Institute of British Architects. ISBN 9781914124402. https://www.architecture.com/knowledge-and-resources/resources-landing-page/the-way-ahead