WORKSHOP 2 THOUGHTS
Stress levels high. Trail line from Brighton to London still disastrous. UAL internet patchy. Nowhere quiet on campus to be for the workshop. Still, this session is a highlight of the week – I know how valuable it will be.
The advance reading (mostly done on trains on my 2-hour x 2 daily commute) was super useful. I had chosen the Vaughn reading on focus groups (notes are up on workflow), as this is now my focus from all the research methods. I had considered a more creative method of research, but taking the time to be self-reflective about my skills and interactions with my students (the participants in the research), I opted for a focus group study. I am more comfortable with talking, I am (usually) an active listener, and I have good rapport with students. I am not very confident in being creative (how strange to be teaching in an art school) unless we are exploring creative problem solving. Any ‘creative’ work I make usually ends up being extremely derivative. I think I am still working more with a scientific mind, which is quite jarring in an art school environment. Perhaps my research thinking began as positivist, but actually needs to be interpretivist.
I had read an interesting piece of research about a wide range of assessment methods to see how my project might be liked to anything currently in existence elsewhere in a UK HE (https://teachingexcellence.leeds.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/89/2018/10/PUGHcompendiumcomplete.pdf) – notes are up on workflow. I began to find elements in this reading that worked in other HE institutions that I could confidently say could be applied to informal assessments at Wimbledon College of Arts. The small stumbling block would be if my research and application was met with disapproval from course leaders.
The literature review exercise was particularly useful – a self-reflecting guidance on the usefulness of reading. The prompt questions really helped me work out why the reading into assessment methods was a useful thing, while also working out what it couldn’t offer so I could explore readings to fill in the gaps.
I enjoyed the conversation about neutrality – it’s always been a worry in my day-to-day work that I’m not as neutral as I ought to be, considering my positionality is in such strong belief that holistic skill learning enables a greater chance of employment.
Cousin (2008:32): “Data, writes Schostack (2006: 68), is not “something like a found object on the beach, a piece of driftwood.” Many contemporary qualitative analysts, like Schostack, now accept that however they have gathered it, their data can never be neutral. Data gathering is always a selective process in which we privilege some sources and discard or exclude others. Most qualitative researchers also accept that their analysis and write-up are deeply influenced by their own positionality.”
There were some excellent moments to use my colleagues as a sounding board for my project, particularly in the last portion of the day where we had 30 minutes each to talk about our projects and test out come questions. I was delighted when my classmates understood my project and were delighted about its concept. This is quite the confidence builder. This coupled with my students this week asking their academic tutors to be assessed on the portions I teach is heartening.
STREAMLINING FURTHER
Yup. Still doing far too much. I have gone from four research pieces (a pre-event survey, a focus group, a post-event survey, and a staff observer survey) to one – a meaningful focus group. Hopefully I will a good number of student volunteers for this, so I could potentially be selective with the most opinionated students (if such a thing is allowed…). The 4am panic thoughts of ‘how on earth am I going to fit it all in’ have reduced, and are at their normal levels. The SiP feels more manageable, and I’m getting more reading in.
An interesting observation came up (outside of the workshops and tutorials) with a fellow PgCert colleague – we are both technicians – that each individual technician holds a number of individual niche skills, that we begin to redefine our own job role rather then let our job role define us. Gone are the days where technicians are in a support role. We are technical teachers (with a great number holding teaching qualifications) who place students at the centre of our practice. The energy from the students spurs us on when course mismanagement and poor communication grinds us down. I think this is why we both are looking at methods of engaging further with students through the medium of assessment (formal and informal).
POSITIVIST VS INTERPRETIVIST RESEARCH
I began with a YouTube A level sociology explanation video as my starting point in understanding the difference between positivist and interpretivist research theories. I studied sociology As Level once upon a long time ago, but seemingly have forgotten about research methods. I am more confident understanding that I don’t want a scientific approach to my research, particularly as I’m looking at gaining a good rapport with participants as I examine their opinion-based anecdotal evidence. I know that some elements are out of my control, so although I have a hypothesis that the outcome will be that students are in favour of informal technical assessment, I am very keen to explore their thoughts in a less-structured way. I will remove the hypothesis from my research thinking in order to to remove any leading questions. I am interested in why students might not want informal technical assessment as much as why they do want it.
Cousin (2008) states: “Much of the time you want to be thinking with the data as much as you are thinking from it”. The data is the student opinion, using the interpretivist research methodology. My regular practice of consulting students with regards to their own learning journey is almost a precursor to this research project; I ask students what they would like to learn (that I can reasonably provide) and do my utmost to provide it, while orientating it towards their unit learning outcomes. I think that by involving students at decision making stages, it paves the way for good relationships and engagement. The students want to attend the T&L sessions because they suggest them, so they may continue to want to be informally assessed on it too.
REFERENCES
Cousin, Glynis. Researching Learning in Higher Education : An Introduction to Contemporary Methods and Approaches, Taylor & Francis Group, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ual/detail.action?docID=380854.
A Level Sociology: Positivist V interpretivist in Sociology exams https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhJ80pRaZ8g
Kent-Waters, J., Seago, O., Smith, L. and Pugh, S. (n.d.). LITE 2017 Teaching Excellence Project Leader Report LEEDS INSTITUTE TEACHING EXCELLENCE for A COMPENDIUM OF ASSESSMENT TECHNIQUES IN HIGHER EDUCATION: FROM STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVES. [online] Available at: https://teachingexcellence.leeds.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/89/2018/10/PUGHcompendiumcomplete.pdf [Accessed 24 Oct. 2021].