practice-based research & interdisciplinary phds alan blackwell
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Practice-Based Research &Interdisciplinary PhDs
Alan Blackwell
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Practice and Cambridge doctorates• 1800: doctorates in Divinity, Law, Medicine and Music recognised established reputation– derived from medieval guild memberships
• 1882: introduced ScD, for Cambridge graduates who had produced significant body of scientific work– 1900s: Competition from Germany awarding (essentially honorary) PhDs to research staff
• 1920s: Cambridge PhD introduced to compete for international students– Immediately awarded to many profs!– Regarded as ‘lesser’ than BA for many years
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Traditions of professional practice
• Clinical medicine
• Ordination
• Barristers
• Chartered engineers
• Teaching certification
• Architecture
• … but now primarily the ‘Silicon Fen’
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Segal Quince Wicksteed (1985) The Cambridge Phenomenon
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A practice-based intervention
Created in 2000 “to encourage collaboration between technologists, and researchers in the arts, humanities and social sciences.”
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Academic
Public sector
Commercial
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Crucible “house style”
• Start small and move fast
• Bring creative and design practices to technology
• Facilitate encounters between communities
• Cheerfully transgress academic borders
• Treat “Industry” as another discipline
• Engage with reflective social science
• Directly address public policy
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Qualities of interdisciplinary innovation• Leaders and founders of inter-disciplines:– resist convention and maintain vision
– while being mentors and coaches
• Freedom requires resources
• Collaborations grow in years, not months
• Goals must offer serendipity, not constraint
• Maintain and reward curiosity
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Setting an effective context for PhDs• Recruitment
– focus & rigour vs. flexibility & creativity
• Supervision models– network vs. committee
• Institutional models– programme vs. apprenticeship
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Challenges in interdisciplinary PhDs• Balancing adventure and risk when recruitment relies on past reputation
• Supporting curiosity and serendipity within a coherent ‘pole star’ vision
• Constructing a new research language, if the student’s first language is not English
• Participating in a diverse research network where trust develops over years
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Replicability in Practice-Based Research
Alan Blackwell
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Replicability and the “scientific method”• PPP: Positivism, Popper and Paradigms
• The dogma of hypothesis testing, falsifiability
• Replication (and failure to replicate) as a driver of experimental scientific practice
• The TEA laser (Collins)
• Instruments and allies (Latour)
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Replication and the scientific method• PPP: Positivism, Popper and Paradigms
• The dogma of hypothesis testing, falsifiability
• Replication (and failure to replicate) as a driver of experimental scientific practice
• The TEA laser (Collins)
• Instruments and allies (Latour)
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Replication and the scientific method• PPP: Positivism, Popper and Paradigms
• The dogma of hypothesis testing, falsifiability
• Replication (and failure to replicate) as a driver of experimental scientific practice
• The TEA laser (Collins)
• Instruments and allies (Latour)
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Replication in social science
• Experimental (laboratory) & survey studies– Quantitative measurement of behaviour– Sampling, statistics and distributions
• Naturalistic (case studies)– Natural setting, human “instruments”– Qualitative, inductive, grounded– Triangulation and convergence
• Experiential (phenomenological )– “Bracketing” of intent and interpretation
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Replication of artworks
• Borges’ Man who Wrote Quixote
• Digital reproduction– digital rights debates: CODE & elsewhere
• Schleske’s violin studio– researching “tonal copies” of great works
• Forgeries, tributes, fair-use or authorised?
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Classic “RDDA” vs action research
• Research– pure/theoretical
• Development– field setting
• Dissemination– via journals
• Adoption– by practitioners
• Data collection
• Form hypotheses
• Analytical validation
• Interpret by theory & practitioner judgement
• Action to “improve” situation
• Monitor by same research techniques
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Alternative quality criteria to replicability
Successful research
• Active & involved
• Convergence of >2 activities / interests
• Intuition (timely / feeling “right”)
• Desire for theoretical understanding
• Real world value
Unsuccessful research
• Expedience (cheap, easy or quick)
• Focus on method or technique
• Motivation by funding or publication
• Lack of theory
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From practice-based to professional practice• Replicability in fine art research plays the role of “clinical” research cases in professional fields:– in medical, social and legal disciplines
– in professional design disciplines
• Architecture– The design pattern (Alexander)– The reflective practitioner (Schön)
• Digital technologies as reified theory– Xerox PARC “inventing the future”– MIT Media Lab “demo or die”
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From practice-based to professional practice• Replicability in fine art research plays the role of “clinical” research cases in professional fields:– in medical, social and legal disciplines
– in professional design disciplines
• Architecture– The design pattern (Alexander)– The reflective practitioner (Schon)
• Digital technologies as reified theory– Xerox PARC “inventing the future”– MIT Media Lab “demo or die”
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People!People!
Urpo Tarnanen © Vigeland-museet
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Pavel Novak: Wikipedia (Creative Commons)
Where are the people?Where are
the people?
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Instrumental research and professionalism• Focus on instrumental outcomes implies social contribution, but also professional status
• Professional status leads to demands for:– Prioritisation within fixed budget– Value for money and accountability– Appraisal and evaluation (RAE)
• Consequences for research replicability– “Hard science drives out soft”
• Rigor or relevance in professional research?– Schön’s parable: the mountain and the swamp
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Instrumental policy concerns
• Economic outcomes– Creative industries– Cultural regeneration
• Social instrumentalities– Therapy regimes (medical, criminal)
– Social capital– Quality of life measures– Reith’s “cement of the nation”
• Carey: What Good are the Arts?
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Research replicability in policy context• Rhetoric of “best practice” around fine art research indicates demand for replicable process
• DCMS research agenda:– audience / market outcomes as impact measures
– civic accountability (via National Audit Office)
• AHRC knowledge transfer agenda:– Productisation via creative industries implies RDDA model in the arts, or
– Social science / design perspective: reflective practice toward process innovation in knowledge economy.
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