Investigative skills
HKU is already very active when it comes to research, but students and teachers do not always have a clear understanding of what research in the arts or design can entail, why it matters and what skills it requires. This is becoming increasingly relevant as artists and designers tackle complex societal challenges and generate new knowledge in the process.
Artistic and design research can create space for forms of knowledge that are not solely verbal or measurable, but may also be experiential, embodied, sensory or process-based. To develop, substantiate and share such knowledge consciously, students need research capability. FRAME therefore aims to give research a recognisable and structural place in HKU’s education.
‘In the arts, the questions, methods and forms of knowledge development can vary enormously’
Artistic research belongs in education
“I want to move away from the idea that research only occurs within research groups,” says HKU Professor Fabiola Camuti of the professorship Critical Creative Pedagogies. “Artistic and design research is a way of developing knowledge, so it belongs in education too. That doesn’t mean that all research at HKU should become uniform. On the contrary: in the arts, questions, methods and forms of knowledge development can vary enormously. However, we do need to teach students to work consciously and systematically: to make and substantiate choices, collect and analyse material, reflect, document and share their insights. This is how you develop knowledge that did not exist before. In doing so, we need to build on the existing field of artistic and design research. After all, we are a University of the Arts.”
Framework Research Methods and Skills in Arts Education
What research skills do students need to become investigative creative professionals during their studies? And what do lecturers need to teach, guide and assess them effectively? These were the questions that FRAME set out to address last year.
FRAME stands for Framework Research Methods and Skills in Arts Education. It aims to develop a coherent yet flexible framework for research education across HKU. To support this work, Fabiola secured a prestigious national Comenius Leadership Grant.
‘It is important that we design research education together with students and teachers’
Shared ownership
Over the past year, Fabiola worked with a team of HKU lecturers, students, programme leaders, educational specialists and researchers, as well as advisers from other educational institutions, to lay a solid foundation for the framework.
“Research education must not be designed from the top down, but together with the students and teachers who will be using it. This allows us to build on what is already happening, incorporate different perspectives and decide collectively what is useful. This shared sense of ownership is essential to FRAME.”
Mapping existing research practices
The first year of the project focused on three paths. First, HKU researcher Maarten Overdijk mapped existing research practices, questions and development needs within bachelor’s programmes at four HKU academies: Design, Theatre, Fine Art and Media. To do so, he spoke to lecturers and programme leaders and studied, among other things, module descriptions and information provided to students. This year, the mapping exercise will be extended to the remaining bachelor’s programmes.Fabiola explains: “We can see enormous differences, and thus students also experience research in very different ways. While one student may feel they have already carried out research in their first year, another may reach their third year without ever having heard of artistic research. This is also related to the broad range of meanings attached to the word ‘research’.”
Reflection tool and methods toolkit
The second path involved Brechtje Wedman, an educational specialist and lecturing researcher at HKU, working with teachers, programme leaders and students from the Education Platform on the educational framework for FRAME. The Education Platform brings together HKU’s teacher training programmes in Theatre, Music and Fine Art, the Master Arts Education and the professorship of Critical Creative Pedagogies.
One outcome was an initial prototype of a research reflection tool: a visual instrument that helps students to reflect on their research process to consider where they are, what choices they are making and what their next step might be.
‘The “toolkit” provides building blocks that each programme can use to develop a learning pathway suited to its own discipline and context’
Work has also begun on a methods toolkit. This provides a framework for programmes to organise research skills, research methods and teaching activities, and translate them into a continuous research learning pathway spanning the first to the fourth year of study.
The toolkit does not prescribe a single fixed route. Instead, it offers building blocks that each programme can use to develop a learning pathway suited to its own discipline and context. The reflection tool and methods toolkit will be further developed and tested in the coming period.
Discussions in the master’s programmes
The third path focuses on HKU’s seven master’s programmes, where initial discussions were already held with the programme leaders. In the next phase, these programmes will also be systematically mapped. The aim is to identify the knowledge, approaches and experience relating to research that are already in place, determine what is relevant to the further development of FRAME, and strengthen the connection between bachelor’s and master’s programmes.
‘Lecturers need sufficient knowledge and practical tools to teach research processes’
Professionalisation for lecturers
Next to a learning pathway and a reflection tool for students, work is under way on a professional development module for lecturers covering research, research pedagogy and supervision.
“Research is becoming increasingly important in education, and this also has implications for the people who guide students through it,” says Fabiola. “Lecturers need sufficient knowledge and practical tools to teach, guide and assess research processes.”
Flexible form
“We are explicitly not looking for one single fixed model for all of HKU, but for a flexible approach,” says Fabiola. “Research takes different forms across programmes and disciplines. FRAME is therefore working towards a shared foundation, including common terminology around research and research capability, while allowing methods, skills and teaching approaches to be developed differently for each programme. The central question is: what can we share across HKU, and where should we leave room for differences, context and the distinct character of each programme?”
The next phase
FRAME is now entering its next phase. An HKU-wide group of FRAME ambassadors, lecturers, programme leaders and educational specialists from the various academies will work on the further development, testing and refining of the the initial prototypes.
“In task sessions, we will explore together what the progressive development of research skills might look like across different programmes: what do students need in their first year, how do you build on that in subsequent years, and where should there be room for the specific needs of each discipline?” says Fabiola.
FRAME also ties in with broader developments within HKU’s strategy. “Ultimately, we want students at HKU to experience research as a natural and integral part of their studies and their development as creative professionals.”