Joe Mercer PG Cert 23/24

Throughout my project I have tried to draw inspiration from a wide variety of sources. I often struggle to engage with academic writing, it’s density and complexity can lead me to struggle with concentration. I also find it hard to discover relevant texts and often feel unsure about what would be considered ‘reputable’ leading to an overly critical reading which doesn’t leave me open to learning. Through the PGCert I have come to understand that inspiration and relevance can be found in a very broad spectrum of places and fears about ‘reputable’ sources are unfounded.

As a result much of my reading has been of books which one might find in a local book shop, such as On Connection by Kae Tempest and Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. These have not only been eminently readable, but have been crucial in helping me form the attitudes with which I have approached my research; ‘what am I researching’ and ‘why’? The ‘how’ has been where I have turned to more conventional academia, Visualizing Research: a Guide to the Research Process in Art and Design by Carole Gray and Julian Malins has been formative in helping me discover ways to analyse qualitative data (and helped me realise that well written academic writing can be very engaging!) whilst Best Practices in Quantitative Methods by Jason Osbourne led me to realise that distilling the creative actions within group work to quantitative data was a disservice to the beauty of the relationships and understanding formed by that work.

The facilitation of non-extractive relationships has led me to a diverse set of voices including feminist, queer, global majority, indigenous and arguably non-human authors. One book which has representations of all of these is Let’s Become Fungal!: Mycelium Teachings and the Arts by Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez which has lit a fire in me to learn more from indigenous thinking and practice to continue to build a more symbiotic relationship with my environment both in my own life and in what I teach.

I feel conscious that my bibliography does not include a great number of texts but I have attempted as much as possible to engage deeply rather than cast the net wide and take a surface understanding from many. Ultimately this has resulted in a series of avenues which I would like to pursue beyond the PGCert, readings and learnings which will have an impact on myself and hopefully therefore others around me. As has been referenced a number of times in my writings, the action research spiral in this case may be spiralling outwards rather than inwards, my Action Research Project forming a point of germination which will expand beyond its original goals.

These are improvements that I settled upon during my quantitative and qualitative analysis that I feel could be used to improve the teaching of collective activities, or be used in the process of formulating future briefs. They are not given in a particular order so as not to emphasise an importance or hierarchy between each suggestion.

Improvements

• Emphasise the aim of group work being about helping others rather than having them help you.

• Encourage recognition of the value of all voices and allow space for relationship-building within the design process.

• Encourage respectful discussion around cultural and societal differences to promote mutual learning in a safe space.

• Assist in establishing good communication at the start to ensure efficiency and avoid abortive work.

• Recommend initial development of ideas be done through group discussion rather than as individuals to encourage cohesion, consideration and a ‘common goal’.

• Encourage division of labour as smaller groups rather than as individuals to account for differing levels of comfort with presenting findings/work/opinions.

• Emphasise responsibility to others, aiming towards taking responsibility for one’s own contribution to the group.

• Encourage efficiency of work but also culture of learning through rotating roles for a range of experiences.

• Assist in planning of project development to help set realistic responsibilities and timescales.

• Encourage continued reflection upon individual learning from collective work, and recognise the help of others whether in individual or group work. 

This is the brief the students were following in their activities as a group. It was designed by the head of BA Architecture Stage 1 and the Senior Lecturer for Ethics in the Spatial Practices department, both of whom I consulted in designing my Action Research Project.

Below are the two formats of survey I created to receive feedback from students about their group work.

The first was designed to be reminiscent of their experiences as a group; they began with a task to have a meal together and produce drawings to record their experience, then went on to design and build a ‘Food Play Machine’ collectively.

The second was designed to be a more accessible version of the survey that could be used by any students who may have difficulty reading text presented non-linearly or within a drawing.

I began this research project by focussing on collective action as a counterpoint to the effects humanity has had on planetary well-being. One of these effects has been the attempt to quantify everything in order to understand its financial value, rather than attempting to recognise its inherent value, the result is summarised perfectly by Kae Tempest: 

“When life is the pursuit of status, and status is measured in wealth, we grade our outcomes of our existence by the possessions we accumulate or the goals we can tick off our bucket lists” (Tempest, 2020)

I believe that this quantification is an extractive practice focussed on individual gain at the expense of something or someone else, and removes all nuance or artistry in pursuit of logic and comparability. 

I am unfortunately coming to realise that in my attempt to analyse the group work quantitatively I am guilty of trying to rationalise data which is important in it’s irrationality, as a record of social and creative activity. Fundamentally I have tried to distill these activities into statistics, which not only removes so much of the nuance as to render the data of little use but is also completely counter to the nature of what it is I am measuring and trying to improve.

I also have no results to compare this against; a key aim of quantitative data gathering is to form comparisons and analyse them. It would be extremely helpful to be able to somehow have the students also carry out the design task individually in order to compare their responses against working collectively but this would not be possible without asking them to do additional work for my benefit. With something to compare against I could, for example, discover that the respondents generally found they learned more working collectively than individually. 

At this point I have carried out the analysis of the qualitative data I have gathered and in that analysis I have used the questions from the survey I designed to help clarify the data. As a result the exercise of seeking quantitative results has not been a waste of effort as it has acted as a series of lenses through which I can find focus, without removing the artistic and social nuance of the respondents’ experiences.

Also having this revelation about the types of data I should seek and how that relates to what I am measuring would not have been possible without attempting to quantify the (arguably) unquantifiable, so although I am frustrated, I am also grateful to realise that artistic practice should be analysed artistically.

Each student in the year was required to submit a 300 word reflection on the group work activity as part of their assessment for the unit. This forms a bank of qualitative data within which students are able to give honest feedback about their experiences without it being seen by their peers. 118 students submitted their report and although not all of these would have completed the reflective writing it is still unrealistic to attempt to read and analyse what could amount to a maximum of around 35,000 words.

Therefore I have decided to take an example from each of the groups in the year. This is by no means exhaustive and will not be representative of the various perspectives within each group, but through the eyes of the student who is writing it will touch upon the experience created by all of those members.

There are nine studios in the year group, each of which split into two groups for the project meaning if I select one representative from each group I will have 18 testimonies of group activity. This is a far more digestible number and is in the region of the number of responses I had for the quantitative survey (22).

There are various factors at play within the selection of students, for example there will be students with particular difficulties in social situations, or multilingual students who find it harder to take part in conversations than those with English as a first language. I would like to ensure the data I analyse is representative of the myriad complexities of the student body but I also need to consider their representation of their individual groups. If I deliberately pick a student who struggles to communicate with their peers are they representative of the group’s consideration of it’s own success? But if I don’t select their account on that basis then an important voice is not being heard.

The best solution I can come up with is to randomly select a student from each group. This way I am taking any unconscious biases out of the equation and simply ensuring that there is one voice heard per group. The diversity of the students body would hopefully mean that many perspectives would be presented over the sample group of approximately 15%. I am aware that this is imperfect but I am striving for a digestible representation along the lines of Renata Tesch’s description of qualitative research analysis; like an artist capturing a face with a few brushstrokes. The face lacks details but is recognisable as the essence of that person. (Tesch, 1990)

References

Tesch, R. (1990) Qualitative Research: Analysis Types and Software. London: Routledge. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315067339.