Research Process Outline
Figure: My adaptation of the action research process diagram
Step 1 – Define the problem
Research question: What is the role of Contextual and Theoretical Studies in Design education, as seen from design graduates? What is the value of CTS within a careers-oriented education? How can CTS contribute shape critical and reflective practitioners, sensitive to the political, cultural and historical context of their work?
Context: The project was defined by my leadership/management role (as much as my teaching position) as Contextual and Theoretical Studies lead in the Design School at LCC. I wanted to find out how students perceive the value of CTS once they are ‘out in the world’ and how this understanding may inform the delivery of CTS teaching in the coming year. In particular, the focus would be on shaping the delivery of a newly revalidated unit called ‘Design Cultures’.
This understanding of ‘value’ and the instrumentalization of higher education was shaped by secondary research, in particular though the work of Stefan Collini, as well as reading on the role of writing in creative practice (various authors).
Step 2 – Collect the data
The core part of my research was conducted through semi-structured interviews. These were conducted over MS teams. I interviewed 4 graduates across all three programmes who are currently either working on studying.
I also conducted research on secondary data by going through NSS free text comments available via UAL’s central dashboards (2023/2024 and 2022/2023 academic year).
This allowed for some comparative analysis of the perception of CTS during the course of study vs after graduation.
Step 3 – Implement
Rather than implementing the findings from the interview directly into my teaching, the shape of the project meant that this data was used to inform a workshop run with CTS tutors. The aim of the workshop was to shape the future delivery of a second year CTS unit titled “Design Cultures”, as well as to reflect more broadly on how writing, theory, context, research, reading, etc. are positioned in the undergraduate curriculum.
I designed the slides and ran the workshop, as well as put together a Padlet as a space for post-workshop reflection and development.
Step 4 – Monitor and Evaluate
At this stage, it was not possible to monitor and evaluate the changes made, as the changes will only be in place for the 2025/2026 academic year. Rather, my evaluation here focuses on the CTS tutors’ perception of the role of CTS and how this may shift/change/adapt in response to the findings from primary research.
Some if this will be captured in the Padlet board outlined above.
Step 5 – Review and Reflect
There are two levels of reflection that I think are part of my project.
- reflection that might be undertaken following the implementation of the new curriculum in 2025/2026
- the reflection on the process of research and my thoughts on how it may inform this new delivery.
Under the second point, my main reflection is the need for a more radical re-evaluation of why we still uphold writing as a form through which CTS is assessed as part of design education. This is informed as much by what students have expressed in interviews, as well as by my secondary research. My conclusion/reflection is, in a way, that ‘writing doesn’t work’ and that it would be worth exploring moving away from writing (and in particular ‘academic’ writing) to other forms of assessment.
Reflection on the process
Trying to map what I did and what I found out to the action-research process made me a bit confused about what I have done. I’m not quite sure what the action was? Was it the workshop? Or will it be the delivery? It seems difficult to draw the boundaries between the two and therefore to know that to apply the evaluation and reflection to.
Perhaps this is indicative of the slow process of curriculum design vs. a more responsive process of delivery that is iterative on a timeline that is more in-line with the timeline of this unit. So the project itself is not ‘done’ – even though the unit will shortly be!
To summarise, below is the image of Bruce Mau’s Design Process – I quite like this and it does feel to represent my frame of mind over the last few months fairly accurately.
Ethical Action Plan
Below is my Ethical Action Plan document. Notes on the process are included in the above section (Research Process Outline), as well as explored in a more fragmentary way as part of my research journey in the sections below.
Where I started from – first outline of the project written in Summer 2024
Project Title: Writing that works? Exploring the role of Contextual and Theoretical Studies and its tools as vehicles for critical thinking in design education
This project seeks to explore the role of Contextual and Theoretical Studies in design education. With the growing emphasis on employability and technical competency within the design field, as well as the growing use of AI tools, engagement with theoretical and historical knowledge seems to be increasingly marginalised within design education. This marginalisation is further compounded by the emphasis on reading and writing as key skills through which contextual and theoretical knowledge shared and assessed.
This project seeks to examine the roots of the marginalisation of CTS and explore the tensions between reading, writing and designing. Why is writing not considered a valuable tool in a designer’s toolbox? Why is reading not a core aspect of the way we teach design? This research will suggest that by limiting the emphasis on reading and writing, design courses are also limiting the student’s ability to develop their critical thinking and in-depth research skills that I believe are essential for their future careers in the creative industries.
I want to situate this shift away from Contextual and Theoretical Studies within the wider context of marketisation and commercialisation of higher education in the neoliberal economy, on the one hand, and increasing calls for more inclusive, radical and critical pedagogies within contemporary art schools on the other. How can these two tensions be reconciled? And how can we help students understand writing (and by extension, critical thinking) as an essential part of their educational journey?
To explore these questions, I will engage with the following:
- Conduct extensive secondary research to explore critical, radical pedagogies in design education and its positioning within the neoliberal university
- Review the current literature on reading and writing in design education
- Conduct primary research by interviewing former LCC students to ask them about the value they think CTS has brought to their roles in the industry
- Conduct a series of interviews to get an in-depth insight of the way students perceive writing in relation to their studio practice with current 3rd year LCC students
As my role is that of Contextual and Theoretical Studies Leader in the Design School at LCC, this research will not only shape my current teaching practice, but also ongoing work on curriculum development as CTS moves into a more ‘integrated’ delivery model within individual courses and studio-led units.
Reflection – Autumn 2024
It quickly became apparent that what I was proposing above was too much to do for the scope (and time-frame) of the ARP. While I would still very much like to write a long essay – this would be my ideal outcome as opposed to a teaching intervention – about the commercialisation of design education and the contradictions of the emancipatory project within a neoliberal university, I have also accepted that it is more meaningful to keep the project small and intervene locally. For McNiff, improving one’s daily work, is a kind of social justice action.
Where is it coming from?
We started the ARP unit before the undergraduate term starts. Block 1 is the ‘big’ block for the CTS team, where we deliver the third year dissertation unit. It is an ambitious unit: students write a dissertation of up to 10,000 words which is a rare, long word-count for an undergraduate thesis, especially in art and design education (I was surprised at the length of it when I first joined LCC in 2021). We are also starting this academic year with a new CTS delivery model. Starting from this year, students will be embarking on new, revalidated UG courses where CTS curriculum has been reshaped to align more with individual course content, rather than being delivered as a cross-school model. This has resulted in several changes, one of which is the reduction of the third year dissertation to a 6000 word piece of writing documenting a research project on the topic of their choice. It’s not a dissertation anymore. My team have been concerned about this change. I have mixed feelings about it. I studied design and never actually had to write a dissertation. But my degree had considerably more theory and history than our students have, and I had to sit exams in art history, aesthetic theory, semiotics, graphic design history, product design history, etc. (I studied in Italy).
This project is a kind of attempt to defend the role of humanities in design education. I am attempting to do this by focusing on writing. Why is writing so contentious in design? Why do we cling onto it? Or do we rightly cling onto it? These are some of the questions that animate my research.
As I start this, I want to include some notes from my first session with my third year students. I asked them to write post-it notes on what their hopes and fears are for their dissertation unit. Some familiar hopes, desires, anxieties and reflections emerge, some of which I am directly addressing through this project:
“I hope to fully engage with my research topic and be excited to explore it.”
“I want to feel confident in my writing and not have to rush it till the last minute”
“I am afraid of my language coherence, and also worried about I can’t make it well. Process is really hard.”
“Fear the length of the essay”
“Can’t write enough words. The expressive power of the work is insufficient”
Is it action research?
Jean McNiff: “The idea of self reflection is central. In traditional forms of research – empirical research – researchers do research on other people. In action research, researchers do research on themselves. […] Action research is an enquiry conducted by the self into the self. You, a practitioner, think about your own life and work, and this involves you asking yourself why you do the things that you do, and why you are the way that you are. When you produce your research report, it shows how you have carried out a systematic investigation into your own behaviour, and the reasons for that behaviour.” (2002, p.6)
This quote from Jean McNiff’s booklet seemed worth reflecting on. I started the ARP project with a very self-absorbed idea: really, I wanted to justify the value of what I do, presenting it outwards as valuable for others. This seemed kind of self-indulgent, btu also necessary as part of the action-research process as a very particular approach to research. It was also quite freeing as it is completely different to my ‘academic’ research that relies on archives and interpretation that supposedly leaves out the self and self-reflection. And yet, during our tutorials/seminars, our tutors emphasised the need to step away from this 1st person narrative and contextualise our ideas through secondary literature. Returning to this quote, then, seems to justify the need for self-reflection as a central part of the action-research process.
At the same time, my research project does not focus on ‘enquiry conducted by the self into the self’. But rather enquiry conducted on others so I could do things better with others, for others. There seems to be some kind of tension here that makes me question the adequacy of my approach/focus and whether it actually is action-research as such.
What next?
In some ways, I feel like my ARP is, at this stage, either somewhat incomplete or speculative. While the research has reshaped the way I think about the value of CTS, and in particular of the emphasis on writing as a core CTS-related skill, any implementation of that knowledge and subsequent impact on the student journey will have to wait until the next academic year (2025/2026).
At this stage, my reflection and evaluation mostly reside in the discussions I have with colleagues – ongoing discussions that continue to centre writing as a main mode of expressing/acknowledging/justifying the role of CTS within the curriculum. Some of the friction that emerges in challenging the primacy of writing, then, seems like the best place to locate my reflection and next steps of action.