Going against the grain? Exploring EdD students' engagement with arts-based research

Clark, Tim; Dobson, Tom

Abstract

Despite growing interest in the potential value of arts-based research (ABR) for educational inquiry (Culshaw, 2019; Everley, 2021), limited consideration exists regarding its accessibility, and relevance, to practice-based professional doctorate in education (EdD) researchers. This is significant, given the potential for conflict between ABR’s affordances for social impact (Dobson & Clark, 2024) and institutional regulations and structures which may restrict the creative potential of practice-based research (Vaughan, 2021). In response, this study explores the contexts, motivations and challenges surrounding a group of EdD students’ experiences of engaging with ABR in their studies. Applying Glaveneau’s (2013) 5A’s model as a theoretical framework, in order to position creativity as ‘embedded in social relations’, the study utilised narrative interviews, group action learning (Revans, 1982) and arts-based methods to explore the methodological decision-making of 9 EdD students engaging with ABR across 2 post-1992 universities in England. Its findings illustrate the complex entanglement between the related audiences, artifacts, actors, actions and affordances and the significance of enabling resistance to academic ‘hierarchies of legitimacy’ (Vaughan, 2021). Exploring a series of narratives and showcasing the arts-based contributions from the doctoral students, we will expand on the potential tensions between perceived challenges in aligning outputs, identities and approaches with dominant academic and methodological expectations and the group’s emerging understanding of the significance of arts-based approaches as a means to enhance reflexivity, promote authentic participation and engage wide and diverse audiences. We argue that these understandings have implications for the teaching of methodology and writing, and for the programmatic and institutional structures which frame the EdD, given its focus on professional change and its positioning between the workplace and the academy (Tennant, 2004).

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: International Conference on Professional & Practice Based Doctorates
• Start Date: Apr 7, 2025
• End Date: Apr 8, 2025
• Deposit Date: Apr 9, 2025
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 9, 2025
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/14285486
• Publisher URL: https://ukcge.ac.uk/events/9th-international-conference-on-professional-practice-based-doctorates