Can Part-Practice be used as Methodology for Research?

 

In searching to define my methods for research, I have been seeking to define and confirm the term part-practice and the way in which it is seen in the academic world when it relates to art and design. As part-practice is a relatively new method of research, there are those who have questioned the academic status of such an approach. I have therefore sought to find support for such a methodology that reinforces the method whilst giving helpful guidelines and theoretic support.

 

Initially I did not see the style of ‘part-practice’ that I intended to use as a research methodology. The terms, research and part-practice, seemed somehow to be counter intuitive. A research method was where I sat and read, retrieved and learnt, discussed and analysed. Part-practice was where I played, toyed about, had fun, became creative, expressed myself and perhaps, most importantly for me, created something useful that I could use in the future. Because of this dichotomy of my thoughts, and also the pathway of the MPhil/PhD program along which I am progressing, it seemed more logical to look at and seek narrative as my methodological pathway. However, with further research the term part-practice does seek to form a methodological pathway itself.

 

Writing in a paper, A Paradigm Analysis of Art based Research and Implications for Education, J.H. Rolling draws a parallel between art-based research methods and scientific research methods which both include a practice-based or practical component. In this way he seeks to suggest that this practice-based method for art and design is not such an unusual method. Rolling sees the traditional curriculum as based on a, ‘scientifically-based endeavour guided by hypotheses and proof-of-theory principles’. Can we relocate this within practice based art research? (Rolling Jr. 2010)

 

Carol Grey (Grey 1996) writes of the tensions between professional practices and ‘academic’ education and research. There is also a difficulty in defining this research method and its characteristics, as it is such a new concept, with those who undertook this research method themselves now supervising the next generation of researchers. In this investigation of the use of part-practice Grey bemoans the fact that many artists have been content for non-artists to critique practice whilst artists just practice. She defines practice led research as:​

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Research which is initiated in practice, where questions, problems challenges are identified and formed by the needs of practice and practitioners; and secondly, that the research strategy is carried out through practice, using predominantly methodologies and specific methods familiar to use practitioners in the visual arts

 

She see’s a role for practice led research to question the role and value of visual arts in society. I cannot say that this is the intension of my work but I certainly see art and design as integral to life today.

 

Grey has also worked with others to create a paper to give further support to practice based researched methods. This paper; Appropriate Research Methodologies for Artists, Designers & Craftspersons: Research as a Learning Process. They give a list of suggestions for the research methodology, which gives a structure for this research method;

 

 

·       Initially to consider a range of research strategies

·       ‘Tailor’ the research project in response to the nature of practice

·       Carry out the research as ‘participant observer’

·       Continue to refine & develop the research question

·       Distinguish research from day to day practice

·       Be aware of the critical content of practice and research

·       Consider an interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary approach to research using a multi-method or triangulated approach. (Malins 1995)

 

This seems a supportive list but it is not the only research paper that has support to refine the concept of part practice research. However, this second list seems more definative.D Davis James calls his work a working model for postgraduate practice and again presents this as a list. He is definitive in that he sets out issues that must be addressed in part-practice research:

 

·       Distinguishing between professional practice and research

·       Generating a definition of research

·       Identifying an appropriate role for theory in modelling the process of research

·       Drawing the line in the sand

·       Structuring and synthesizing research

·       Managing the duel roles of artist and researcher

·       Communicating hitherto inchoate practice to an audience

·       Contemplating future questions/direction (James 2002)

 

Although this set of points is not as specific it does draw attention to those areas that are seen as difficult. Both talk of the role the researcher/artist takes when using this method and the need to specify the role taken. There is consistency in ideas, which suggests that I could create an amalgamated list to use as a structure for my research. James recommends generating a definition of research and then goes on to provide a working model of research with specific reference to art, as:

 

A cross-disciplinary and collegial process created an umbrella definition to take account of the disparate nature of creative practice and the need to create a methodological framework to capture and interrogate that practice. (James 2002)

 

In concluding, to this point, I return to the initial discussion of perhaps a relationship between scientific practical research and arts based part-practice research and the possibility of using a further expounded structure of the science experiment with Observation/Research, Hypothesis, Prediction, Experimentation, and Conclusion. This structure is seen as validated, is that because the use of hypothesis and prediction gives authority to the process? Or alternatively is it that the experiment is a repeatable process that authorises the scientific over the art.​