Dear Joan Diane, Brain, Chris, Allen, Pip and all
I thoroughly enjoyed reading all responses including Pip’s response “one size does not fit all. The responses contain words or phrases such as “Need”, “Reflective Practice”, “Evaluation” “Re-synthesizing” etc. They all ultimately follow again the same 9-point framework from analyzing current situation to reviewing / reflecting and implementing a new event. Apprantly It seems one size does fit all. For example, Chris feels a need to have some sort of framework to develop economic skills in his students. Chris has already analyzed the current situation (step1) and identified the area for improvement i.e. “Need” (step2) to integrate creativity into a “framework” that provides profound research skills to his students to add the economic element into their creative work. Now Chris is in its transition stage to achieve the rest of the steps to come up with a “new” version of his current research development skills
process. ” Schon feels a need as cited in Diane’s email to create or revitalize a phenomenology of practice that includes, as a central component, reflection on the reflection-in-action of practitioners in their organizational settings. Obviously Schon has gone through a rational process of reflective practice from analyzing existing status of Phenomenology to identify a need to fill the gap. Apparently there is no escape to get rid from this 9-point framework.
However, for creative thinkers, a way to eliminate this 9-point rigidity is to create a revolutionary change in educational influence i.e. dare to replace reflective practice, action research or any type of cyclic process with a discrete unconnected linear version, which does not require any type of rationality or framework i.e. “Absolute Creativity”, which results from unexplained spontaneous emergence. No string is attached to absolute creativity. It is an independent act with no evolutionary history. To achieve Absolute Creativity, perhaps creative thinkers need to move from “improvement thinking or reflective thinking’ to “Unique Diversification”. It is difficult to achieve “Absolute Creativity”. Absolute creative thinkers do not require any research except a “Vision” with no educational influence.
On the other hand, economic-based creative thinkers do require research, educational influences, rationality to capture Customers’ Perception (but not Customers' needs) to transfer into their products or canvas. Obviously they need to go through all 9-point process through reflective practice or action research by involving customers as a research participants to gain unique competitive advantage.
Warmest
Aga
________________________________
From: Dianne Allen <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Wed, 7 April, 2010 2:43:47
Subject: Re: Design as Research
Chris, Brian and Aga and others interested in this thread,
One of the statements that Schon makes in the preface to The Reflective Practitioner, that I didn't transcribe (p.vii) reads:
When people use terms such as "art" and "intuition", they usually intend to terminate the discussion rather than to open up inquiry. It is as though the practitioner says to his academic colleague, "While I do not accept your view of knowledge, I cannot describe my own." Sometimes, indeed, the practitioner appears to say, "My kind of knowledge is indescribable", or even, "I will not attempt to describe it lest I paralyze myself."
>
Schon goes on to make a case for close observation and description, applied phenomenology even, of practice, to work on articulating these catch-all phrases 'art', 'artistic', 'artistry', 'intuitive' .... (applied phenomenology = p. 309 of Educating the Reflective Practitioner ".. I am concerned .. [with] the reflection-in-action of competent practitioners and the reflection on reflection-in-action of those researchers who seek to develop a phenomenology of practice."; p.320 "There is a need to create or revitalize a phenomenology of practice that includes, as a central component, reflection on the reflection-in-action of practitioners in their organizational settings. And this phenomenology of practice must be substantively connected to traditional disciplines or risk a bifurcation of the schools"; p.322 "The reflective practicum should include ways in which competent practitioners cope with the constraints of their organizational settings. The
phenomenology of practice should enter the practicum via the study of the organizational life of practitioners. And here a constructionist perspective is critically important; for the phenomena of practice in organizations are crucially determined by the kinds of reality individuals create for themselves, the ways they frame and shape their worlds - and what happens when people with similar and different ways of framing reality come into collision.")
In Guba and Lincoln's list of paradigms (of evaluations) 1981, p.54, 'aesthetic judgement' is separated out from logical, adversarial, modus operandi etc
When I had finished my thesis, (2005) I took to my sanding machine and some lumps of radiata pine offcuts and worked at shaping them to meet my criteria of aesthetically pleasing .. it included: being a hand-full only; how it felt in my hand - silky; how it pleased the eye - curves, flow, colour, grain; and all of those things together. What happened when I took an offcut (from DAR 2*3 radiata pine) and started to sand it, was that I was (a) wanting to remove the rectangular shape of the original; (b) keep as much of the wood as I could; (c) I was only able to work comfortably with the sander with the grain going some ways (otherwise the piece, which was only a small handful would take flight from my soft hold and bounce around the room). All these factors, together with only being able to stand focused, and still at the sander for a certain length of time, while I processed according to these criteria, came in to play.
A couple of years ago, (possibly 2006/7) my visual artist and art teacher companion decided to put together some papers for grand-nieces and grand-nephews who were trying to draw. How do you draw animals was their question? What was written on those pieces of paper were remarks about training hand and eye to compare, to compare relative sizes, ie to measure, but measure using some idiosyncratic tool - the artist's hand or finger or whatever might be at hand, and at a distance, and using the artist's eye, and then to reproduce relative sizes, scaled down, or up, on the paper when the drawing was being developed. There was also instructions on how to analyse - break down an item into parts, to reproduce the parts, and resynthesise imaginatively, into a different design ... but fundamental to that was the 'measuring' and measuring up to a particular criterion - faithfulness to relationship, and later, in imaginative composition, the application of
other criteria - balance, contrast ... etc. Observing that, and making the connection with other kinds of evaluation and research process was a blinding light, not dissimilar to the hearty laugh I had when I found that the qualitative analysis tools like NVivo or NUD.IST, actually reported on 'counts' of occurrence of words or phrases, or codes, for significance!!!!
Jack, and others here at BERA, have found that to observe and describe the practice of a practitioner is difficult, and have taken to capturing live performance of practice on video, tendering that as evidence for all to see, and then talking about it/ theorising from it.
These comments may help. As I see it, we all have much more to do ...
Dianne Allen
http://contentbuilder.merlot.org/toolkit/users/DiAllen/profinterests
http://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/288/
http://ltc4me.edublogs.org/
Addenda: Notes when writing about Evaluation
In their Fourth Generation Evaluation, Guba and Lincoln track the history of ‘evaluation’ as a discipline, and note the way in which the field has conceived of it, practised it, and gradually adjusted their understanding of it [Guba, 1989 #426]. For Guba and Lincoln the differences between kinds of evaluation and understanding about evaluation, particularly as practised in the educational field, are ‘generational’, and they identify four such generations: Measurement-oriented evaluation (p.22); Description-oriented program evaluation (p.28); Judgment-oriented evaluation where standards to be met are introduced (p.30); Responsive (constructivist) evaluation – the new level, the ‘fourth generation’ – (p.38).
For responsive evaluation the key dynamic is negotiation (p.8). Negotiation occurs as the participants to the evaluation engage with one another to: (4a) negotiate constructions (p.8); constructions which are (4b) shaped by values (p.8); and (4c) linked to context (p.8); (4d) where the shaping depends on the participants who are representatives of all stakeholders (p.9); (4e) which must have an action orientation (p.10); and (4f) where the evaluator interacts to respect stakeholders (p.10). Further, for responsive evaluation, Guba and Lincoln indicate that there are four phases which may be re-iterated and may overlap (p.42). This iterative process, together with the action orientation has the familiar ring of ‘action research’. Indeed, in the literature there is evidence of action research being used as a form of evaluation [Dick, 2000 #243].
A closer look at Guba and Lincoln’s four phases shows that they also acknowledge that, depending on the matters being evaluated, either quantitative or qualitative methods might be required. So the fourth generation of evaluation gathers in the other three generations, applying them as and when appropriate. Which is appropriate, and in what circumstances, is part of what the participants to the evaluation, the stakeholders, are involved in explicitly considering and negotiating. What is resolved by negotiation (a form of peer dialectic if you will) is dealt with, and if action is the next step then the negotiated action is taken. What is not resolved by negotiation, either before any intensive investigation is conducted, or after the appropriate information is gathered, analysed and reported, becomes the focus of the second round of the evaluative process. It is the nature of the ‘bone of contention’ that determines what
information is collected. If there are competing claims, information is gathered to test those claims. If there is a range of concerns, and competing concerns, information is gathered to determine the extent to which such concerns are justified. If there is a range of issues, and competing issues, information is gathered to support or refute the various sides of the issues. That is to say, the methodology of fourth generation evaluation, responsive evaluation, acknowledges the need for, and provides for, the use of method appropriate to the investigation [Guba, 1989 #426], pp.41-45.
....Evaluation, as the etymology shows, is to do with values. According to Guba and Lincoln, the first expression of evaluation, in educational practice, as a discipline, was focused on measuring, as in value represented in numbers. Its second expression was with description, where the limits of quantifying are conceded, and quality is described, and sometimes as a first step to dimensioning, the equivalent of quantifying. Its third expression recognised the process of judgement – measuring either a quantity, or a quality, against some standard. Guba and Lincoln’s ‘fourth generation’ begins to concede that the players, in evaluation, have values that inform their analysis and their decision making, informed by analysis, to undertake action. Further, that for each player in an activity and the evaluation of the activity, the values they choose to invoke to settle uncertainty, may differ between one another, and now for
collaboration/ cooperation, the difference between these values needs to be negotiated, to some sort of consensus. The exercise of values, values-in-use, is operative in a method, in its analytical phase. It is operative in determining what kind of knowledge is being looked for. Also, the expression of values may well be part of a phenomenon’s nature – it certainly is, when the phenomenon is humankind. It is in this way that I can ‘see’ that Heron and Reason’s call for axiology, the study of values, to be compounded with ontology, epistemology and methodology [Heron, 2001 #621], has its merit, its reasonableness.
(Allen, unpublished working up to thesis May 2003 draft)
I would also note, that in Guba and Lincoln’s earlier systematising of kinds of inquiry, they indicate a range of different activities, which it seems to me, has some relationship to the history/chronology of the development of understanding about inquiry/research [Guba, 1981 #636]. They identify the following categories of ‘paradigms’: logical, judgmental (aesthetic), adversarial, modus operandi, scientific, demographic, naturalistic [Guba, 1981 #636],p.54. Further, it is my ‘reading’ of that list that it may be used in a somewhat hierarchical order - if logic solves the question then use logic, if the problem is one of aesthetics then exercise aesthetic judgement, if the problem is not completely amenable to logic or aesthetic then what we use, in order of historic development, would appear to be: adversarial, modus operandi, scientific, demographic, naturalistic. What I am calling ‘reflective research of practice’ falls
within the category ‘naturalistic’. When I am problem solving I try to use logic, adversarial, …, naturalistic, and I am engaged in multiple evaluations/ processes as I evaluate different dimensions of the problem under investigation, in different ways, as Schon indicates is the process of a reflective practitioner [Schon, 1983 #11], p.102, and hopefully I am conducting these multiple evaluations in appropriate ways (Allen, unpublished, working up to thesis August 2004, Methodology chapter draft)
Guba, E. G., & Lincoln, Y. (1981). Effective Evaluation.
Guba, E. G., & Lincoln, Y. (1989). Fourth Generation Evaluation. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
----- Original Message -----
>From: Christiaan Thomas Johannes De Beer
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 2010 6:31 PM
>Subject: Re: Design as Research
>
>
>Dear Brian
>
>I feel that these ideas address more closely what my concerns are because we(my students) do not produce necessarily for customers. Sometimes they are busy developing their creative skills that might/will then be utilised at a later stage in the design of a customer-driven piece.
>
>So the problem, to me, seems to be how to incorporate/encourage the intuitive/creational aspect AND then to make sense of it later. I feel I need to provide some sort of framework that can support the creative activities without it seeming too intuitive… Intuition in a planned way?!
>
>Is there not some sort of Social studies 101 or Anthropology 101 course that can/needs to be done?
>
>Regards
>Chris
>
>P.S. Dianne – I’m stilling mulling over your Schon explanation…
>
>From:Practitioner-Researcher [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Brian wakeman
>Sent: Sunday, April 04, 2010 6:54 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Design as Research
>
>I feel I want to reply in a tentative way:
>
>1. Design as research can be too tightly linked to a mechanical or technological view of design that dominated our thinking in schools in the UK in the 1990's. (TAC Technology Across The Curriculum).
>2. But Design as I understand it through my own water colours, writing of verses, and in other ways involves jumps, leaps, in the too rigid AR cycle, or technology model. Of course I draw on traditions, criteria, forms, and customer expectations.
>3. Imaginative, creative, artistic design need not follow these steps. It can be more visionary, inspirational...... not the selection of best options, implementation and evaluation.
>4. A vision of the 'good' or the 'beautiful,' can just emerge
>5. Design can be intuitive, creational.
>How do we make space for this element in our Research as Design?
>
>What do think?
>Brian
>http://bwakeman.wordpresas.com
>
>
>
>
________________________________
>From:aga yamin <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Sent: Sat, 3 April, 2010 8:24:26
>Subject: Re: Design as Research
>
>
>
>
>Dear Chris
>
>I refer to your original email ” In the area of Jewellery Design and Manufacture there seems to be a strong > correlation between the steps that the design and manufacture process
>> follows and that of the action research process (plan/act/observe/reflect).
>> However, in the design process, as my students are executing it at the
>> moment, the participatory element (from an AR point of view) is missing”
>I would like to say that all improvement activities follow the same or similar process as you identified between action research and jewellery design. Linear processes are applied for one off improvement and cyclic processes are applied for a continuous improvement. However, people apply various philosophies, approaches and techniques in carrying out their improvement activities such as empirical research, reflective practice (Dewey, Schon etc.), action research (Collier, Lippitt, Radak, Lewin, Kermis, Elliot and so on) , Deming’s PDCA, Seven Habit model, Strategic Management Models, Change Management Models and so on.
>In my point of view, the basic process is the same in all contexts, situations and areas of businesses as follows:
>1. Analysis of current situation
>2. Identification of areas for improvement
>3. Development of various options to improve
>4. Selection of the best option or solution
>5. Implementation of the best solution
>6. Monitoring & Controlling of implemented solution
>7. Reviewing / reflecting to identify good and bad points
>8. Refining it
>9. Implementing it
>10. And so on
>In carrying out above activities, a researcher starts in selecting a suitable:
>1. Research Philosophy(such as positivism, realism, objectivism, subjectivism and so on)
>2. Then Research Approach (Deductive or Inductive)
>3. Selection of Approach then leads to Research Strategies (Action Research (Living Education Theory) , Grounded Theory, Phenomenology, Case Study, Ethnography, Experiments and so on)
>4. Research Choices. (such as mono method or multiple methods)
>5. Techniques or procedure of collecting data and analysing data (Generally people call this stage as a Research Design and they involve active participants in case of action research at this stage).
>I call the whole process from research philosophy to data collection, analysis and compiling thesis or report as “Research Model”.
>However, Back to your question, “participatory aspect” is missing in your PAOR activities.
> It depends on the researcher. He or she needs to decide: what sort of participation is required and up to what degree and extent is required at data collection and analysis stage. The better answer may be given by answering the following questions, designed by Jack and McNiff in 2006:
>What are my concerns?
>What experiences can I describe to show why I am concerned?
>What can I do about it?
>What will I do about it?
>What kind of data will I gather to show the situation as it unfolds?
>How will I explain my educational influences in learning?
>How will I ensure that any conclusions I reach are reasonably fair and accurate?
>How will I evaluate the validity of the evidence-based account of my learning?
>How will I modify my concerns, ideas and practice in the light of my evaluations?
>I suggest, you may choose to give these questions to your students. It will help them in writing their research proposal and also help them in identifying who can be their active participants and what will be their roles and what will be researcher’s own role and responsibilities.
>
>Thanks
>Aga
>
________________________________
>From:Dianne Allen <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Sent: Sat, 3 April, 2010 5:40:38
>Subject: Re: Design as Research
>
>Chris, and others interested ...
>
>Here is my longer response, as an attachment, as promised.
>
>It is constructed of some preliminary remarks .. indicating part of why Schon's work 'speaks' to me.
>
>It includes details from my process of reading and transcribing to learn by processing more slowly, and implanting in order to remember, or at least know where I can go for ready reference.
>
>It wraps with a sharing of when I had this realisation of multiple evaluative process, undertaken serially, and where reframing came into play. Note that there was other work, including writing to explicate understanding, and work with other material, between the first read and the revisit and the enhanced understanding.
>
>I would note that it is the descriptive detail in Schon's original material that then becomes so useful.
>
>Regards,
>
>Dianne
>
>
>----- Original Message ----- From: "Dianne Allen" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Saturday, April 03, 2010 9:08 AM
>Subject: Re: Design as Research
>
>
>> Chris,
>>
>> Thanks for asking ... I will need a bit of time to work up some thing like a review and overview of Schon's material to come back to you on this and to expose my thinking a bit more clearly. I hope to be able to settle to this later today, and intend sending that work as an attachment.
>>
>> Dianne
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Christiaan Thomas Johannes De Beer" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Thursday, April 01, 2010 11:06 PM
>> Subject: Re: Design as Research
>>
>>
>> Hi Diane
>>
>> Having read Schon I find your response very helpful and I relate to the idea that,
>> as a natural designer, design = research was 'hidden' from me.
>> Could you possibly explain a bit more about "order of evaluative criteria,
>> and why one order over another has particular power/value"? It sounds like the type of entry point I'm looking for.
>>
>> Regards
>> Chris
>>
>> ________________________________________
>> From: Practitioner-Researcher [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Dianne Allen [[log in to unmask]]
>> Sent: 30 March 2010 04:31 PM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: Design as Research
>>
>> Chris,
>>
>> My understanding of 'design' and the 'design process' is that it is a series
>> of steps and responses, multiple evaluations in a sequence, where the number
>> (multiples) of criteria used for evaluation can be added to or subtracted
>> from, and where the sequence of compliance to criteria can be reordered, and
>> where the multiples and order, as they are varied, can interact ... until
>> the 'solution' represents a best fit for all the components, and in a way
>> that is aesthetically pleasing.
>>
>> (I see Donald Schon explicating the design process as he spells out what he
>> calls 'reflective practice' in his two key books about educating for
>> professional expertise. I see that reflective practice = design process.
>> Donald Schon sees that 'reflective practice' = research, research within the
>> professional practice context. By logic, then design process = research.
>> See Schon, D. A. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner. New York: Basic Books.
>> and Schon, D. A. (1987). Educating the Reflective Practitioner: Toward a New
>> Design for Teaching and Learning in the Professions. San Francisco:
>> Jossey-Bass. Watch out for the fact that Schon uses a design studio as his
>> 'architectural practice' example. That can tend to disguise/hide from a
>> natural designer what is going on, and how and why it 'fits the bill' of
>> being both research and design, and design=research. Notice how Schon
>> extracts the 'general' from the particulars of a number of different
>> professional practices to build his description of 'reflective practice'.)
>>
>> My understanding is that, especially in the development of more mechanical
>> devices, design work can also be team work, compared with jewellery and
>> other artistic expression design, and where the artistic expression is
>> expected to be wholly individual (ie like 'all your own work' of a thesis!).
>> In such team work there are brainstorming sessions, and then individual
>> focus on solving particular design issues. The activity, in the design
>> studio and in team work in brainstorming sessions, of talking out what it is
>> that is being addressed (which evaluative criterion, what order of
>> evaluative criteria, and why one order over another has particular
>> power/value, in this context) would be akin to some of the 'participatory'
>> of 'participatory action research'. After all, what is going on in
>> participatory (democratically processed decision making for action) action
>> research is making explicit and then building consensus around the multiple
>> values that the participants hold as they endeavour to act in the world, in
>> order to take collaborative, or cooperative, or corporate action.
>>
>> Dianne
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Chris de Beer" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2010 12:38 AM
>> Subject: Design as Research
>>
>>
>> Dear All
>>
>> In the area of Jewellery Design and Manufacture there seems to be a strong
>> correlation between the steps that the design and manufacture process
>> follows and that of the action research process (plan/act/observe/reflect).
>> However, in the design process, as my students are executing it at the
>> moment, the participatory element (from an AR point of view) is missing.
>>
>> Is there a more appropriate methodology/process that I can investigate that
>> would lead to more 'depth' and will guide my students towards being more
>> immersed in their design work without it becoming an exercise in narcissism?
>>
>> Regards
>> Chris
>>
>> "This e-mail is subject to our Disclaimer, to view click http://www.dut.ac.za"
>
>
>
>________________________________
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