Ravin Raori’s Blog for UAL PGCert

As a precursor to undertaking the focus groups, I decided to conduct a survey with my Year 1 students to just get a temperature check in terms of how folks are getting on with friends and forging community.

Survey Question:
Intro: Take a moment to reflect on the question below and share as much details as you feel comfortable. These answers will be collected anonymously. Your name and/or personal information will not be reflected anywhere in the research. Your answers are subject to being published anonymously and will be used as data points in the research.
Question: In 150-200 words, describe how your first few months at University has been. Reflect on any new friendships you have gained and the role the play in your learning journey, sense of community and belonging. 

Note* I intentionally included an image of myself from my undergraduate studio days when I was on an exchange semester in Shanghai. I shared a personal anecdote with the students about what this image means to me. On the surface it’s a rather mundane image off me and two of my close friends (and group mates in this case) pulling an all-nighter while building spaghetti bridges for our upcoming ‘Building Technology’ submission. Yes, I went to Architecture School – the good old days. But what it represents is the invisible bond of us sharing a light moment and laughter amidst the stress of a studio submission.

Link to Responses:
Ravin Raori’s Research Project.xlsx

Reflection
Students responses ranged from celebrating little winds to acknowledging anxieties around forming new friendships and fostering a sense of belonging. There is a real vulnerability that comes to the surface. See below a visual representation of all the responses. One of the responses that really stuck out was a student who commented (as part of their response) saying, “…I keep searching for home. But I don’t know where home is.”

This one statement stuck with me and ended up even becoming the name of this project. At first there is an immediate sadness to it but on further reflection also an acknowledgement of displacement; and the search for belonging. I truly believe that there is something quite powerful in the acknowledgment as it is something that several of us are probably facing too or have faced in the past. As such it becomes part of the collective/shared experience of the cohort. Perhaps in some ways it could translate as an opportunity for a deeper commitment to community.

Onto the focus groups – feeling excited and ready!

Recording Session 1:

Transcript Session 1:
(Un-edited)

Participants Session 1:
Hubert Cheng
Prin Akapongkul
Ravin Raori

Focus Group Questions:
(OpenAI ChatGPT, 2024)
Note*I would like to acknowledge my use of OpenAI Chat GPT in helping structure the questions for my focus groups. I used the AI to help brainstorm some ideas and refine the questions for my focus group. (Refer to Focus Group Methods Post for more details on the prompt)

1. Reflection on Expectations: Looking back to your first year, how did your expectations about friendships and community evolve over time?
2. Role of Friendships: How have friendships influenced your academic experience, creativity, or personal growth during the course?
3. Community Impact: In what ways has being part of a community (or lack of one) shaped your time at university?
4. Significant Relationships: Are there any specific relationships or moments that stand out as particularly impactful?
5. Challenges and Growth: Did you face any challenges in maintaining or building connections, and how did you navigate them?
6. Advice for New Students: What advice would you give to first-year students about fostering friendships and a sense of belonging?

Further Data and Analysis Session 1:

Link to Miro board: https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVL6TC3zs=/?share_link_id=621103465229

I spent some time with the students to look at some of the responses generated and started to draw some links/connections between their reflections.

Recording Session 2:

Transcript Session 2:
(Un-edited)

Transcript-Session-2Download

Participants Session 2:
Chloe Chen Chen
Prin Akapongkul
Ravin Raori

Session 2 Activity 1:
I wanted to start analysing some of the data with the students to introduce a participatory element (Refer to Refer to Focus Group Methods Post)

(From Ravin)

Hi folks,
Using some of the data we generated last time, the first task is to pick out 5-6 statements that feel like they mean the most to you?
Perhaps something you resonate with, maybe something you hadn’t thought about before – it could be a value that you hope to take with you moving forward or anything else you find meaningful

Data and Analysis from Activity 1

Link to Miro board: https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVL6TC3zs=/?share_link_id=621103465229

Session 2 Activity 2:
(From Ravin)

Hi folks,
Looking at what moved us as individuals – can we start to Organise them under themes .This is a starting point – we can always add more themes.

The themes/categories included (Definitions, Values, Commitments and Misc.)

Data Collected and Analysis:
We analysed and sorted the reflections as a group (see below) to start to articulate an understanding of community and belonging together.

Link to Miro board: https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVL6TC3zs=/?share_link_id=621103465229

Note* I would like to acknowledge my work with the Creative Producer Programme at Ars Electronica in 2021. The co-authoring of a manifesto as part of this programme has been a constant source of inspiration in helping me find ways to articulate collective experience and also use Miro as a tool for working.

References:
1. OpenAI ChatGPT (2024) ChatGPT response to Ravin Raori, 28 November.
2. A Manifesto for Creative Producing:
Original Attribution-
Work originally developed as part of the Creative Producer Program for the Ars Electronica Festival 2021, a six-week program that gathered 22 practitioners with the aim of creating a Manifesto for Creative Producing. creativeproducing.online Allison Costa (US), Ana Prendes (GB), Christiana Kazakou (GB), Cui Yin Mok (SG), Hyash Tanmoy (IN), Illya Szilak (US), Ilona Puskas (HU), Justin Berry (US), Kavita Gonsalves (AU), Kazz Morohashi (GB), Kofi Oduro (CA), Komal Jain (IN), Lizzie Crouch (GB), Madhushree Kamak (IN), Maria Kuzmina (RU), Mark Bolotin (AU), Matt Gingold (AU), Nicholas Medvescek (US), Ravin Raori (GB), Robin Reid (US), Viviana Quea (AT), Zeynep Birsel (NL)

Harvard-
Costa, A., Prendes, A., Kazakou, C., Mok, C. Y., Birsel, Z., Quea, V., Reid, R., Raori, R., Medvescek, N., Gingold, M., Bolotin, M., Kuzmina, M., Kamak, M., Crouch, L., Jain, K., Oduro, K., Morohashi, K., Gonsalves, K., Berry, J., … Tanmoy, H., (2023). A Manifesto for Creative Producing. Creative Producing Online. Avalaible at: https://creativeproducing.online/ (Accessed: 13 Feb 2024).

1. Aristotle, Thomson, J. A. K., & Tredennick, H. (1976). The ethics of Aristotle: The Nicomachean ethics. Penguin.
2. Bernstein, B. (1975). Class and pedagogies: Visible and invisible. Educational Studies, 1(1), 23-41.
3. Lincoln, Y. S., & Guba, E. G. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry (Vol. 75). Sage.
4. Morgan, D. L. (1988). Focus groups as qualitative research. Sage Publications.
5. Kitzinger, J. (1994). The methodology of focus groups: The importance of interaction between research participants. Sociology of Health & Illness, 16(1), 103-121.
6. Wilson, V. (1997). Focus groups: A useful qualitative method for educational research? British Educational Research Journal, 23(2), 209-224.
7. Collins, P. H. (2000). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. Routledge.
8. Schoder, E. M. (2010). Paulo Freire’s pedagogy of love. Rutgers The State University of New Jersey, School of Graduate Studies.
9. Curtis, B., & Curtis, C. (2011). Social research: A practical introduction. SAGE Publications.
10. Broadhead, S. (2015). Inclusion in the art and design curriculum: Revisiting Bernstein and class issues.
11. Ahmed, S. (2017). Living a feminist life. Duke University Press.
12. Marshall, R. (2017). Nietzsche and friendship – 3:16. 3:16. Available at: https://www.3-16am.co.uk/articles/nietzsche-and-friendship (Accessed: 04 Nov 2024).
13. Broadhead, S. (2018). Friendship, discourse and belonging in the studio: The experiences of ‘non-traditional’ students in Design Higher Education. In Continuity and Discontinuity in Learning Careers (pp. 17-28). Brill.
14. Hollingsworth, D. (2018). Places and Spaces and the Behavior They Create. TEDxMinneapolis. Available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/damaris_hollingsworth_places_and_spaces_and_the_behavior_they_create?subtitle=en&trigger=0s (Accessed: 10 July 2024).
15. Tate, S. (2019). Tackling the ‘BPOC’ Attainment Gap in UK Universities [online]. TEDx Royal Central School. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPMuuJrfawQ (Viewed 29 May 2021).
16. Francois, J. (2019). Moving from Safe Spaces to Brave Spaces: How “Intersectionality” can Facilitate Difficult Conversation within Teaching and Learning. Doing Feminist Pedagogy in Contemporary Universities: Old Dilemmas and New Challenges, Warwick (United Kingdom), 08 Mar. Available at: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/sociology/research/gender/calendar/eventrecordings/janinefrancois.mp3 (Accessed: 10 July 2024).
17. Freire, P. (2020). Pedagogy of the oppressed. In Toward a Sociology of Education (pp. 374-386). Routledge.
18. A Manifesto for Creative Producing:
    Original Attribution-
    Work originally developed as part of the Creative Producer Program for the Ars Electronica Festival 2021, a six-week program that gathered 22 practitioners with the aim of creating a Manifesto for Creative Producing. creativeproducing.online Allison Costa (US), Ana Prendes (GB), Christiana Kazakou (GB), Cui Yin Mok (SG), Hyash Tanmoy (IN), Illya Szilak (US), Ilona Puskas (HU), Justin Berry (US), Kavita Gonsalves (AU), Kazz Morohashi (GB), Kofi Oduro (CA), Komal Jain (IN), Lizzie Crouch (GB), Madhushree Kamak (IN), Maria Kuzmina (RU), Mark Bolotin (AU), Matt Gingold (AU), Nicholas Medvescek (US), Ravin Raori (GB), Robin Reid (US), Viviana Quea (AT), Zeynep Birsel (NL)
    Harvard-
    Costa, A., Prendes, A., Kazakou, C., Mok, C. Y., Birsel, Z., Quea, V., Reid, R., Raori, R., Medvescek, N., Gingold, M., Bolotin, M., Kuzmina, M., Kamak, M., Crouch, L., Jain, K., Oduro, K., Morohashi, K., Gonsalves, K., Berry, J., … Tanmoy, H., (2023). A Manifesto for Creative Producing. Creative Producing Online. Avalaible at: https://creativeproducing.online/ (Accessed: 13 Feb 2024).
19. Bunting, L., & Hill, V. (2021). Relational Reflections: How do we nurture belonging in creative Higher Education? Innovative Practice in Higher Education.
20. Prather, A. (2022). Understanding friendship through the eyes of Aristotle. Antigone Journal. Available at: https://antigonejournal.com/2021/03/understanding-friendship-through-aristotle/ (Accessed: 03 Nov 2024).
21. Templin, C. (2022). Why Citation matters: Ideas on a feminist approach to research. Blog ABV Gender-und Diversitykompetenz FU Berlin. Available at: https://blogs.fu-berlin.de/abv-gender-diversity/2022/01/10/why-citation-matters:-ideas-on-a-feminist-approach-to-research/ (Accessed: 10 Oct 2022).
22. Willcocks, J. & Mahon, K. (2023). The potential of online object-based learning activities to support the teaching of intersectional environmentalism in art and design higher education. Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education, 22(2), 187-207.
23. Willshire, J. (2023). Obliquiscopes: Setting aperture for reality. Smithery. Available at: https://smithery.com/2023/09/22/obliquiscopes-setting-aperture-for-reality/ (Accessed: 04 Nov 2024).
24. Burston, C., Tickler, O., Harrison, K., Baden-Powell, U., & Raori, R. (2024). Two State-Creative Brief. BA Graphic and Media Design Year 1 Process and Methods.
25. Odenyiyi, V. (2024). Making Sense of Qualitative Data: From Data to Analysis and Back Again. UAL Decolonising Arts Institute.
26. Frieze (2024). Open now: Frieze Sculpture 2024. Available at: https://www.frieze.com/article/frieze-sculpture-2024 (Accessed: 05 Nov 2024).
27. Raori, R. (2024). Freeze. BA Graphic and Media Design Year 1 Process and Methods. Available at: https://raoriravin.myblog.arts.ac.uk/files/2025/01/Freeze_Rotation1.pdf
28. OpenAI ChatGPT (2024). ChatGPT response to Ravin Raori, 28 November.

Above is a PDF version of my presentation. However, my presentation includes dynamic content so I will be presenting using Keynote. I am attaching the Keynote file here as a Google Drive Link.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ItvsIgF43UdAaIiigI9z5P_7xFHu6mIs/view?usp=sharing

Recording Session 1:

Transcript Session 1:
(Un-edited)

Participants Session 1:
Arushi Prakash
Devananda Sudeesh
Huiyuan Xin
Yifan Jiang
Ravin Raori

Focus Group Questions:
(OpenAI ChatGPT, 2024)
Note*I would like to acknowledge my use of OpenAI Chat GPT in helping structure the questions for my focus groups. I used the AI to help brainstorm some ideas and refine the questions for my focus group. (Refer to Focus Group Methods Post for more details on the prompt)

1. Initial Expectations: What were your expectations about making friends and how has it been so far?
2. Defining Friendship: What does friendship mean to you in the context of university life?
3. Community Perception: How would you describe the sense of community in your cohort or the university as a whole?
4. Challenges: Have you faced any challenges in forming connections?
5. Support Systems: In what situations/contexts/scenarios have you made new friends?
6. Future Outlook: How do you imagine these relationships evolving as you progress through the course?

Further Data and Analysis Session 1:

Link to Miro board: https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVL-XmNy0=/?share_link_id=732255999731

I spent some time with the students to look at some of the responses generated and started to draw some links/connections between their reflections.

Recording Session 2:

Transcript Session 2:
(Un-edited)

Participants Session 2:
Denise See
Devananda Sudeesh
Huiyuan Xin
Ravin Raori

Session 2 Activity 1:
I wanted to start analysing some of the data with the students to introduce a participatory element (Refer to Refer to Focus Group Methods Post)

(From Ravin)

Hi folks,
Using some of the data we generated last time, the first task is to pick out 5-6 statements that feel like they mean the most to you?
Perhaps something you resonate with, maybe something you hadn’t thought about before – it could be a value that you hope to take with you moving forward or anything else you find meaningful

Data and Analysis from Activity 1
Link to Miro board: https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVL-XmNy0=/?share_link_id=732255999731

Session 2 Activity 2:
(From Ravin)

Hi folks,
Looking at what moved us as individuals – can we start to Organise them under themes .This is a starting point – we can always add more themes.

The themes/categories included (Definitions, Values, Commitments and Misc.)

Data Collected and Analysis:
We analysed and sorted the reflections as a group (see below) to start to articulate an understanding of community and belonging together.
Link to Miro board: https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVL-XmNy0=/?share_link_id=732255999731

Note* I would like to acknowledge my work with the Creative Producer Programme at Ars Electronica in 2021. The co-authoring of a manifesto as part of this programme has been a constant source of inspiration in helping me find ways to articulate collective experience and also use Miro as a tool for working.

References:
1. OpenAI ChatGPT (2024) ChatGPT response to Ravin Raori, 28 November.
2. A Manifesto for Creative Producing:
Original Attribution-
Work originally developed as part of the Creative Producer Program for the Ars Electronica Festival 2021, a six-week program that gathered 22 practitioners with the aim of creating a Manifesto for Creative Producing. creativeproducing.online Allison Costa (US), Ana Prendes (GB), Christiana Kazakou (GB), Cui Yin Mok (SG), Hyash Tanmoy (IN), Illya Szilak (US), Ilona Puskas (HU), Justin Berry (US), Kavita Gonsalves (AU), Kazz Morohashi (GB), Kofi Oduro (CA), Komal Jain (IN), Lizzie Crouch (GB), Madhushree Kamak (IN), Maria Kuzmina (RU), Mark Bolotin (AU), Matt Gingold (AU), Nicholas Medvescek (US), Ravin Raori (GB), Robin Reid (US), Viviana Quea (AT), Zeynep Birsel (NL)

Harvard-
Costa, A., Prendes, A., Kazakou, C., Mok, C. Y., Birsel, Z., Quea, V., Reid, R., Raori, R., Medvescek, N., Gingold, M., Bolotin, M., Kuzmina, M., Kamak, M., Crouch, L., Jain, K., Oduro, K., Morohashi, K., Gonsalves, K., Berry, J., … Tanmoy, H., (2023). A Manifesto for Creative Producing. Creative Producing Online. Avalaible at: https://creativeproducing.online/ (Accessed: 13 Feb 2024).

In her presentation on Qualitative Data, Victoria Odenyiyi from the UAL Decolonising Arts Institute defines linguistic ethnography as:

An interpretive approach which studies the local and immediate actions of actors from their point of view and considers how these interactions are embedded in wider social structures

(Copland and Creese, 2015 as cites by Odenyiyi, 2024)

As much of my research is rooted in methods of observation and field recording (Tjora, 2006) its important for me to outline certain ethnographic considerations with my research, borrowing from a rich pool of literature around these subjects including foundation work around Naturalistic Inquiry (Lincoln & Guba, 1985).

Key Considerations:
1. What am I observing?
As mentioned earlier in Workshop 2, I had a wonderful conversation with Tim where we discussed at length my method of observation. He questioned whether the observations around friendship and community could truly be interpreted by observing from a distance and together we reflected on whether my observations needed to be underpinned by an understanding of the role of things like semiotics and body language: perhaps a good starting point. Bruce and Cate Curtis (2017) highlight the interconnectedness of signs, symbols, and meanings within social settings in ethnographic research; paying attention not just to what students do but how they communicate, share values, and negotiate roles within their groups.

2. How am I observing?
Tjora (2006) recognises the value and importance of different forms of observing from the immediacy of detailed field notes that are perhaps more objective to perhaps more subjective and interpretive forms of observing that rely more on finding patterns, explaining and generalising what one sees. A key takeaway for me being the need to balance objectivity with the reflexive awareness of the context, emergent themes and patterns within the research.

3.My role is the observation process
In undertaking both the interventions as well as the focus groups, I am actively placing myself at wither the centre or the periphery of the environment in which the research is being undertaken. I must on some level acknowledge my influence (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) on the research and findings. Perhaps this is not a bad thing but it makes me think about how I must design the experiment in order to ensure the trustworthiness (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) of my claims. This could include cross-checking in some way – when I place myself at specific distances (literal and metaphorical) to see how this influences the findings and not over-relying on generalisations and the transferability of individual observations.

Case Study/Workshop Activity:
In our final workshop, we were made to undertake an observation study on qualitative research. We were each assigned a space and asked to undertake a short data collection activity to answer a key research question. Our space was the Foyer and our research question was: In what ways does the experience of entering LCC building affect student belonging?

I was working with Amy Henry and Danielle Rodojcin (colleagues from LCC and CSM respectively).

Project Name: Foyer Dreams

Data Collected:
We collected data through field notes, observation recordings and images. See below the Padlet of data we collected (follow link for access).

We organised the data into three categories as specified in the task: What is salient, What glows and Stumble Data. See Observations in the Padlet.

Reflection:
For the most part, this was very validating in terms of recognising the value of what we were already doing in our interventions. It was immediately obvious that there is much one can glean from just sitting in a space but within that, being an active observer. This meant looking at not just the space itself, but how people used it, their body language and emotional engagement. There was so much in the discussions that came out of this that I was able to take back and apply to my own project.

References:

1. Lincoln, Y. S., & Guba E.G. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry (Vol. 75). Sage.
2. Tjora, A. H. (2006). Writing small discoveries: an exploration of fresh observers’ observations. Qualitative research, 6(4), 429-451.
3. Curtis, B., & Curtis, C. (2011). Social research: A Practical Introduction. SAGE Publications, Inc., https://doi.org/10.4135/9781526435415
4. Copland, F., & Creese, A. (2015). Ethical issues in linguistic ethnography: Balancing the micro and the macro. In Ethics in applied linguistics research. Routledge.
5. Odenyiyi, V. (2024). Making Sense of Qualitative Data: From data to analysis and back again. UAL Decolonising Arts Insttute.

Intention:
At sort-of the midway point of my project, I realised that I needed some kind of sense check or touchpoint to hear from students on what they thinking about these notions of community and/or belonging with the context of their academic experience. The interventions had been a useful way to test out some of my ideas around group work, the studio and its role in building community. However, overwhelmingly it felt as though the next logical step would be to design a focus group/working group to continue to articulate some of these ideas with the students voices being fore-fronted.

Considerations:
I thought it would be good idea to include students from the first and third years. Part of the reason is that these are the two years I teach on so I already have an existing connection with the students. Another part of the reason was that it would help include perspectives from the beginning and end of the student journey – to consider where things started and how they ended up.

Both Wilson (1997) and Kitzinger (1994) emphasise the value of interaction between participants, to bring shared memory and collective experience to the fore. This is a key factor in differentiating focus groups from group interviews (Morgan, 1988 as cited in Wilson, 1997). Through my earlier reflections, I’ve also been considering this idea of the shared experience of cohorts and perhaps this could be a way to create a space to bring some of that knowledge into conversation.

Design:
I decided to conduct two focus groups with two sessions each for Year 1 and Year 3.
Dates for Year 1: 29th November + 6th December
Dates for Year 3: 9th December +10th December
Duration: 2 hours per session
Number of Participants: 3-5. Note* I advertised the focus groups as open to about 20. However, this was to be mindful of the fact that it was close to submission periods and the Christmas break. So I expected a natural fall-off based on previous experiences. In the end I had an average of 3-5 participants in each session (including myself).

Each focus group was designed with tailored questions to reflect the distinct experiences of first-year and final-year students. For Year 1, questions focused on expectations and early experiences of community, while Year 3 questions encouraged reflection on the evolution of friendships and the impact of community over time.

Note*I would like to acknowledge my use of OpenAI Chat GPT in helping structure the questions for my focus groups. I used the AI to help brainstorm some ideas and refine the questions for my focus group.

In general, I think the prompts generated with the AI were quite useful and pretty much on the point in terms of where I wanted to take these conversations. I only had to modify a couple of them and make slight changes to the questions. See below for the final set of focus group questions:

The sessions were hosted on Miro, allowing students to share their responses collectively through a brainstorming activity (see below). For each question, students added their thoughts to a shared board, creating a visual representation of their ideas. Afterward, we discussed some of the more personal responses as a group. I’d like to believe that this helped facilitate participation and gave students a tangible way to see the diversity and commonality of their experiences. To foster a comfortable environment, I often shared my own experiences as a student, creating a sense of relatability and encouraging openness. Wilson (1997) highlights that a non-threatening atmosphere encourages self-disclosure, which was particularly important given the personal nature of the topics discussed.

Getting Students/Advertising the session:
I set up a sign up on Moodle with all the relevant information. See example below:

However, getting students to sign up was actually tougher than I anticipated (owing to it being close to the submission and holiday period). I adopted three main strategies and with much effort was able to create 2 focus groups.

1. Email: I sent out to big emails and also requested the year leads for Years 1 and 3 to include it in their weekly newsletters that go out to the year groups every Friday. My colleagues were extremely supportive of my project (thanks Maria and Craig!) and through this I was able to catch a few students.
2. I also went around the four Year 1 studios to tell the students more about the project – an opportunity to be part of research.
3. As a final resort, I approached students I had taught previously and thus built a relationship with. I am aware this comes with its own biases but it helped me get the last few I needed to round out the groups.

Introducing a Participatory element:
Session 2 (Activity 2 and 3) for each of the focus groups was about analysing the data generated in the first session. Even though we were made well aware that we are conducting Action Research and not Participatory Action Research, we were constantly encouraged by our tutors to consider the implications of a participatory element – which I thought was really nice. So for the second session, the focus group turned into a bit of a working group where we collectively looked at what was generated in the first session and then started to organise it under certain categories and themes. The format was kept consistent for this session across both year groups.

Ethical and Practical Considerations:
Both Wilson (1997) and Kitzinger (1994) stress the importance of ethical considerations when dealing with potentially sensitive topics. I designed a degree of anonymity within the Miro activity and emphasised that participants could pass on any questions they felt uncomfortable answering. Additionally, I tried my best to remain mindful of power dynamics—particularly with first-year students who might feel hesitant to speak openly. In retrospect, I perhaps could have upheld a higher degree of anonymity. Even though the responses on Miro aren’t necessarily tagged to a particular name, if one really wanted to find out who wrote something, they could go through the recording and attempt to decipher this. That being said, students were only invited to talk more about their individual responses if they felt comfortable and the recording was taken and published with their consent.

References:
1. Morgan, D. L. (1988). Focus groups as qualitative research. Sage publications.
2. Wilson, V. (1997). Focus groups: a useful qualitative method for educational research?. British Educational Research Journal, 23(2), 209-224.
3. Kitzinger, J. (1994). The methodology of focus groups: the importance of interaction between research participants. Sociology of health & illness, 16(1), 103-121.
4. OpenAI ChatGPT (2024) ChatGPT response to Ravin Raori, 28 November.

Changes Made
-Responding to the first iteration of this intervention, I decided to be more specific about the assigning of roles within the group. Instead of students choosing their own roles, I asked students within each group to arrange themselves alphabetically and take on the corresponding role from the list of roles. See Slide 7 of the revised presentation below.

-Next, in thinking of my method of observation and Naturalistic Inquiry – I had a wonderful conversation with Tim during workshop 2 where we spoke at length about what it is that I should be observing and are these things even observable? How does one even observe friendship? Is it about body language? Or is it something else entirely?
We talked about aspects like trustworthiness (Guba & Lincoln, 1985) and the role of the researcher as someone who actively participates and thus also influences the process of observation. Initially I thought I would benefit by observing from afar – because in that sense I (perhaps) affect the group the least. However, in doing so I (through this conversation with Tim) realised that I’m making a series of assumptions and conclusions about my observations. Perhaps I need to get closer to the groups. But in getting closer – there is also an acknowledgement of me an actor in the presence influencing how they behave and interact with each other. Perhaps that is okay.

Data Collected
Method of Collection: Observation from closer. I followed a few groups around to really see and listen to the internal dynamics. Data was collected through images, videos and note taking. See link to Padlet of Student work from the session.

Reflection
– Around Group Dynamics: It was good to see student take on roles they perhaps may not have done before. Being closer to the groups gave me a better sense of their engagement with the task and with each other. This was definitely a step up from my observations in the previous sessions (thank you Tim!). There is also a clear difference to me (the observer) in the engagement across the groups in the two rotations. I want to be aware of making a generalisation here and/or the transferability (Guba & Lincoln, 1985) of my claims, but in a small sense – was really good to see. See snippets below:

References

1.Lincoln, Y. S., Guba, E. G. (1985). Naturalistic Inquiry. India: SAGE Publications.

Note* I’ve not made this into two separate posts because I didn’t change much across the two rotations of the project for which I ran this intervention.

What:
An intervention to study group work, furniture layout and rearranging the studio environment. The idea here was to embrace play and working together.

How:
Students were asked to work in groups of 3 to create a photogrammetry scan of a chosen object. We moved the furniture around to free up space for students work on the floor and re-claim space within the studio.

Note* Photogrammetry is a form of 3d scanning where an object can be re-created digitally as a 3d model by stitching individual images together. There are apps on Andriod/IOS that enable this.

Where:
LCC Design Block Studios

When:
16.10.2024 (Rotation 1)
20.11.2024 (Rotation 2)

Why:
Sometimes it feels as though the studio environment, by this I mean how the furniture is set up is not the most friendly. We have these clusters of tables that encourage students to congregate in their established groups as opposed to make new friends or mingle and engage with other people. This was an attempt to address some of those concerns.

Data Collected:
I collected lots of images and videos. Again relying heavily on Naturalistic Inquiry in this context. See below some of the images and videos collected.

Reflection

-It was clear that re-defining and further allowing students to re-claim the studio space is an important aspect of togetherness as Hollingsworth (2018) would put it. There were lots of lovely moments of laughter and play as can be seen in the image and video samples I have processed. Again, I think it’s important to acknowledge here that there is a degree of selection conscious/sub-conscious in what I’m choosing to document and further what I’m choosing to show. With that selection comes natural bias too. There will always be moments of tension or disengagement with the class group too, which I think is equally important to acknowledge.

-One of the highlights from this intervention was my colleague Kelly Harrison coming up to me and mentioning that students had organically started collaborating across groups. One of our mature students who we later realised was struggling with the technology involved as part of this task and perhaps, did not have the courage to come and speak with us was being supported by students of another group. This was really great to see as a sort of marker of the community dynamics within the studio space (see bel0w).

References:

1. Hollingsworth, D. (2018) Places and Spaces and the Behavior They Create, TEDxMinneapolis. Available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/damaris_hollingsworth_places_and_spaces_and_the_behavior_they_create?subtitle=en&trigger=0s (Accessed: 10 July 2024).

Based on Reading:
Broadhead, S. (2018). Friendship, discourse and belonging in the studio: the experiences of ‘non-traditional’ students in Design Higher Education. In Continuity and Discontinuity in Learning Careers (pp. 17-28). Brill.

Reflection:

This post is meant to bring together/articulate an understanding of the remaining parameters of my research, that I believe to be relevant to discourse around friendship and belonging.

<in no particular order>
1. Pedagogical Barriers
2. The Studio Space
3. A Moral Position

Pedagogical Barriers
Samantha Broadhead (2015) in her work reflects on the work of Bernstein (1975), to talk about the barriers that prevent students from non traditional (cultural and/or social) backgrounds from being included in pedagogical practices and perhaps impeding their progress. She draws on Bernstein’s (1975) deconstruction of pedagogic practices as visible and invisible to highlight the different ways in which students from non-traditional backgrounds could be excluded from the studio.

In thinking about this project and interventions of friendship, I am making a lot of assumptions about the invisible aspects (Bernstein, 1975) of studio based learning. This includes the preconceptions about culture- we have a large body of international students and within that is a whole set of diverse individuals, each of whom might approach ideas of belonging in ways relevant to how they’ve been brought up and lived their lives. Beyond the international students, we also have home students that may/may not have the same level of access to peer-based learning.

The Studio Space
Going back to my IP Unit project and through the course of the PG Cert, I’ve been looking at the physical space of the studio and trying to frame it from the perspectives of bravery over safety (Francoise, 2019); while acknowledging the important of both those values. In my intervention for the IP unit (click here), students investigated the classroom space and thought of ways to address the issue of safety in a social-justice context. Building on some of the learnings from that intervention I’m interested in how studio space can help facilitate a feeling of togetherness for the students (Hollingsworth, 2018). Is it related solely to values such as safety and/or bravery or are there other factors that might influence the feelings of belonging in a space?

A Moral Postion
Broadhead (2018) references Aristotle’s idea of Phronesis or Pratical Wisdom (Thomson et. al, 1976) when referring to the cases of two non-traditional students and how their experiences were impacted by the actions of their colleagues/classmates and the sense of community this enabled. Practical Wisdom in the Aristotelian sense relates to the ability to act with moral fibre, making good and virtuous decisions, conscious of the self and of the other (Broadhead, 2018). It’s clear that this is an integral aspect to the formation of a sense of community and belonging. However, what role do I play in this?

As I plan and execute these interventions and seek meaning around community, it’s important for me to consider the moral position of myself and of the students in relation to me as well as each other. I suppose it’s difficult to say whether morality is something we do/should teach our students. I think there’s a fine line between the political and social aspects of morality as well. In the socio-political climate of today it can (at times) be difficult to adopt a (moral) position as our job is to enable students to question the world around them. Other times, the answer seems obvious. No matter what, there will always be a degree of bias in how we choose to exercise our morality. I’m also making assumption here that students somehow look to us as exemplars of practical wisdom (this may well not be true).

In any case – as an educator – it’s important for me to recognise that I play some part in moulding this community as well its moral values.

References:

1. Aristotle, Thomson, J. A. K., & Tredennick, H. (1976). The ethics of Aristotle: The nicomachean ethics. Penguin.
2. Bernstein, B. (1975). Class and pedagogies: Visible and invisible. Educational studies, 1(1), 23-41.
3. Hollingsworth, D. (2018) Places and Spaces and the Behavior They Create, TEDxMinneapolis. Available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/damaris_hollingsworth_places_and_spaces_and_the_behavior_they_create?subtitle=en&trigger=0s (Accessed: 10 July 2024).
4. Broadhead, S. (2015). Inclusion in the art and design curriculum: revisiting Bernstein and’class’ issues.
5. Broadhead, S. (2018). Friendship, discourse and belonging in the studio: the experiences of ‘non-traditional’students in Design Higher Education. In Continuity and Discontinuity in Learning Careers (pp. 17-28). Brill.
6. Francois, J. (2019) ‘Moving from Safe Spaces to Brave Spaces: How “Intersectionality” can Facilitate Difficult Conversation within Teaching and Learning’, Doing Feminist Pedagogy in Contemporary Universities: Old Dilemmas and New Challenges, Warwick (United Kingdom), 08 Mar, Warwick: Centre for the Study of Women and Gender, University of Warwick. Available at: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/sociology/research/gender/calendar/eventrecordings/janinefrancois.mp3 (Accessed: 10 July 2024).