ISSN 2053-387X
(Online)
CONVERGENCE
The Journal of Research in
Higher and Further Education
Volume 1 Issue 1
Welcome to the first edition of the ‘Journal
of Research in Higher and Further Education’.
The aims of this academically peer-reviewed publication are simple –
to provide a means by which research, in all its guises, can be brought
forward into the public domain, unbound by subject, but produced or
supported through partnerships.
Research is a growing field of innovation and
importance to the University Centre Yeovil,
with academic staff continuously extending
their knowledge and experience through
continuous professional development and
research into new areas of exploration.
The Journal aims to embrace the richness
of practice throughout all forms of research
– those conducted in the traditional setting
of University Research Units, as well as
Action Research in context through Further
Education. We want to make our research
more accessible and relevant to our students
and the wider community than ever before,
enabling staff, university partners, students
and guests the opportunity to share their
passion for knowledge and their findings.
The content of this first edition is full
and varied, spanning the subjects of
Design, Marketing, Research Techniques,
Philosophy, Art, Engineering, and Media. As
future issues of the Journal take shape the
intention is to maintain this breadth, coupled
with academic rigour, integrity, but ultimately
the celebration of research advances which
come through every aspect of the academic
sphere.
We are committed to the value of research
and sharing the power of learning with others
and hope that with this first edition of the
Journal, you enjoy reading this as much as
we have researching the content.
Thank you to all of our presenters and the
editorial committee for their contributions.
Dr Paul Bailey
Director of Higher Education
University Centre Yeovil
Editor in Chief
Editorial Committee
2013
Dr. Ian Jones, Bournemouth University
Dr. Philip Davies, Bournemouth and Poole College
Dr. Chris Potter, University of Gloucestershire
Diane Glautier, University of Gloucestershire
Clare Bramley, Grimsby Institute
Graeme Brooker, Middlesex University
Roderick Adams, Northumbria University
Mark Stone, Plymouth University
Prof. Layton Reid, Ravensbourne College of Design
Richard Thomas, Swansea Metropolitan University
Jayne Lewis, University Centre Yeovil
Dr. Paul Bailey, University Centre Yeovil, Editor-in-Chief
THE NARRATIVE OF SPACE – LORENZO BERETTA
THE BODY MIND AND THE EPHEMERAL
4
JOINED UP THINKING – SANDRA BRADDICK
THE IDEOLOGY OF THE ESSAY AND THE PSYCHOLOGY
OF DIFFERENCE 12
APPROACHING ACTION RESEARCH VIA CRITICAL
INCIDENT TECHNIQUE – BRIAN DOIDGE18
3
MATERIAL SELECTION – EWAN MCGREGOR
A LOGICAL AND PRACTICAL APPROACH 22
PAINTING SPACE – DIANA PILCHER
A CONVERSATION BETWEEN DISCIPLINES 32
FRESH AIR AND A PRAYER – KARL RAWSTRONE
MAKING ‘IT’ IN INDEPENDENT TELEVISION –
A PRODUCER’S VIEW 38
HITTING BEDROCK – JARRETT WILSON
THE END OF MORAL REASONS 45
CAN A FURTHER EDUCATION ESTABLISHMENT
DELIVERING HIGHER EDUCATION LEARN ANY
LESSONS FROM DESTINATION MARKETING?
– MAUREEN WINCOTT 49
THE NARRATIVE OF SPACE:
THE BODY MIND AND THE EPHEMERAL
By Lorenzo Beretta1
BIAD Research, Birmingham Institute of Art & Design (BIAD),
Birmingham City University, Gosta Green, Corporation Street,
Birmingham, B4 7DX UK [email protected]
1
ABSTRACT
For millennia Vitruvius’ principles of ‘good architecture’ – namely “Commodity, Firmness and
delight” – have widely been adopted in spatial practices to form architectures. Architects,
designer and spatial pundits have long worked along the traditional sense of enclosure,
demarcation, particularisation and isolation that defined architecture. Post-modern spaces
no longer focus on the construction of solid realities and entities made of buildings, objects,
matter, place and geometric relationships, but on the definition of spatialised moments and
narratives of effects and emotions that are communicated by the ephemeral objects of
space – sound, light, temperature, electromagnetic fields – to an augmented body.
Within this new communicated and sensed space, the role of the spatial designers becomes
the definition of a network of relations between spatial objects and the “body mind”.
Such spatial “entities” facilitate cognitive and perceptual processes that condition navigation
and activity through an active definition and use of a malleable space. Social spaces, are a
new form of post-modern spatiality where the role of the traditional designer fuses with that
of the user in the creation of a narrated and communicated space that is lived though the
senses. The paper analyses how scientific and technological advances, new social and
communication needs, and different forms of research are contributing to the redefinition of
secular disciplines; architecture and interior design.
Keywords: architecture, space, narrative, body-mind, ephemeral, perception, social space,
sense of space
INTRODUCTION
For a long time, architecture has been and still continues to be based on the standards of
“Commodity, Firmness and Delight”, three principles that Vitruvius presents in
“De Architectura” to define what is ‘good architecture’. Yet, the Vitruvian dogma may no
longer be indicative of ‘well-building’ and no longer represents a viable and sustainable
solution for the living needs of contemporary society.
The paper focuses on how twentieth century and early twenty-first century scientific
and technological advances, new social and communication needs, and different forms of
research are changing both architectures and spatial design as a discipline.
4
FROM A VERNACULAR SOLID SPACE TO AN AUGMENTED
RELATIONAL SPACE
“I won’t believe it unless I see”
Vitruvius’ firmitas, also known to the English speaking world as firmness, strength, or
durability, preaches practitioners to build architectures with strength to survive the elements
and the forces of nature. In Vitruvius’ words, architecture shall attain to “a perfection that will
endure to eternity” using materials that “escape ruin as time goes on”. From an historical and
economic perspective, in order to attain a certain level of civilized culture, building materials
had to be treated as if valuable and permanent. Buildings had to last and had to generate a
sustainable balance between shelter performance over the years and the cost of labour and
materials used for the construction [1].
The historical necessity of material durability, however, contrasts with the current trends of
disposability within the current consumerist society, discusses Berman:
“All that is solid - from [...] the house and neighbourhoods the workers live in, to the towns
and cities [...] that embrace them all – all these are made to be broken tomorrow, smashed or
shredded or pulverized or dissolved, so that can be recycled or replaced next week.”
“Even the most beautiful and impressive bourgeois buildings and public works are disposable,
capitalized for fast depreciation and planned to be obsolete, closer in their social functions to
tents and encampments than to Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, Gothic cathedrals” [2].
Over the twentieth century, architecture has moved from being a timeless and everlasting
construction to a transient and consumerist item. As Colli and Perrone argue, architecture has
acquired the psychological strategies of advertising – such as instant persuasion – leading to
the loss of the sense of place [3]. The city of today is no longer made of Augé’s places (places
of identity, of relations and of history) and (non) places (spaces of institutions formed in
relation to certain ends such as transport, transit, commerce, leisure) [4] – but, instead, is a
city built on images, driven by aesthetic principles and semiotic messages. New architectural
buildings no longer form a real living sensory space in which humans perform social actions
and inter-actions, but rather represent a medium for the broadcasting of messages and the
revival of the past. These architectural by-products of graphics and visual communication have
no meaning and no function, whilst retaining only the scope to impress the senses rather then
the intellect [5]. The trend initiated in the twentieth century of transforming liveable spaces in
impenetrable images has been defined by many key thinkers, including Pallasmaa, Eisenmann
and Zumthor, as ocularcentrism, which promoted a series of endless cosmetic interventions
aimed at catching the viewer’s attention.
Figure 1 – Cosmetic intervention to the Historic Building in
the Main Square of Diest, Belgium
All rights reserved © Lorenzo Beretta
5
Nouvel argues that contemporary durability does not correspond to Vitruvius’ firmitas, but
rather resembles to the venustas (delight) that capture collective imagination. As the building
becomes a revered icon, society will work to make it durable, by continuously repairing the
wear and tear of time so that it appears fresh and newly born [6]. Yet, the shift from “being”
to “appearing” (fresh and new), repositions architecture from the construction of space to
the construction of images. In the image above, there is in fact no actual connection between
the façade and the change of the users’ spatial experience. This ‘plastic surgery’ has falsified
the building, by embellishing it, presenting only the outer skin, in mere exercise of aesthetic
construction and public image. Architecture has got the life cycles of graphics, which vary from
few seconds to few months. Architecture, therefore, is no longer approached from a ‘bodily
encounter’, mediated by the senses, but rather as a ‘set of potential photographs’, becoming
‘mere retinal art of the eye’ [7].
Material durability becomes an irrelevant concern in current culture and design, where “all
that is solid melts into air”, states Marx in his treaties on Capitalism. Marx’ words can be
interpreted from a spatial perspective, suggesting that whilst the solidity of architecture is only
transient, there is something more immanent in architecture that transcends the physicality of
form. Whilst Daum argues that architecture “unlike other commercial arts such as illustration
or cinema, is not ephemeral” [8], there are indeed ephemeral aspects of architecture that
make architecture something more that just an image. The notion of architecture as building
is closely related to that of space. On one hand, materials form the shell or outer skin of
a building, and on the other, they define the traditional sense of enclosing, demarcating,
particularizing – that is space.
Crucial to the understanding of the complex and encompassing notion of space, is recognising
space not on the basis of how it is made, how it appears or simply how it is from a physical
perspective but rather on the basis of what it does, what parameters it complies to and what
effects it creates on people.
The mere apposition of a series of bricks to define an enclosed area in which life takes place
creates much more than just a new ‘space’. Along with the creation of a personal area is the
definition of personal boundaries, motion zones, spatial empathy, privacy, proxemics, social
distances, which together determine the social dimension of space.
As Ardener points out, this is directly related to the significance of the perimeters of the
categories that we make to codify the built environment, in which people live [9]. In other
words, humans tend to domesticate space beyond the “real” physical dimension, through a
so called “social perception” of it. In the social space, measurements, and what is measured,
are neither imperative nor random. Social space, in fact, is governed by a series of forces that
create invisible boundaries, “divide the social into spheres, levels and territories with invisible
fences and platforms to be scaled by abstract ladders and crossed by intangible bridges” [9].
(Social) spaces are the result of human perception and their interaction with an intricate matrix
of invisible relations and elements, which extend well beyond those elements that determine
the skeleton of an architecture. Among these elements are those perceived by the senses,
such as temperature, smell, sound, proportions and distance. Holl depicts this collection of
elements as one entity – architecture:
“Architecture, by unifying foreground, middle ground, and distant views, ties perspective to
detail and material to space. [...] Architecture [...] offers the tactile sensations of textured stone
surfaces and polished wooden pews, the experience of light changing with movement, the
smell and resonant sounds of space, the bodily relations of scale and proportion. All these
sensations combine within one complex experience, which becomes articulate and specific,
though wordless. The building speaks through the silence of perceptual phenomena.” [10].
6
Whilst there will always be a need for shelter, architecture has to go beyond the mere
“enclosure of the sphere”, towards the spatialisation of moments in the matrix [11].
Architecture is a relational space – the relation between a building, its space and the people
who inhabit it. People cross boundaries, overpass thresholds, while navigating and relating
to a space defined by materials, odours, sounds and visual clues. Space shifts from a
location-based to a time-based narrative of the people.
Figure 2 – Haque Design + Research | Scents of Space |
© Haque Design + Research | Josephine Pletts | Dr. Luca Turin
In the work of Haque, it is presented how the dimension of smell contribute to the way we can
relate to each other and to space, not just through vision, but also through other sensory and
synesthetic responses.
For a long period of time architecture was conceived as a solid reality and entity, buildings,
objects, matter, place and a set of geometric relationships. In recent times, architects have
begun to think of their products as malleable, fluid, capable of animating bodies, composed of
hyper-surfaces and ubiquitous [11]. These new spaces are generated through the staging of
narratives, event designing, and effect and emotion building.
Figure 3 – Haque Design + Research | Sky Ear |
Copyright © Haque Design + Research
AUGMENTED SPACES AND THE BODY MIND
The shift from solid material spaces to augmented spaces – spaces of moments, narratives of
effects and emotions, communicated by ephemeral objects such sound, light, temperature,
and electromagnetic fields to an “augmented body” – corresponds to a specific period in time.
The period from around the 13C to the 19C coincides with what the belgio-canadian sociologist
Derreck De Kerckhove identifies as “the age of perspective”, which is followed by the twentieth
century which he calls electric age dominated by the telegraph and photography (1910),
telephone and silent films (1925), radio and talking films (1940), television and mass media
(1955), fax and electronics (1970), pc and networking (1985), always on & web (2000) [12].
7
Dunne further comments that whilst it is only a century since the electricity generation started,
and even less since the advent of radio transmissions, radar and telecommunication, space
has since evolved “into a complex soup of electromagnetic radiation” [13]. The extra sensory
parts of the electromagnetic spectrum build more and more of “our artifactual environment”,
yet designers tend to neglect the sensual and poetic experience of this industrially produced
new materiality. Dunne, talking of Hertzian Tales, analyses that in design, immateriality
is predominately related to visual paradigms, usually in relation to product semantics and
representation, but it is seldom considered as a physical phenomenon [13].
Whilst electric and electromagnetic entities have progressively pervaded our world creating an
invisible hertzian city, which exists and co-exists within the extents of tangible skyscrapers of
the modern city, this electric city is sensed and utilised everyday.
Figure 4 – Barometer “transducing” the invisible heaviness
of the sky. Early instrument of poetic understanding of hertzian
space that reveals its presence | Copyright © iStockphoto
The poetics of hertzian space sees electromagnetism as a field that “binds building to the
sky instead of the earth” in which many frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum remain
partially visible and partially invisible [13]. In this new era, according to De Kerckhove the
self rather than the other becomes key [12]. This opens to the notion of proprioception and
its relation to the era of electricity. Electricity permeates our body, while being also present
outside of our bodies. The senses become transducer that convert energy into neural signals,
yet we cannot transduce radio waves or other wavelengths outside of the bandwidth of visible
light and infrared energy which is sensed as warmth through the skin. Electricity is used in
spatial contexts to emulate muscular functions of the body (in analogue mode through heat,
light and energy) or to emulate cognition (digitally) superseding linguistic processes and
physiological experience.
In contrast with traditional, static and physical spaces, hertzian and post-hertzian spaces
contribute to form and “facilitate” the continuum of space, cognition and the body, which is
defined by Clark as “thinking”. According to Clark’s theory: “certain forms of human cognizing
include inextricable tangles of feedback, feed-forward and feed-around loops: loops that
promiscuously criss-cross the boundaries of brain, body and world” [14] Cognition therefore is
not a process that occurs entirely in the brain, rather it embraces “bits of the extracranial body
and items in the world beyond” [15]. In this context, digital appliances become extensions
of our senses and our communications capabilities, returning at times electricity to the body.
The body, in the current age, consists of an “augmented body”, defined and characterised by
fuzzy boundaries, and the Wi-Fi that also allows total inter connectivity and localization in the
physical space through the combined use of Global Position System (GPS), changing forever
the use of both time and space [12].
Such new electric spaces, which are experienced through a body with a high level of sensorial
connectivity, are no longer defined by surfaces but rather hyper surfaces which are not
perceived by the visual but by a multitude of senses that can be agglomerated to the sense
of touch.
8
Figure 5 – Toyo Ito | Tower of Winds | Yokohama, Japan |
Creative Commons Licence – Wiiii
Recalling Ito’s work with “Tower of Winds” realised back in 1986 in the middle of a neon
downtown, he wanted the air to be converted into light. The tower seems to dematerialize at
a particular moment in time, reappearing in response to ambient noise levels. Ito, with this
work, makes visible the invisible and sensible the intangible.
Electric spaces, or experiential spaces, favour multiplicity more than unity, as within, each
sense create a new space that contrasts with the single, neutral space of the point of view.
The invisible world, states Dunne, is to be understood and modelled in terms of material reality
and provides a starting point for a design approach that links the immaterial with the material
so as to give form to a new sense of aesthetic and new conceptual possibilities that contrast
with the Vitruvian dogma of commodity, firmness and delight [13].
WHAT HAS CHANGED IN ARCHITECTURE AND INTERIOR DESIGN?
Over the centuries we have become accustomed to thinking of architecture as a physical,
timeless, and immutable object. Social and economic changes that debuted with the industrial
revolution and the conventional start of modern architecture in 1851, and the still ongoing
process of consumerification of the Western society, have produced an architecture that has
become more and more obsessed with material forms, un-touchable spaces situated beyond
the continuum of time. The development of media advertising as part of a society based on
consumerism and the need to communicate have led to the predominance of vision above all
other senses, which resulted in impenetrable architectures that responded to the dynamics of
graphics. Architects and spatial practitioners alike promote newborn buildings in magazines,
catalogues and other publications when still unfinished, silent, unanimated, empty, without
the dirty footsteps and chaos of those very people the building is designed for.
Today, architecture and interior design no longer is the creation of petrified statues, objects
or animated 3D products, born to be enjoyed by enthusiastic consumers.
Contemporary still-unlabelled architecture is made of a series of entities and intertwined
dynamic relations that are able to affect perceptual and cognitive human processes as users
encounter space. Such processes transform space and its surrounding architecture from a
‘stone sculpture’ to be stared at and adored in a museum-like environment to a malleable
augmented space that evolves, lives and changes through people’s interaction.
In this context the role of the architect and spatial designer has moved from that of a sculptor,
artist, product maker, and media advertiser to that of an interface designer, script writer, and
event maker. The new designer is called to script an architecture in which its actors bring to life
a narrated and communicated space that is experienced through the senses. This is the result
both of new social and communication needs and a series of scientific and
technological advances.
9
In the last decade, there has been an outbreak of social paradigms; lives have become more
and more permeated by social activity - from the sharing of once private information on
social online networks like Facebook, Google+, Linked In, to collaborative developments in
domains ranging from finance to healthcare. The development of such social trends, alwayson communication modalities and the omni-presence of online realities had considerable
repercussions on the spatial sphere too. Once segregated, petrified and disconnected spaces
have rapidly become spaces of interaction where the physical coexists with the virtual,
and sensory and cognitive perception give form to a new livable space made of ephemeral
materials and intangible element.
The transformation of once aesthetic and functional elements - including light, sound, smell
and electromagnetic fields – into building material was facilitated by the development of
thinking (through mental models, cultural structures, and forms of knowledge) and technical
development (availability of materials, techniques of transformation, and systems of
anticipation and computer numerical control).
In this, architects and spatial designers have had to become practitioners, thinkers and
researcher of once unrelated disciplines, ranging from psychology to sociology, from
engineering to interface design. Architecture has thus moved a step further away from
science towards the social sciences and humanities.
CONCLUSIONS
Over the millennia, centuries and decades, the notion of architecture has moved from
something solid, physical, beautiful, immanent, practical to something time-based, ephemeral,
intangible, yet present, touchable, perceivable, responsive and, as a whole, experienceable.
This move is largely attributable on one hand to new social and communication needs;
including social communication, always-on communication modalities and the diffusion of
online realities; and on the other to a series of scientific and technological advances; including
technical and conceptual development. Spaces that were once meant to be solid, reassuring
and lasting are giving way to new ephemeral and narrated spaces that are perceived through
an extension of our sensory capabilities, involving different forms of human cognizing. This
evolution of space requires architects and spatial practitioners to expand the boundaries of
their knowledge, dominating domains that were once exclusive to other practitioners, shifting
the focus from a science-based discipline to a discipline increasingly related to the social
sciences and the humanities.
10
REFERENCES
[1]
Banham, R. The Architecture of the Well Tempered Environment.
1984 (University Of Chicago Press, Chicago)
[2] Berman, M. All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience of Modernity.
1983 (Verso, London)
[3] Colli, S. and Perrone, R. Espacio-Identidad-Empresa/Space-Identity-Company:
Arquitectura Efimera y Eventos Corporativos/Ephemeral Architecture And Corporate
Events. 2003. (Gustavo Gili, Barcelona)
[4]
Augé, M. Non-places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity.
1995 (Verso, London)
[5]
Puglisi, L. P. Hyper architecture. Spaces in the Electronic Age. 1999 (Birkhäuser, Basel,
Boston, Berlin)
[6]
Fernández-Galiano, L. It’s the Economy, Stupid!, Architecture and the Symbolic
Economy. Harvard Design magazine, Fall 1997
[7]
Pallasmaa, J. The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses.
2005 (John Wiley & Sons, London)
[8]
Daum, E. I. Commodity, Firmness, and Delight, or Toward a New Architectural Attitude.
2009. http://classicistne.wordpress.com/2010/12/13/commodity-firmness-and-delight-ortoward-a-new-architectural-attitude
[9]
Ardener, S. Women and Space. Ground Rules and Social Maps.
1981 (Berg Publishers, Oxford)
[10] Holl, S. et al. Questions of Perception. Phenomenology of Architecture. 2006.
(a+u Publishing, Tokyo)
[11] Bullivant, L. 4dspace: Interactive Architecture. 2005 (Wiley-Academy, London)
[12] De Kerckhove, D. Beyond Perspective, From the Point of View to the Point of Being.
In Sonic Acts XIII – The poetics of space, Amsterdam February 2010 (Seminar audiovisual
recording)
[13] Dunne, A. Hertzian Tales: Electronic Products, Aesthetic Experience, and Critical Design.
2006 (MIT Press, Cambridge)
[14] Clark, A. Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension.
2010 (Oxford University Press, New York)
[15] Farina, M. Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action and Cognitive Extension.
2010 http://philpapers.org/rec/FARSTM
11
JOINED UP THINKING:
THE IDEOLOGY OF THE ESSAY AND
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DIFFERENCE
A unique point of view can yield a unique perspective
By Sandra Braddick1
English Lecturer. University Centre Yeovil, 91 Preston Road, Yeovil,
Somerset, BA20 2DN [email protected]
1
ABSTRACT
This paper serves as an introduction to my hypothesis that putting time into tutor led
personalised development programmes, as an alternative option alongside the development
of study skills, could address the overload that overwhelms students with learning differences,
that is documented so frequently from sources such as educational psychologist David Grant
to individuals who articulate their experience of difference like Temple Grandin [1]. A specialist
in dyslexia, Grant alerts us, pertinently, to the need to understand the way individuals work
and think argued that “most research into dyslexia and dyspraxia has somehow missed the
person who is experiencing it” Grant [2005]. Arguably, to regain the perspective of the person
experiencing a unique perspective, PDP’s could be complemented by further development
of digital alternatives to formative and summative assessment which would permit fuller
demonstration, in commensurate time frames, of the insight provided by dynamic and unique
perspectives, without the additional burden that can develop into mental illness with these
vulnerable clients.
Keywords: andragogy of care, special educational needs, narrative, difference, alternative literacy,
digital assessment, educational holism
As a lecturer in the English field, who has experienced diverse and high numbers of ‘special
educational needs’ students pass through my higher education cohorts, thanks to the
widening participation policy of the last decade, I want to pay more than lip service to equality
in my classroom. The Equality Act 2010 demands it.
To yield the understanding necessary to more effective planning and assessment I pursued
research that still denies me satisfactory understanding of the differences I encounter in these
students. So decisions about how to offer them equality are complex and made more difficult
by the high correlation of ‘mental illness’ that is attendant to those who have what must be
deemed a “disability” to earn extra support under current jurisdiction.
Starting out as a student centred educator, respect for the identity of the adult seemed crucial
to the unconditional positive regard (UPR), empathy and congruence I’d need to fulfil the role
of a guide into independent levels of ‘higher’ thinking on the hermeneutic possibilities of texts
and their relationship to the cultures of their production. But UPR was not something all of
these students with ‘special needs’ had for themselves. Perplexed, I toyed with the notion
that formulating an andragogy of care might help to develop confidence in candidates who
otherwise demonstrated clear, innate ability to develop understanding, despite challenges to
communicating it effectively, whether in words on paper, in the case of the dyslexic students,
or through oral delivery in the case of Aspergers’ syndrome students. But the work of Thomas
Szasz inspires me to question the definitions of mental differences as illness and disability.
Szasz claimed that “mental illness” is an expression, a metaphor that describes an offending,
disturbing, shocking, or vexing conduct, action, or pattern of behaviour... as an “illness” or
“disease” [1].
12
An alternative to embracing specialised understanding of the scientific definitions of special
education needs is to deconstruct the cultural precedent and prejudices inscribed into the
varied acts of communication, thereby developing an understanding of the signification that
would enable better unconditional positive regard for these clients who are different from
scientism’s established norms for our secular age (to borrow Szasz’s term).
To bring body back into the equation of our attitude to teaching, this paper serves as
an introduction to my working hypothesis that putting time into tutor led personalised
development programmes, as an alternative option alongside the development of study skills,
could address the overload that overwhelms students with learning differences, which I’ve
personally catalogued and found documented extensively by educational psychologists from
David Grant to individuals who articulate their experience of difference, like the ‘autistic’ writer
Temple Grandin [2]. For example, on one level, dyslexia is experienced at the level of energy
expenditure. University of Washington Professor, Virginnia Berninger says often people “do
not see how hard it is for dyslexic children to do a task that others do so effortlessly” because
their brains have to use 4.6 times as much area of the brain to do the same language tasks as
non-dyslexic controls [3]. Equality demands parity of work load in simple time terms, so the
teaching demand must suit that.
A specialist in dyslexia, Grant alerts us, pertinently, to the need to understand the way
individuals work and think, arguing that “most research into dyslexia and dyspraxia has
somehow missed the person who is experiencing it” [4]. Arguably, to regain the perspective
of the person experiencing a unique perspective, PDP’s could be complemented by further
development of digital alternatives to the recording of formative and summative assessment
which would permit fuller demonstration, in commensurate time frames, of the insight
provided by dynamic and unique perspectives, without the additional burden that can develop
into “mental illness” or more simply put, overload, with these vulnerable clients.
An overwhelmed, overtired ‘autistic’ child quickly communicates that state through what
appear to be ‘temper tantrums’; what does the equivalent adult have as a tool when language
based thinking takes a level of energy that has already been expended?
As a post colonial scholar and cultural critic, engagement with narrative as a tool of
empowerment, it’s form and function, is one of my long held foci. In The Call of Stories:
Teaching and the Moral Imagination, Robert Coles argues that it is only through stories that
one can fully enter another’s life [5]. Certainly, they are the only tools that offered what Tony
Attwood aptly describes as the ‘unique’ “descriptions and analogies” which truly helps those
of us who are different to these students to understand the interior experience of Aspergers
[6]. Perhaps then, such narratives are precisely the tools needed to gain the “thick description”
of literacy’s symbols and status, which Geertz’s interpretative cultural anthropology yields,
to analyse the roots of our cultural relationship with such differences in ways of thinking and
communicating [7].
Interestingly, Jalongo & Isenberg [1995] illustrate the way stories about and by teachers, can
be used as a reflective tool in teacher education [8]. Within a decade, Marlowe and Disney
could report on the development of a pedagogy from just such narratives. The work of special
needs teacher, and educational psychologist, Torey Hayden formed the basis for Danforth and
Smith 2005 pedagogy of care which inspired my thinking on an equivalent andragogy [9].
After wading through the contradictions of pedagogies based on theories of mind,
behaviourism, cognitivism and culturalism, alongside scientific papers on the neurological
source of such differences, one could be forgiven for feeling overwhelmed by the clinical
stench of laboratory-type experimentation on students. To a student centred practitioner a
pedagogy of care smelt like a breath of fresh, theoretical air, that might be able to translate
some of its insights into an andragogy for difference for our fee paying adults who least want
to be experimented with!
13
FROM NARRATIVE INSIGHT TO RECIPROCAL EDUCATION
Education, in a culture gradually evolving from Cartesian dualism, bred theorists like Bruner,
who implored us to work on a theory of mind. Education as cultural process was a perspective
he only developed in hindsight, from years of research into the concept of a “science based
curriculum” and the concepts of “mind” and “meaning”[10]. But excitingly, we are at a point
in the evolution of our culture, and the development of Western Thought where our concept
of the mind is called into question. Even “leading psychiatrists” are criticising “ultra-scientific”
approaches to mental illness and the harm wrought by the hugely influential American
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) [11]. This, alone, should be
enough to make educators sit up and take significant note. The divide and conquer mentality
of Imperialism may be feeling its death knell in the approach to combinations of mental and
physical differences: the holism of understanding mind and body together, when we interpret
different forms of communication styles and processing.
Published narratives of difference, like Temple Grandin’s seminal text, Thinking in Pictures and
Other Reports from my Life with Autism, corroborate the notion that the cultural prescription of
difference, from psychiatry and the DSM, could be way off of the mark. In her telling account
of living with autism Grandin explores the way “visual thinking” has enabled her “excel at
visual spatial skills whilst performing so poorly at verbal skills” [12]. This ability was developed
by a remarkable science teacher who channelled what others deemed “obsessions” into
the opportunity to define “her own place as a professor of animal behaviour and designer
of livestock equipment” [13]. By joining in with Grandin’s way of thinking, instead of trying
to translate it into a culturally prescribed norm of classroom behaviour, her teacher inspired
the development of the ‘autistic’ child who would become a woman and professor capable
of using her visual literacy to build entire systems as “three dimensional design simulations”
in her ‘head’. This unique perspective has transformed cattle handling, by embracing what
Grandin calls a “cow’s eye view” with her own ability to access a “library of video memories”
and synthesise them with research into “state of the art” equipment in the field, to design
“a better system” which suits the cattle and the processors, in a more humane way [14].
But even more germane to our thinking on defining difference, as the eminent psychologist
Oliver Sacks says in his foreword, Grandin’s writing challenges all conventional wisdom
about the autistic person’s ability to develop a theory of mind, which ‘cognitive psychologists’
claimed that “autistic people lack[ed]” and, therefore, lay at the heart of their difference and
“difficulties” [15]. Self fulfilment has finally led to the confidence of an unthought-of written
self expression, for this different but deeply humane and caring woman. I would argue that,
as educators, it’s time to rethink the differences that these “specialist” minds signify. My
case studies over the last decade suggest that additional study skills development sometimes
create an additional burden to already over-worked ‘minds’, if the study skills are, in effect,
a conversion course to dominant literacies; literacies to enable a chameleon like presence in
the “standard” classroom and assessment programme. Narratives of difference, rather than
research which aims to “diagnose”, emphasise the person’s ability to represent their core
identity in greater alignment with the Cartesian ideal of selfhood: this is how I think, therefore
this is how I am.
In social psychiatry, Oxford’s Professor Tom Burns is preparing to publish advice to colleagues
to “maintain a more durable, sensitive focus on the individual” rather than rely on technology
or the DSM, to treat mental illness [16]. Narratives shared by student and tutor in a reciprocal
dynamic of learning, respect and care – centred on time to talk at an individual level which was
suggested by Danforth and Smith - give special voice to the power of emotion, intuition, and
relationships in human lives and emphasize the synergistic power of relationships between
a teacher and their students. Such relationships have far greater potential for the sensitive,
durable focus on the thinking and alternative literacies being developed by the student.
This may answer Grandin’s plea that those who are ‘thinking in pictures’ may be deemed
to “represents a mode of perception... which we may call “primitive” if we wish, but
not “pathological” [17].
14
RECIPROCAL DYNAMISM AND THE DEATH OF THE ESSAY?
How can we not afford to think about difference differently if we aspire to add incremental
opportunities, through Maslow’s hierarchy of self actualisation, to students who perceive
differently? Only, thus, can we avoid the attendant stress-factor of Otherness.
Inoue and Poe document extensive evidence of the scholarship concerned with “the
relationship between writing and student’s identities”, in their effort to expose the “racial
invisibility that comes from conscious exclusion” [18]. Their study reminds us that there
is a key relationship between rhetoric and ways of knowing and thinking. Examining the
dynamics that make such discourse distinctions, Le Court’s study of the way that the subject
of race is “perceived to generate layers of additional complexity over principles, theories and
pedagogies” reminds us how writing in the past tense “alienates Native American history
majors who do not share the same epistemology as their teachers” [19].
Pedagogues are aware of this. Whilst charting the shifts from cognitivist to sociocultural
orientation in education, in 2006 Prior highlighted the ‘inter-relationship between textual
production and other dimensions of human interaction with situated practice [20]. But moving
beyond this analogy to the otherness of race, to the question of ‘disability’ - which every
learner who is provided the funding for additional support, must be categorised as - we must
ask if we are not equally bound to explore possible reasons for the neglect of the efficacy of
alternative forms of reflection on and reproduction of knowledge/ understanding from the
perspectives of complex academic, pedagogical, political and institutional forces?
To take dyslexia, as just one example, it seems that what may have been left out of the
many discussions that I have researched on assessment and dyslexia is what Villenaneuva
described as a “culturally sensitive and politically conscious edge in how we approach literacy”
[21]. Is it time to acknowledge the extent to which writing is epistemological, by cultural
construction? In such a setting “practices of discursive socialization” always become germane
to the development of identity” and whilst much of the composition of scholarship in this
area focuses on students as “generalized construct[s]” specific narratives and experiences of
“vernacular” or “visual” literacies are tacitly ‘overwritten’ by how such students learn to view
their relationship to the discipline and institutional ideologies about diversity [22].
Acceptance of difference would provide a more genuine equality of opportunity in a
culture where pure orality is still viewed as a residual vestige of the pre-industrialised,
pre-enlightenment existence. For the empirical, Imperial West, it became a signifier of
uncivilised Otherness: “brutish, savage and barbarous.” [23]. But in this post colonial age
does it remain so?
RECIPROCITY WITH DIVERSITY
Addressing approaches to diversity, Ferst identifies ‘the golden triangle’ of student, learning
support and subject tutors [24]. As assessment makers, in higher education there are more
opportunities for subject specialists to be what Dey and Hurtade call ‘both reciprocal and
dynamic’ [25]. Deconstructing the ‘patterns of behaviour’ which Szasz identified as ‘vexing’,
we can learn from the alternative ways of thinking in visual and verbal literacies, by enabling
tutor’s to have the narrative engagement with students.
As long ago as 1996 McGrath and Townsend were able to catalogue extensive research
into the proliferation of support methods – from the pre-course acquaintance and bridging
programmes to supplementary instruction [26]. But as Bloom’s revised digital taxonomy
demonstrates, there is a wealth of new recording technology available to the 21st century
student on which to records their different forms of information.
15
This can be brought to the classroom and assessment. From a “radio” style documentary
essay, to a full visual synthesis, where working memory is weak, or entirely visual, there is
a corresponding recording device now democratically available and we should employ them
as assessors, if we feel confident that we can discern developing understanding from the
medium of presentation. Even primary schools are developing the use of QR codes, i pad
recordings and digital sound-bytes!
Display, with QR code links for further research,
at Holy Trinity School Primary School, Yeovil,
created by Adam Freeman, May 2013.
Photograph Sandy Braddick
Learning to use all these technologies as flexibly and competently as we do writing would
enable the same qualities which are used to defend the essay as the gold standard of critical
argument and textual evaluation to be transferred. There are other ways of presenting
organised research that represents engagement with debate, and is consciously structured
into cogent argument and reaches a synthesised conclusion; digital competencies offer
valid alternatives. Culturally, we must question whether written literacy is truly necessary to
higher education? Perhaps it is time to question the fear inherent in the cultural use of other
technologies? Is it their democratising dominance which persists in devaluing their ability to
extend knowledge and convey meaning, rather than the technologies themselves?
Prejudice against the technologies that have been embraced by media studies smacks of the
same types of prejudice held by puritans against the visual representations of theatre and
image. For these ideologues, the written word, disembodied from voice, held primacy for
its conceptual capacity to eradicate charismatic challenges to the authority of God’s word. In
presence and performance the body and voice must be present. Disavowal of the stimulus
provided by the presence of the body was necessary if the thinking and faithful mind was to
distance itself and signify the higher, more serious status and authority that then went on to
foster the notion of Cartesian dualism and it’s definition of identity.
We have continued to rely on the authority of the word. But, in English studies, for example,
by translating the possibility of synthesised depth into a format other than the essay, for
summative assessment, we will only miss the QAA ‘threshold standard’ of ‘displaying
competence in written English’. However, this does not turn the product into a more lightweight
form of entertainment, as opposed to accredited scholarship, if learners with differences can
demonstrate the other standards of “powers of textual analysis and critical argument...
[which] show the affective power of language” in its many forms and mediums [27].
Developed insight and understanding recorded differently would offer a timely challenge to
rooted hierarchies of residual power that were used ideologically to support imperialists over
‘savages’, men over women and minds over bodies.
Developing an andragogy of care, with available tutor time to engage with a narrative of
progress, that has acceptance of difference at its heart, could offer greater equality. Only thus
may we save the unique perspectives of oral or visual literacies from getting lost in translation
from the desire to cure” or “overcome” them.
16
REFERENCES
[1] Szasz, Thomas, The Myth of Mental Illness. Harper and Row: New York, 1974 ix
[2] Grant, David, That’s the Way I Think. David Fulton: London, 2005 and Temple Grandin,
Thinking in Pictures and other Reports from My Life with Autism
Bloomsbury: London, 2006, 38
[3] Professor of Educational Psychology, Virginnia Berninger,
https://www.washington.edu/alumni/columns/dec99/dyslexia.html
[4] Grant [ibid] 5
[5] Coles, The Call of Stories: Teaching and the Moral Imagination, Boston,
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1989
[6] Tony Attwood, forward to the personal narrative by Luke Jackson, Freaks, Geeks and
Aspergers Syndrome. A User Guide to Adolesence. Jessica Kingsley Publishers:
London, 2002
[7] Geertz, Clifford. 2000. Local Knowledge Basic Books: USA
[8] Jalongo, M.R. & Isenberg, J.P. (1995) Teachers’ Stories: From Personal Narrative to
Professional Insight (San Francisco, Jossey Bass cited in Marlowe, M., & Disney, G.
(in press). Torey Hayden’s Teacher Lore: A Pedagogy of Caring. Journal of Education
for Teaching edited by Peter Gilroy. University of Manchester, 3.
http://www.torey-hayden.com/research.htm Accessed 14.3.13
[9] Danforth S. & Smith, T.J. (2005) Engaging Troubling Students:
A Constructivist Approach (Thousand Oaks, CA, Corwin Press)
[10] Bruner, J. ‘Culture, Mind and Education’ in Illeris, K, Contemporary Theories of Learning:
Learning Theorists... in their own words. Routledge: Abingdon, 2009, 159-168
[11] Reisz, Mattew. ‘Psychiatry’s cause for anxiety.’ The Times Higher 23 May 2013 accessed
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/psychiatrys-cause-for-anxiety/2003964.
article 23.5.13
[12] Grandin, ibid 3
[13] Grandin, ibid xiv
[14] Grandin, 3-5
[15] Sacks, Oliver in Grandin ibid xvi
[16] Burns, T, Our Necessary Shadow: The Nature and Meaning of Psychiatry, Allen Lane,
Penguin: London, 2006
[17] Sacks in Grandin ibid xviii
[18] Inoue, A and Poe, M, Race and Writing Assessment, Studies in Composition and Rhetoric.
Vol 7. Peter Lang: New York, 2012, 20
[19] Le Court qtd in Inoue and Po, ibid, 27
[20] Prior, P. A Sociocultural Theory of Writing. In C. A. MacArthur, S Graham, J Fitzgerald, eds.
Handbook of Writing Research. Guildford: New York, 2006, 54-66
[21] Villaneuva, 2001cited in Inoue and Poe, ibid, 166
[22] Inoue and Poe, ibid 23
[23] Kamensky, J, Governing the Tongue; The Politics of Speech in Early New England.
1999, 23
[24] Ferst in Crosling, G and Webb, G, Supporting Student Learning: Case Studies and Practice
from Higher Education, Kogan Page: London, 2002, 170
[25] Dey and Hurtade, 1999, 300 qtd by Crosling and Webb, ibid, 3
[26] McGrath D and Townsend, B, ‘Strengthening the Preparedness of At Risk Students’
in Handbook of the Undergraduate Curriculum, ed J Gaff and J Ratcliff, Jossey Bass:
San Fransisco, 1996
[27] QAA Benchmark Standards in English, 2007
[28] Tarlow, B, Caring: A negotiated process that varies, 1996 in Marlowe and Disney ibid.
Ong, Walter J. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word.
New York: Methuen, 1982
17
APPROACHING ACTION RESEARCH
VIA CRITICAL INCIDENT TECHNIQUE
By Brian Doidge1
Curriculum Quality Manager & Lecturer in Business & Marketing
University Centre Yeovil, 91 Preston Road, Yeovil, Somerset,
BA20 2DN [email protected]
1
BACKGROUND
Building on action research undertaken by the UCY Personal and Professional Development
students in 2011/12 Academic year [1], this year has seen five BA(Hons) learners embracing an
excellent opportunity to undertake critical incident reviews as a focused means of looking at
approaches to action research.
Within these activities, there was respect for the fact that our search for knowledge is often
rooted in theoria, which inevitably sets out to incrementally add to a given body of knowledge
[1] [2]. However, although respecting this, we were very clear that our approach would be
about examining how action research is often argued to have something of a different tone
i.e. that it is something clearly rooted in praxis and in turn by its very nature cannot simply end
with a conclusion that something must or should be done or indeed merely highlight a need for
subsequent work [2] [3]. The projects undertaken by the group, built upon the idea that they as
researchers must seek to identify a solution to an issue that has been identified and produce
a plausible plan for action [4] [5], which as well as being clearly timetabled, must also indicate
the management activities required [3]. In fact we are now clear that it is important to show
that it is not enough only to seek to understand the issues, appropriate levels of effort must
be targeted towards doing something about it [6] [7].
Our research work last year[1], recognised that action research is a process in which
participants examine their own practice systematically and carefully, using the techniques of
research and it went on to highlight that there are different approaches to action research,
just as there are within scientific enquiry in general [4]. We discovered that the term action
research [6] [8], for us, referred to a practical way of looking at our own work to check that it is
as we would like it to be [7] [9]. We also found that because action research was undertaken
carried out by practitioners, it involved thinking about and reflecting on our own work, in many
ways clearly resembling a form of self-reflective practice [5] [10] [11].
APPROACHING ACTION RESEARCH USING CRITICAL INCIDENT
TECHNIQUE IN 2012/13
In the 2012/13 academic year, we set out to assess the feasibility of drilling down into critical
incident technique as a bona fide research method within the Action Research membrane
[12]. Initial secondary research inevitably initial centred upon a view that concluded that the
term ‘Critical Incident’ at first sight seems to make for an odd blend within the action research
philosophy, as its usually adoption is as an all too commonly used term for that which helps
society to examine how governments and their various agencies will anticipate, prevent and
manage serious dramatic events. For example law enforcement and health professionals will
have well defined policies in place that will clearly prescribe their roles and procedures within
this concept [13] [14]. However, our approach although clearly sharing the same roots, found
that the entirety of critical incident cannot be simply confined to this corner of the whole, in
fact quite the contrary [14].
18
Authorities in this field of research seem to agree that we experience new and repeated
incidents every day and it is argued that our practice today [13] [15], has often been learned
from our various previous experiences. Indeed any experience that we as individuals
encounter, is arguably potentially a critical incident and therefore a situation that an individual
can critically reflect upon [15]. However critical incidents are not felt to be just the experiences
we all live through, but in particular, are the experiences we take the time to analyse and use
to identify aesthetic knowledge and the experiential learning that has been acquired. However
we are also reminded in the literature that the longer we delay our reflection the less easy it
will be to record the detail needed that will allow any meaningful evaluation to take place [15].
This in many ways underpinned our own projects, as it helped the group to identify a number
of views, which held critical incident technique (or method as it is sometimes labelled) to be a
tool that can be employed to describe a situation or action that was important, in determining
the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of an identified outcome [16] [12]. The literature also
confirmed that this could be for example a review of an individual learner’s performance within
their workplace, whereby we examined examples of what they did particularly well or badly
and how it affected their work [13]. In fact this is in harmony with points raised by Flanagan
in his original 1954 article, where he recognised at the time that far from being emerging
or cutting edge, ‘Critical Incident Method’ was already being used in more than a thousand
government, business, industrial and educational research projects, as well as in dissertations
and professional papers, for example [12]. Members of the group fed-back that they found
that the term critical incident in our work based contexts need not be a dramatic event at all; in
fact it could be that it only needs to have some significance to an individual (or organisation).
Members of the group quickly realised that it was typically an event that made them stop and
think, or one that made us raise questions [16] [14].Typically we found it to be something that
occurred that made us question an aspect of our beliefs, values, attitude or behaviour, or had
a significant impact on our personal and professional practice and/or learning. In fact in this
context, we are now considering a critical incident as a phenomenon that actually causes us
to pause and think about events, to try to give them some meaning. However, we are also
realising that in contrast with any default conceptualisation of critical incident needing to be a
negative experience, it may well be that it was in fact a positive one. However we are rapidly
becoming mindful that typically within the five projects an incident was considered “critical”
when any action taken ultimately resulted in an ineffective outcome [16].
The methodology sections used the authoritative literature [12] [14] [16] [17], to outline how
there are different approaches to critical incident method, just as there are within scientific
enquiry in general and as a method rooted in action research it is perhaps unsurprising that the
method is tolerant of several different research tools being used, although various methods,
which are generally common to the qualitative research paradigm, were clearly prominent,
certainly much more than would be expected in traditional dissertations for example [12] [14]
[16] [18]. Indeed given the nature of critical incidents, the use of various forms of interviews
were clearly proven to be the most useful way of gathering information about the incidents,
as they allowed more personal, indeed pertinent, perceptions and recollections to be
recorded, which was felt to be a sort of storytelling exercise, rather something more akin to
an interrogation. In fact once the incident was identified, the interviews were deployed as
fact-finding exercises undertaken to collect details of the incident from the participants. When
all of the facts were collected, the next natural step was to identify the issues arising out of
the comparison with the pre identified best practice that emerged out of the literature reviews.
This made making a decision on how to resolve the issues easier as it allowed various possible
solutions to emerge almost naturally as a logical progression.
19
The work undertaken also identified that our use of critical incident method finds us examining
behaviour in retrospect, rather than as each activity manifests and that the incidents being
looked at included issues of technical development, communication, change management,
market development, performance management via appraisals and overlapped into generics
such as culture, relationships, emotions and our various beliefs for example [13]. We were
also in a good position to reflect upon Flanagan’s view, which was that the concept should
be viewed as a flexible set of principles, which must be modified and adapted to make it fit
the scenario and this can been used to identify “what people do” in a variety of professional
settings and the learners have discovered that the path from a critical incident to a focused
yet researchable topic within action research need not be complex or indeed onerous and
a report of 4000 words would allow it to be. Using a critical incident we found is also very
much in keeping with the philosophy, principles and aims of the Personal and Professional
Development Programme in that it is clearly proving to be a way of reflecting, and helping us to
identify behaviours deemed to have been particularly helpful or unhelpful in a given situation.
Our five projects, built upon the work that was carried out to create a proposal and reflected
upon this to create the formal and appropriate research questions for this activity. This in turn
was a reflection upon the findings of our review of the relevant literature and appropriate
research methodologies, which allowed models of best practice to be devised that allowed the
subject matter of the critical incidents to be benchmarked against this to identify opportunities
for practice enhancement via the undertaking of original action research projects, which set
out to answer the research questions linked to the models of best practice and inevitably strive
to meet the aims and objectives agreed and included critical analysis and interpretation of the
data that was collected that related to the individual critical incidents.
THE OUTPUTS FROM THE ACTION RESEARCH PROJECTS
The main purpose of our five projects was to allow us to draw conclusions and make action
related recommendations, which as a result of our research, clearly focussed upon practical
improvements being adopted via the insights revealed via our research [14]. Also it was
important to take time to reflect upon our management of this project and discuss what was
felt to go well and what was felt could have been improved. These improvements included
for example a clear need to clarify performance expectations and values. The undertaking of
individual discussions between the management and individual employees to allow concerns
to be voiced, additionally there was also a need to review job descriptions to allow them to
reflect the organisational values. Another action related to a management need to restate
their level of involvement/concern for employees’ by providing regular performance feedback
and ensuring that there are appropriate resources available. When performance has been
properly evaluated, rewards are then justified. Another project resulted in an action set up to
remedy disturbing staff turnover issues) and to address the paucity of ‘Mobile Cleaners’ and
‘Janitor hours’ issues. The change management review identified clear links between issues
experienced and the deviation from recognised best practice and looked towards actions to
narrow this gap via a clear set of management activities going forward.
However upon reflection whilst the projects emerged as worthwhile practice linked exercises,
it has also been apparent though that our path, from the identification of a critical incident
across to the creation of a researchable question was not very straightforward and the
thought of carrying out this type of research which had not by us before, presented us with
some confidence challenges particularly when coupled with actually confirming the incidents
themselves. However the final and arguably most important aspect was our own reflections
and evaluations, which helped to determine if the solutions selected would plausibly solve the
root cause of the situation and in turn if we could feel confident that the issue identified within
the incident in turn will cause us no further problems.
20
REFERENCES
[1] Doidge B (2012) Action Research or Dissertation? UCY Research Paper
[2) Winter, R. (1987) Action Research and the Nature of Social Inquiry. Aldershot, Gower
[3] Costello, P. J. M (2003) “Action Research” London: Continuum Books. pp.42-47
[4] Ferrance E (2000) ACTION RESEARCH http://www.lab.brown.edu/pubs/themes_ed/
act_research.pdf Northeast and Islands Regional Educational Laboratory at
Brown University
{5} McNiff, J. (ca.2013) “Action Research for Professional Development” Available at:
[Online: UK] http://www.jeanmcniff.com/ar-booklet.asp (Accessed: 10 May 2013)
[6} McNiff, J., Whitehead, J (2002) “Action Research: Principles and Practice” 2nd edn.
London: Routledge Falmer
[7] Pedler, M (2010). Action learning for managers. Aldershot: Gower. Pg. 51
[8]
Reason R and Bradbury H (2009) (Eds) The Handbook of Action Research, London, Sage
[9] Somekh, B. (2006) “Action Research: A Methodology for Change and Development”
Berkshire: Open University Press
[10] Winter R (1989), Learning From Experience: Principles and Practice in Action-Research
Philadelphia: The Falmer Press
[11] Morley D. (1991) “Resource Analysis as Action Research.” Resource Analysis Research
in Developing Countries. Ed. Paul F. Wilkinson and William C. Found.
Toronto: York University
[12] Flanagan, J.C. (1954), “The critical incident technique”, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 51
No. 4, pp. 327-58.Bryman, A Bell, E (2007). Business Research Methods. Oxford: Oxford
University Press. Pg. 210
[13] Ghaye, T., Lillyman, S. (20067) Learning Journals and Critical Incidents: Quay. London
[14] Hughes, H. (2007) “Critical Incident Technique” p.1. Available at: [Online: UK]
http://eprints.qut.edu.au/17545/1/17545.pdf (Accessed: 14 May 2013)
[15] Edvardsson B and Roos I Critical incident techniques towards a framework for analysing
the criticality of critical incidents. International Journal of Service Industry Management,
Vol. 12 No. 3, 2001, pp. 251-268. MCB University Press, 0956-4233
[16] Fitzgerald, K., Seale, S. N., Kerins, C. A., McElvaney, R. (2007) “The Critical Incident
Technique: A useful tool for conducting qualitative research” American Dental
Association. Available at: [Online: UK] http://www.jdentaled.org/content/72/3/299.long
(Accessed: 12 May 2013)
[17] Fivars, G. (Ed) (1980) Critical Incident Technique, American Institutes for Research
[18] Carr, W. & Kemmis, S. (1986) Becoming Critical: education, knowledge and action
research. Lewes, Falmer
21
MATERIAL SELECTION:
A LOGICAL AND PRACTICAL APPROACH
By Ewan M McGregor1
Engineering Lecturer
University Centre Yeovil, 91 Preston Road, Yeovil, Somerset,
BA20 2DN [email protected]
1
ABSTRACT
This paper outlines a practical and logical method of material selection. The method, based on
a process delivered to students undertaking Masters in Advanced Materials at the University
of Cranfield by Dr. Mike Robinson, ensures that the all major parameters of a design are
considered and form part of the material selection. The design parameters are initially analysed
in conjunction with a weighted material property list. The parameters are then assigned
a weighting which reflects their importance to the design, whether it is essential or
non-essential. These weighted parameters can now be employed as part of the material
selection process. Material chart and material databases, for example, can be utilized to
eliminate non-satisfactory materials. The essential parameters are considered first with less
essential parameters being applied to the process until a final material selection can be made.
This process ensures that essential parameters are included in the selection process and that
time and resources are not wasted in the consideration of non-essential parameters.
Keywords: material, selection, material selection
INTRODUCTION
As humans we have strived to make our lives better through the use of tools. Initially these
tools were used to manufacture items designed to aid us in survival. As we have evolved
the items were designed to make our lives more comfortable. Now we manufacture a vast
range of products, ranging from the essential to the frivolous. All of these items have one
thing in common, that is that they have been consciously designed, some only in a very
rudimentary manner. Modern products will evolve through a time-consuming, complex
and, often, expensive process. The process as a whole must, therefore, be as efficient as
possible. Within the design of any product, arguably, one of the most important processes
is that of material selection. The use of a logical and efficient material selection process will
assist in making the overall design process efficient. If chosen material is not appropriate
for the application the results can be catastrophic. The selection of an appropriate material
dictates, wholly or in part, the physical strength and size, the cost, the aesthetics and indeed
most aspects of the product design. The aim of this paper is to discuss a logical approach
to material selection which can be adapted to the majority of engineering applications. The
report will investigate a logical process which can be followed to arrive at a final choice.
Within this process the possible manufacturing methods, the material properties, material
cost and environmental impact of the material will be taken into consideration. The paper
utilizes a process delivered to students undertaking Masters in Advanced Materials at the
University of Cranfield by Dr. Mike Robinson.
22
IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL SELECTION PROCESS
The selection of a material, or materials, is an integral part of any design project. The
importance placed on the material selection will depend on the actual project. Within the
design of an aircraft the aircraft main frames are of great importance. The selection will be
linked with the strength, weight and cost of the main frame and indeed the aircraft design
as a whole. Most people would agree that the material in this case is important and that
selecting an inappropriate material could prove to be catastrophic in the completed aircraft. If
a disposable pen is now considered, is the selection of the material really that important? It is
only a disposable pen after all. Does the material need to be load bearing? Well, yes it does as
it must be able to withstand the pressure from the writer’s fingers and be able to withstand
a reasonable amount of “end chewing”. The very fact that it is in close contact with humans
means that it must not be toxic. Aesthetics will be of a certain amount of importance as it
must be attractive enough to sell or must be in corporate colours. The material must also be
cheap to procure and cheap to manufacture as it is a disposable pen. So going back to our
question “is the selection of the material really that important?” It must be concluded that yes
it is important.
Ashby and Johnson [1] clearly make the link between material selection, design, economics
and also the environment. The material must meet all parameters of the design, whether it
is related to strength, cost, machinability, aesthetics or environment. This means that the
material selection process must be robust enough accommodate all parameters and any
associated variables.
MATERIAL SELECTION PROCESS
At the start of a material selection process all available materials must be considered, in excess
of 100,000 materials [1]. If we consider that the purpose of any material selection process
is to provide one material which meets all specified requirements, this implies that the pool
100,000 materials must be reduced to just one. If each individual material is compared to
the specifications this process would not be feasible from a time and cost perspective. So a
process which quickly and effectively eliminates inappropriate materials must be determined.
Ashby [2] refers to a process, Figure 1, which allows the design requirements to be analysed,
materials which are inappropriate to be eliminated and a final material selection to be made.
All materials
Translate design
requirements:
express as
function,
constraints
objective, and
free variables
Screen using
constraints:
eliminate
materials that
cannot do
the job
Figure 1 – Strategy for material selection [3]
23
Rank using
objectives: find
the screened
materials that
do the job best
Seek
documentation:
research the
family history of
the top-ranked
candidates
Final material
selection
This strategy has be adapted to form the basis for the subject material selection process.
The process takes the same linear approach from the analysis of the specifications to the final
material selection. The first stage is the same as in Figure 1 and the purpose is to identify
known quantities, constraints, possible manufacture methods and also any variables. The
purpose of this document is to identify a logical approach to the next three steps in Figure 1;
screen using constraints, rank using objectives and seek documentation. Figure 2 outlines
the process.
MATERIAL SELECTION PROCESS
At the start of a material selection process all available materials must be considered, in
excess of 100,000 materials [1]. If we consider that the purpose of any material selection
process is to provide one material which meets all specified requirements, this implies that the
pool 100,000 materials must be reduced to just one. If each individual material is compared to
the specifications this process would not be feasible from a time and cost perspective. So a
process which quickly and effectively eliminates inappropriate materials must be determined.
Ashby [2] refers to a process, Figure 1, which allows the design requirements to be analysed,
materials which are inappropriate to be eliminated and a final material selection to be made.
Relate Design
requirements to
material properties:
achieved by ranking
properties using a
weighted table and
simple class system
Eliminated materials
using class one
properties
Eliminate further
materials using class
two properties, class
three properties
and so on
Make final material
selection
Figure 2 – Material selection process
DESIGN REQUIREMENTS AND MATERIAL PROPERTIES
Using the design requirements a set parameters can be determines and these will normally
be used to create technical and non-technical specifications. The parameters will relate to
every aspect of the material from the strength to the environmental impact of the material.
The first stage of the material selection process is to identify each of these parameters and
apply a weighting or class system. This is very simply how essential or desirable each property
or characteristic is in relation to the design requirements. Table 1 details the weighting/class
system. This system allows differentiation between parameters and is believed to be robust
enough for most applications, it can be modified for particular applications if required.
24
Table 1: Weighting/Class Descriptors
Weighting/Class
Definition
Comments
1
Highly essential to the design.
Indicates a property or characteristic whose
presence, or absence, is vital to the design
without which the design would fail.
2
Essential to the design.
Indicates a property or characteristic whose
presence, or absence, is vital to the design
without which the design would adversely
affected.
3
Not essential to the design
but highly desirable.
Indicates a property or characteristic whose
presence, or absence is highly desirable to
the design.
4
Not essential to the design
but desirable.
Indicates a property or characteristic whose
presence, or absence is highly desirable to
the design.
5
No beneficial or adverse
effect on the design.
Indicates a property or characteristic which
will have no beneficial or adverse effect on
the design.
These design requirements are now related to general material properties or characteristics [3].
Table 2 details these properties and characteristics, and is comprehensive but not exhaustive
and may be altered for particular applications.
25
Table 2: Material Selection Table
Property
Weighting/Class
Comments
Mechanical
Modulus
Yield
Impact strength
Fatigue strength
Creep strength
Hardness
Chemical
Atmospheric corrosion
Aqueous corrosion
High temperature
SCC
Weather, ageing, coatings
Physical
Conduction
Expansion
Phase change
Electrical properties
Magnetic properties
Density
Safety
Toxic
Flammability
Aesthetics
Colour
Surface Finish
Economics
Raw material cost
Fabrication cost
`Cost of ownership`
Recovery
26
It can be seen from Table 2 that the properties and characteristics are split in to six general
headings, allowing all aspects of the design to be considered.
• Mechanical • Chemical • Physical • Safety • Aesthetics • Economics
MECHANICAL PROPERTIES
Mechanical properties relate to the strength of the material, that is how much stress can be
applied to the component. Consider a component which is subjected to a tensile load and
must return to its original dimensions when the load is removed. It may be allowable for the
component to elastically deform, within limits, as it will return to its original dimensions when
the load is removed. If an inappropriate material is selected then the component will deform
plastically and so will not return to its original dimensions when the load is removed. In this
case the material must possess a sufficient yield strength and so yield would be weighted
as class 1. If the load and dimensions of the component are known then the stress can be
calculated. This calculated stress gives a definitive value which the materials yield strength
must be above if the component is to remain in the elastic region and not plastically deform.
The remainder of the mechanical properties can be considered in a similar manner and
assigned a weighting or class value as appropriate.
CHEMICAL PROPERTIES
Chemical properties relate to the materials ability to withstand its operating environment
without degradation. In relation to chemical properties an adverse operating environment may
simply be salt laden or it may be one containing highly corrosive chemicals such as acids or
alkalis. If a winch drum designed to be used on a trawler will have to withstand a very wet, salt
laden environment so aqueous corrosion would be weighted as class 1. A similar winch drum
designed to operate in an arid environment aqueous corrosion would be weighted as a class 4
possible 5.
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
Physical are those related to the conduction of both heat and electricity, the melting point,
magnetic properties and the density. If an electrical conductor is considered then the
weighting for electrical conduction would be a class 1 as the component must conduct
electricity. However, does this indicate that an electrical insulator be weighted as a class 5?
In actual fact it must also be weighted as a class 1 as it is essential that the material must
not conduct electricity. Density can be considered in a similar manner. Generally aircraft
components must be as light as is practicable but ballast must be heavy, in both cases having
the correct density is essential and so must be weighted as class 1.
SAFETY
Safety relates to toxic and flammable properties. These really depend jointly on the usage and
the operating environment. If a child’s toy is considered then it is essential that the material
should not be toxic and so would be weighted as class 1. A bearing within an industrial
machine which is not expected to be in contact with humans and reasonable precautions
can be taken when installing the component then the weighting may be class 3 or below.
Flammability can be treated in a similar manner.
AESTHETICS
Aesthetics is perhaps not something which an engineer would consider but in this very
consumer driven society aesthetics may very well be essential consideration. Could a product
be coloured in the appropriate corporate colours? This may be the actual colour of the material
or a coating.
27
ECONOMICS
Economics in this paper is considered last, this does not reflect that it is of low importance.
It may be the most important driver of the design. For example in the case of low value high
production items the raw material must be cheap and so the weighting would be class 1.
Whereas the cost of raw materials for a high value custom built item would not attract a high
weighting, perhaps class 3 or below. The remainder of this section relates to the economics
of the environment and green issues and as such will be essential or at least desirable to the
design. With the increase in government initiatives and incentives relating to green issue these
considerations will be of greater importance to the overall design.
USE OF MATERIAL CHARTS AND DATABASES
When a weighting has been allocated to each of the properties or characteristics detailed
in Table 2 the actual material selection process can begin. The class 1 weighted properties
need to considered first as without these the design will fail. To achieve this the class 1`s are
identified and related to groups of or individual materials. There are several methods by which
this can be achieved, but this paper will concentrate on two simple methods; material charts
and electronic material databases.
MATERIAL CHARTS
Material charts are a diagrammatical method of displaying groups of material properties.
Figure 6 shows strength–density, with offset yield strength plotted on the y-axis and density
plotted on the x-axis. The large coloured bubbles represent groups of materials. For example
the pale green bubble in the lower left hand corner represents foams, the smaller white
bubbles represent individual sub-groups of foams. The other major groups of materials are also
represented; natural materials, polymers and elastomers, composites, ceramics and metals.
Figure 3 – Strength-Density material chart [2]
28
These charts can be utilized to eliminate groups and subgroups of materials using our class
one properties. An example of this would be if a component with a maximum tensile load
of 100MPa is considered. The component must not enter the plastic region at or below this
value, the material property we must compare the 100MPa to is yield strength, or in this case
offset yield strength.
Figure 4 – Material chart used to eliminate using offset yield strength of 100MPa [2]
A red line has been placed on the material chart at 100MPa to indicate our limit of offset yield.
All the materials below this line will plastically deform prior to 100MPa and so are of no use in
this application, this eliminates all foams, all natural materials and the majority of polymers and
elastomers. Although the application of one class one property has not indicated an individual
material it has reduced the number of available material significantly. If, for example, another
class 1 property was density we can further utilize the chart. Let’s say the density must be
below 1000kg/m3 , a green line is placed on the chart. Applying the two limits it very clearly
indicates that a combination of 100MPa and 1000kg/m3 will have no acceptable materials.
In this case the selection process would be terminated and a review of the specifications
conducted. The selection process and the use of material selection charts has quickly revealed
that the specifications are not feasibly through the prioritising the properties.
MATERIAL DATABASE
Material selection charts are ideal for eliminating large groups of materials, but are rather
limited in that they do not readily identify individual materials. To quickly and efficiently identify
individual materials an electronic materials database is utilized. There are many such databases
in use today, some are partially free to the user, MatWeb.com and MatData.net. Most,
however, are specialist industrial or educational programs which can cost several thousand
pounds. The databases allow searches to be conducted with multiple parameters and limits.
These searches enable appropriate materials to be determined quickly and efficiently.
29
USE OF WEIGHTED PARAMETERS
As stated previously the weighted parameters can be used to eliminate inappropriate
materials in a manner which prioritises the most important parameters first. Class 1
parameters are considered first and then class two and so on. The flow chart in figure 5
represents the procedure.
Apply Class 1 to
material charts
and/or database
If sufficient materials
eliminated make
material choice, if not
proceed to class 2.
Apply Class 2 to
material charts
and/or database
If sufficient materials
eliminated make
materials choice, if
not proceed to class 3.
Apply Class 3 to
material charts
and/or database
If sufficient materials
eliminated make
material choice, if not
proceed to class 4.
Apply Class 4 to
material charts
and/or database
If sufficient materials
eliminated make
materials choice, if
not proceed to class 5.
Apply Class 5 to
material charts
and/or database
If sufficient materials
have been eliminated
make material
selection, if not
a review design
parameters.
Figure 5 – Material selection flow chart
A successful material selection is normally achieved with the application of the class two
or three parameters. If a material selection is not achieved after the application of class 5
parameters the design criteria should be further analysed to give more constraints and the
process restarted. Conversely if all materials are eliminated at the first stage the design criteria
are too rigid and the, again, must be reviewed and more appropriate values determined.
CONCLUSION
The selection process allows the analysis of the design and the prioritisation of the design
parameters. The weighting table encourages the materials properties to be taken into
consideration. The very act of completing the table may highlight areas of the design which
have not been considered or fully explored. Taking each classification in turn primarily ensures
that the essential parameters are considered a secondary outcomes is that the process can
be ended when a satisfactory selection is made. Time is, therefore, not wasted investigating
parameters which are not essential and the over-all process is conducted efficiently.
30
REFERENCES
31
[1]
Ashby M.F. and Johnson K. Materials and Engineering Design: The Art and Science
of Material Selection in Product Design, 2007 (Elsevier, London)
[2]
Ashby M.F. Material Selection in Mechanical Design, Fourth Edition, 2011
(Elesevier, London)
[3]
Timmings R.L. Engineering Materials, Volume 1, 1998 (Longman, Harlow)
PAINTING SPACE:
A CONVERSATION BETWEEN DISCIPLINES
By Diana Pilcher1
Artist/Researcher and Lecturer in Fine Art and Visual Culture
University Centre Yeovil, 91 Preston Road, Yeovil, Somerset,
BA20 2DN [email protected]
1
ABSTRACT
My paper concerns the ongoing negotiation that artists have with space. Debates that exist
within architectural design, cognitive psychology, choreography and fine art painting reveal
ideas about human perception and experiential qualities of space. My paper explores some of
these ideas as they interface with art practices. My purpose is to demonstrate the importance
that space has for human creativity and for painting in particular. I take as my starting point the
view that human perception of space is experienced in a relative form. In philosophical terms
our perception of space can be thought of as a ‘primordial expression of our being-in-theworld’ (Liu, S., Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Space, The 3rd BESETO Conference
of Philosophy, http://utcpc 2012).
I wish to include ideas about space from a number of disciplines; the choreographer William
Forysthe, the architect Daniel Libeskind and recent philosophical theories about human
perception developed by the cognitive psychologist Alva Noe. My research has a practical
purpose which is to examine the spatial properties of colour and to use these to help
inform my current arts practice. My paper is linked directly to my practice as a fine artist in
constructing a dialogue with paint as a synthesis of an earlier era of painting; that of the
1950’s in the U.S.A. and Europe.
Keywords: painting, visual perception, space
INTRODUCTION
This paper offers a series of suggestions in the form of a conversation between disciplines
and is of necessity an exploration of notions of space as encountered in painting. The
conversation focuses on ideas about space within both philosophical and non-philosophical
thought in Western Europe toward the end of the 20th century. My purpose is to render some
of the discoveries made concerning colour during the last century and to resurrect some of
these discoveries, in particular those associated with post-2nd world war painting, in light
of these cross-disciplinary ideas.
The philosopher Henri Lefebvre writing about space states that it ‘does not consist of the
projection of an intellectual representation,’...nor does it ‘arise from the visible-readable realm,
but it is first of all heard (listened to) and enacted (through physical gestures and movements).’
[1] Whilst the act of painting is generally regarded as a purely visual process involving mood
and emotions I wish to explore the physicality of this process as one that is informed by a
much broader perceptual range of thought and action involving the artist’s direct experience
of space.
32
PAINTING SPACE
The colour field painter Mark Rothko observed the highly innovative changes that artists
during the modernist period had brought to our understanding of space through their
experimentation in properties of colour and composition. During the 1940’s he recorded his
thoughts on colour and space in an unpublished manuscript, ‘The Artist’s Reality’ (this text
was published posthumously in 2004): ‘If one understands, or if one has the sensibility to live
in, the particular kind of space to which a painting is committed, then he has obtained the most
comprehensive statement of the artist’s attitude toward reality. Space, therefore, is the chief
plastic manifestation of the artist’s conception of reality. It is the most inconclusive category
of the artist’s statement and can very well be called the key to the meaning of the picture.
It constitutes a statement of faith, an a priori utility, to which all of the plastic elements are in
a state of subservience.’ [2]
The artist Larry Poons, a painter heavily influenced by the de Stijl group that existed in Europe
during the 1920’s, Piet Mondrian being the most well known member, presented abstract
images in the 1960’s which gave the viewer a visual sensation of colour by painting elliptical
shapes against a contrasting background. The effects of this kind of sensory perception
of colour became the trade-mark of the Op Art movement during the sixties. The sensory
qualities that viewers experience from looking at these and similar works are related to visual
illusions used by cognitive psychologists to study human perception. For the viewer colours
appear to move above the surface of the painting and the brain maintains an after-image which
creates further sensations of movement within a space.
However, once the same images are reproduced in black and white this sense of movement
minimized. Contrasting tonal values alone do not provide the same degree of stimulation to the
visual system that offers this more textured understanding or perception of space.
The 19th century artist, Paul Cezanne’s efforts to resonate human visual experience of
space in his repeated paintings of Mont St. Victoire is also noted in the observations made
by J. Brodsky in “A Paradigm Case for Merleau-Ponty: The Ambiguity of Perception and the
Paintings of Paul Cezanne,” Artibus et Histoire 2, no. 4 (1981) [3] and referred to in a recent
unpublished doctoral thesis by Bren Carolyn Unwin entitled Phenomenology and Landscape
Experience: A Critical Appraisal for Contemporary Art Practice (University of Hertfordshire,
2008). [4] This heightened visual sensation that is thought to be an effect of a multi-sensory
experience or ‘embodied experience’, as derived from Merleau-Ponty’s exposition of the
lived-experience of space. Unwin describes the interpretation of human experience from a
phenomenological viewpoint to be a form of synaesthesia in which all five senses overlap.
A more contemporary artist, Julie Mehretu who like Poons, is based in New York, has
developed her approach to drawing that could be defined as one that employs both painting
and mark but which references architectural space, city plans and sky views. [5] Her works
vary greatly in terms of scale from a modest size A3 format to 140x187” and in her use of line,
colour and diagrammatic content. Her subjects are geographical spaces and the human activity
that inhabits them. These are not static 2-dimensional images, but dynamic surfaces showing
spatial relationships denoted by gestural marks on the one hand and highly precise measured
linear structures on the other. In the case of Mehretu’s images a sensation of movement is
achieved by a combination of linear matrices rather than with colour combinations.
33
VISUAL THEORY AND SPACE
Cognitive theories of human visual perception have explained human understanding of space
as a reading of depth, movement and size constancy. Texture and proximity add further detail.
The additional properties of the visual world that incorporate light, hue and colour saturation,
which painting employs as prerequisite to any composition have received far less attention in
studies of human perception of space.
Our perception is based upon a limited visual process which according to orthodox visual
theory is supported by ‘detailed representations underlying actual perceptual experience.’
(Alva Noë, 2002). [6] Noë is skeptical about the efficiency of vision as presented by standard
visual theory. Recent cognitive neural science according to Noë places the world outside of
our brains. His recent research begins with the premise that human experience is directly
linked to our need to act on the world whether we are stationary or not. Thus our sense of
what we perceive is not dependent upon our conscious representation of that world but
of our knowledge of our access to it: “This knowledge takes the form of our comfortable
mastery of the rules of sensorimotor dependence that mediate our relation to our immediate
environment.” (Noë, 2002, p.10).
Noë’s view is endorsed by findings on early human development that show our perceptual
understanding of our environment is acquired simultaneously with motor skills and the physical
facility to apply both within space. The child psychologists Alan Slater and Gavin Bremner refer
to observational studies of young children:
“However, the claim is that they do have to construct relationships between perception and
the new activities that they acquire during development. This needs to be done at the direct
level of constructing spatial reference systems which allow them to adapt their activities to the
perceptual world. And it also needs to be done at a level once removed, in which infants come
to realize what certain types of perceptual information mean in relation to newly developed
motor abilities.” [7]
34
CHOREOGRAPHIC IDEAS OF WILLIAM FORSYTHE
In 2009 William Forsythe published an online interdisciplinary research tool, named
Synchronous Objects. It has been produced by the Forsythe Company, in partnership with
the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design and Department of Dance at The
Ohio State University. This digital software has been designed as an interdisciplinary analytical
research tool. Its interactive properties operate within the structure of the choreographic
work,‘One Flat Thing, reproduced’. My interest in space and colour has been influenced by
Forsythe’s purpose in devising Synchronous Objects which is to test, beyond the parameters
of dance, how choreography may ‘generate autonomous expressions of its principals, a
choreographic object, without the body?’ His interest in the interdisciplinary dimensions of
this subject does not form any specific contingencies but invites practitioners to explore
possible outcomes involving space as its central organizing principle in the construction of
work. Forsythe explains that his main purpose in devising Synchronous Objects, an interactive
website based upon his work ‘One Flat Thing, reproduced’ (premiered in 2000), is to reproduce
the choreographic structures of this work to make the organizing principles visible after the
performance is completed.
‘Could it be conceivable that the ideas now seen as bound to a sentient expression are indeed
able to exist in another durable, intelligible state?’ (Forsythe, 2009).
Forsythe’s proposes that choreographic ideas that display structures based upon
counterpoint and trajectories may be universally understood as representations of those
ideas (or reproductions); but the purpose of Synchronous Objects is not simply to record a
piece of choreography for archival purposes but to create a research tool which will invite
interdisciplinary dialogue based upon creative pursuits rather than one that sets out a
prescribed methodology about ‘physical thinking’. Zuniga Shaw, a co-director of Synchronous
Objects is quoted as stating:
‘When Bill explained his methodology for designing the choreography in ‘One Flat Thing,
reproduced’. I felt an instant connection to his organizational principles, his use of spatial
geometry, his creation of visual complexity, because they were deeply related to ideas from
the visual arts and animation.’ (Synchronous Objects Media Site 25/02/11, Zuniga Shaw). [8]
The dance journalist and writer Roslyn Sulcas described this website as a research tool...
“for exploring the structures of a dance and a wildly creative extrapolation of the way that
those structures can be pictorially expressed.” [9]
In architecture, Daniel Libeskind incorporates the idea of absence into spaces which then
become defined by a sense of displacement within time. During a visit to the Jewish Museum
in Berlin I was struck by the significance that space had in defining my own sense of
spatial proximity.
‘Both Libeskind and Forsythe are (perhaps surprisingly to some) more concerned with
exposing the intricacies of process, rather than offering the public a fetishizable and final
product. For Libeskind, products are uninteresting residues of the “participatory experience,”
which he defines as the “emblem of reality which goes into their making.”” For Forsythe,
the participatory experience involves uncovering forms by working through the complex
operational systems with the dancers...’ [9]
35
CONCLUSION
How the dancer, painter, drawer, architect or infant experiences space appears to require
a form of organization that is multi-sensory and requires some knowledge of the world.
I am interested in the possibilities that this knowledge has for making paintings that are
about a visual rendering of that human experience.
36
REFERENCES
[1]
Lefebrvre, H. The Production of Space, p.200, Blackwell, 1991, quoted in Crang, M.
and Thrift, N. (eds.) Thinking Space, Routledge, 2010
[2] Rothko, M., ‘The Artist’s Reality Philosphies in Art’, Yale University Press, 2004
[3] Brodsky, Joyce.“Cezanne Paints: ‘Whole Body’ Practices and the Genre of
Self- Portrayal.” Visual Studies 20, no. 1, 2005. ———. “How to “See” with the Whole
Body.” Visual studies 17, no. 2, 2002. ———. “A Paradigm Case for Merleau-Ponty:
The Ambiguity of Perception and the Paintings of Paul Cezanne.” Artibus et Historiae 2,
no. 4, 1981: pp. 125-134
[4] Unwin, Bren Carolyn, Phenomenology and Landscape Experience: A Critical Appraisal
for Contemporary Art Practice, unpublished PhD, University of Herts (2008)
[5] Chua, L., Julie Mehretu, BOMB 91/Spring 2005, ART (http://bombsite.com/issues/91/
articles/2714 Brodsky, Joyce. “Cezanne Paints: ‘Whole Body’ Practices and the Genre of
Self- Portrayal.” Visual Studies 20, no. 1, 2005. ———. “How to “See” with the Whole
Body.” Visual studies 17, no. 2, 2002. ———. “A Paradigm Case for Merleau-Ponty:
The Ambiguity of Perception and the Paintings of Paul Cezanne.” Artibus et Historiae 2,
no. 4, 1981: pp. 125-134
[6] Noë, A. Is the Visual World a Grand Illusion?, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 9,
No. 5-6, 2002, pp. 1-12
[7] Slater, A. & Bremner, G. (Ed.), Infant Development, (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Ltd.,
Hove, East Sussex, 1989
[8] http://synchronousobjects.osu.edu/2013
[9] Roslyn Sulcas writing for the New York Times, 24/03/09,“Drawing Movements’
Connections”, www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/arts/dance/29sulc.html
[10] Baudoin, P. & Gilpin, H., ‘Proliferation and Perfect Disorder: William Forsythe and the
Architecture of Disappearance’, www.frankfurt-ballett.ce/articlecasp.html 26/10/06
37
FRESH AIR AND A PRAYER:
MAKING ‘IT’ IN INDEPENDENT TELEVISION –
A PRODUCER’S VIEW
By Karl Rawstrone1
Digital Media & Fine Art Lecturer
University Centre Yeovil, 91 Preston Road, Yeovil, Somerset,
BA20 2DN [email protected]
1
ABSTRACT
This case study forms part of a larger research project investigating the nature of independent
television production from the point of view of programme producers. The scope of the
investigation is limited to producers whose companies are not owned or affiliated to larger
companies or broadcasters and who, between 2003 and 2013 have had an annual turnover
of less than £20m.
The research uses both qualitative ethnographic and quantitative methods to investigate the
self-perceived roles and experiences of producers in their day-to-day work and the economic,
social and cultural contexts they work in.
Working as an independent producer from 2003 to the present day, the subject provides
interview evidence detailing their entry into the sector, a number of production case-studies
and their perceptions of their current position.
The proposed theoretical model underpinning the enquiry treats qualitative recollections of
producers not as ‘blow-by-blow’ accounts of production processes but as valuable source
material to analyse the ways in which producers act as a nexus in networks of capital
(economic, social and cultural) transformation, balancing risk, reward, reputation, creativity
and commerce and to shift focus from seeing producers as creators of ‘texts’ to addressing
them as part of a more complex structural phenomenon.
Keywords: British Television, Independent Production, Cultural Industries
INTRODUCTION
The advent of Channel 4 in 1982 encouraged the growth of the independent production
sector through its policy of acquiring or commissioning programmes from a wide range of
sources, including independent producers. In 1986, their impact on broadcasting was further
strengthened when the Peacock Committee on Financing the BBC recommended that the
BBC and ITV should be required to increase their proportion of programmes supplied by
independent producers [1].
UK broadcasters have annual revenue (2011) of £12.3bn [2]. Independent Production in the UK
now accounts for between £2bn [3] and $2.4bn [4] turnover per year. This represents between
a quarter and a fifth of all UK-based television production.
Creative Skillset, the Sector Skills Council for the Creative Industries, states that there are over
1.300 businesses comprising the UK Television Industry, including the main five broadcasters,
around 300 digital broadcasters, a number of interactive and community TV companies and
some 850 Independent Production Companies [5].
38
The TV sector as a whole comprises a small number of large companies, such as the
mainstream broadcasters, with turnovers from £2.356bn (BBC) [6] to £353m (Channel 5) [7]
and so-called Super-Indies such as Endemol (£1.1bn) and All3Media (£473m) [4] and a large
number of small companies. Despite Skillset’s report that some 850 Independents are in
business, the Broadcast survey of independent production for 2012 lists just 148 companies
who had programmes broadcast in the UK and who declared their turnovers. The bottom
fifth all have turnovers less than £2m, with the last declaring a 2012 turnover of just £10,000
[4]. 50% of total revenue in the Independent production sector is controlled by just 12% of
companies (Figure 1).
Figure 1 – Top 148 Indies by Turnover 2012 (data: Broadcast 2013) [4]
The Independent Production sector is a volatile one. While larger companies, subject to
mergers and acquisitions, do survive year-on-year, companies both large and small see
significant changes in their fortunes (Figure 2).
Figure 2 – Independent Production Companies Annual Turnover 2009-2012
(Data: Televisual 2013) [8]
39
For many smaller companies, this means that while one year may see them with broadcast
hours and turnover meriting inclusion in trade surveys, other years will be fallow (Figure 3).
Figure 3 – Independent Production Companies with Aggregate Turnover 2009-12
less than £6m (Data: Televisual 2013) [8]
What, then, is it like to occupy this space – a micro boom-and-bust economy, a crowded
market of oversupply controlled by a few major operators - arguably with the majority of
Independent Production Companies, and what motivates people to do so? In the initial stages
of this research, I interviewed such a producer.
METHODOLOGY
This work forms part of a larger research project entitled Negotiating Dependence:
Independent Television Producers in the UK. The research is primarily ethnographic, with
complimentary quantitative methods used where appropriate to illustrate economic context.
The aim of the research is to evaluate the work of the Independent Producer, the forces
defining their agency and the nature of notional boundaries across which they work through
their self-representations. The semi-structured interview from which this paper is derived was
conducted over two one-hour long sessions in 2013. The quotations are taken from transcripts
of audio recordings. Edits have been made to remove verbal tics and repetitions, remove
irrelevant or un-useful passages, clarify language or to assemble statements on a single topic
from those made at different times in the interviews.
BACKGROUND
The producer (referred to as P) owns a regionally-based production company with two
full-time staff including him. Following an apprenticeship at a small news-press, P took up
roles in local radio and television producing news and current affairs content. He set up his
company (referred to as PCo.) in 2003, initially producing factual content for the BBC and has,
in recent years, won two network commissions and produced a feature documentary shown
internationally and in the UK.
40
INTERVIEW DATA AND DISCUSSION
PCo. is a micro-indy so, you know 2 or 3 people... It’s pretty tough... You’re only as good as your
last commission. And we... need to try and get that next commission... [and it would] totally
transform where we are, creatively, financially... And we can’t rely on past track record.
P’s role is complex, involving both producing and directing, creating and evaluating ideas for
‘content’ and developing the presence of his company. He hesitatingly uses the term
“Ring Master.”
I know my limitations. I’m always open to new ideas I think but I do like working with people
that are really good at what they do - probably better than me – because, hopefully, with my
experience and some connections and determination to make things happen... overcoming
obstacles – finding ways round problems and allowing... others to have the freedom and the
environment to make great programmes which is what we’re about.
These comments define the tensions P is managing. I ask P about this relationship between
creativity and commerce. Which is most important to him?
[I]t should be about commerce far far more than it is, but for me it’s about the story. It’s about
the creativity. [That’s] probably why I’m not rich at the moment, because I just love the chase,
I love going for stories... I think if you can make something creatively brilliant... that then
leads to a commercial return, I believe. So if we can do more programmes like [the factual
commission for BBC3 in 2011], then we’ll start to make more money, which can then be put
into development, rather than just doing it on fresh air and a prayer.
The creative process here is not simply about creating content; it is about creating the
conditions for that content to be created. P refers to the importance of developing “unique”
and “exclusive” access to “people with stories... on... a controversial subject.”
I love the chase, I love going for stories, to try and get hold of people that have told other media
outlets “no”. In the case of [a subject involved in an assisted suicide case], she brushed off loads
of other news... network TV reporters, newspaper reporters and we adopted the tried and tested
approach which is when you don’t get a response to your written letter, you doorstep them...
Unique access to people with stories is not restricted to members of the general public. P’s
on-going search for unique access includes undiscovered talent. One such association with an
undergraduate film-maker with his own unique exclusive access to a controversial story led to
P’s most recent broadcast commission, while he is pursuing another project with an [A]uthor...
who himself is only in his mid-20s, potentially first time director... Incredibly intelligent! You get
that sort of feeling sometimes when you’re working with people that have not yet been truly
discovered and thinking it’s only a matter of time and I want to be there when they are!
This direct association with unique or undiscovered content is complimented by a type of
indirect association:
So we get a chance to make a film for [well-known Current Affairs strand], which is, you know,
prime-time, and then work with a very high-profile presenter in the form of [well-known Current
Affairs presenter]. We made a cracking film... and lots of people talked about it and, you know,
it’s still being talked about now. Interestingly, on our YouTube channel, more comments have
come in about that one film than almost any other...
Maintaining this presence – of being part of the conversation – involves maintaining and
building relationships. While networking is assumed to be key to success in the Creative
Industries, its value is more complex. P maintains a social media presence, including entering
online conversations with competing producers, attends trade briefings and documentary
festivals, but has never struck a deal directly through this process...
41
I think it’s about maintaining contact... [A] lot of deals, it seems to me, come about as a result
of a relationship that’s started at one point and then developed... I certainly think, being able to
say “award winning” is helpful, and maybe that provides tangible benefits...You’re not simply
saying, “oh you’re a filmmaker,” you’ve actually made programmes that have made waves, and
have been talked about, and still being talked about... and that I think does help.
Association with ‘known’ institutions does not necessarily translate into commissions. P is in
a Janus-faced relationship with, on one side, holders of ‘unique exclusive access’ to stories
and, on the other, Commissioning Editors; gatekeepers of the flow of economic and cultural
capital that would turn ‘his’ ideas into working projects and turnover. Knowing what content
Commissioning Editors are looking for can be tricky.
Commissioning Editors will tell you at these briefings... ‘this is what they want and this is what
they don’t want.’ The truth is, they don’t always know what they want. They think they know
what they don’t want... but you can’t second guess...
A combination of the right access, the right timing and the right kind of project for the right
commissioning editor all need to come together simultaneously:
...it may be almost impossible for [director of 2011 BBC3 programme] to make a sequel to
[BBC3 programme] even though his [subject] is about to face trial at the Old Bailey, and
the family just not getting it... their default stance is to... keep the media at bay... And that’s
frustrating...because you’ve got a Commissioning Editor saying “actually, I want that” but you
can’t deliver it – or not necessarily when they want it – and that’s frustrating, [We are saying],
“we can make you this this and this, you’ll have to wait for that.” [and the Commissioning
Editor is saying], “But I want that – I want that now – I want that more than these – you’re
offering me these and I don’t necessarily want those things!”
As P states at the beginning, he “can’t rely on past track record” and it is this that possibly
defines the difficulty of being in the lower echelons of the Independent Sector. Current, ongoing relationships carry greater currency than simple track-record.
Chances are... [Commissioning Editors] will go to their preferred suppliers. I have seen
programmes... and you think, ‘well I could have done that,’ and of course you could… [The
Great British Bake Off]... [was] made by Love Productions and Love Productions West based
in Bristol made... a great documentary about the show’s star, Mary Berry. We could have done
that. Any number of other companies could have done it but it went to Love Productions West
because Love Productions based in London had already made... Bake Off... and that’s how
commissioners work – or at least some do.
Even when a Commissioning Editor that P had previously made a networked Current
Affairs film for moved to a high-profile early-evening show, P still had no success building
on that relationship.
...we did actually go to the trouble of spending a bit of time – bit of money – and we came up
with 12... cracking ideas and talked with the commissioning producer and there were lots of
reasons why one wasn’t quite right or ‘we’ve already done that’ He liked the ideas and they
were done very much in the [programme] style... [but] from these... 12 ideas not a single one
went any further... [A] though they said they were looking to increase the number of producers
working on [the show] the truth is that it’s obviously easier to administer a fewer number of
suppliers and there are bigger companies... [who] have got long-standing output contracts on
[the show] and breaking into that’s a bit difficult. I’m not saying it’s impossible... but it would
have to be as [they] said to us... ‘unique access that none of our in-house people could provide
on a subject that we want.’
42
CONCLUSION
To answer the question,“what do producers make?”one must consider not simply the
produced text, but the process by which that objectified, coded cultural capital has been
drawn through a number of carefully-maintained social ties. I suggest that a reading of the
cultural content of these ties is helpful to consider why some ‘ideas’ make it to screen (and
are finally exchanged for economic capital) while others do not. I also suggest that symbolic
capital, in the form of associations with recognised institutions (be they people, companies
or awards) plays a significant role not only in the facilitation of tie-building and, therefore in
the management of cultural capital, but also in the reflexive self-presentation and motivation
of producers.
43
REFERENCES
[1] Ofcom ITC Notes: Independent Productions, 2003 [Online] Available from:
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/itc/itc_publications/itc_notes/view_note68.html
[Accessed 02/06/2013]
[2] Ofcom The Communications Market 2012.2: TV and audio-visual July 2012
[3] Oliver & Ohlbaum Associates Ltd. / PACT Independent Production Sector Financial
Census and Survey 2012 Summary version, June 2012
[4] Broadcast Indie Survey 2013. Broadcast, 22 March 2013 (Media Business Insight
Limited, London)
[5] Skillset Television Sector - Labour Market Intelligence Profile, 2011
[6] BBC BBC Full Financial Statements 2011/1, July 2012
[7] Northern and Shell Media Group Limited Corporate Report and Financial Statements for
the year ended 31 December 2011, 2012
[8] Televisual Production 100, 2009-2013 [Online] Available from: http://www.televisual.com
[Accessed 11/01/2013]
44
HITTING BEDROCK:
THE END OF MORAL REASONS
By Jarrett Wilson1
Chaplaincy & Philosophy at Yeovil College
Yeovil College, Mudford Road, Yeovil, Somerset, BA21 4DR
[email protected]
1
ABSTRACT
“Once I have exhausted the justifications, I have reached bedrock, and my spade is turned.
Then I am inclined to say: ‘This is simply what I do.’” [1].
Much debate in meta-ethics seems entangled in a web of arguments to supply the grounds
for either the objective or subjective nature of ethics. The ‘two tribes’ at war are crudely
categorised into an array of Realists (e.g. rationalists, naturalists and intuitionists) and AntiRealists (emotivists, prescriptivists, relativists and nihilists). The common ground between
them is that they both reveal a compulsion to justify their positions as being correct. On
the face of it, this seems like a sensible aim. After all, part of our interest in making moral
judgements is knowing whether or not we are doing the right thing.
Yet when attempting to supply reasons for why one ethical theory is correct and another
is not, the futility of grounding the truth-claims objectively for each of these theories is
inevitably revealed. All reasons eventually come to an end. Both the Realist and Anti-Realist hit
bedrock, and their claims to correctness have to be taken with a sense of confidence, not in a
foundational explanation but with a Weltanschauung (worldview). This confidence amounts to
setting one’s face to view life in one way rather than another.
This notion of bedrock emerges in the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose interest in part
was to ascertain the nature of what we are saying when we use language in different ways.
According to Wittgenstein, the task of philosophy is to clarify confusions which arise in our
language, confusions which deceive us into unhelpful analogies and misleading theories.
Part of the confusion we have with ethics comes as a result of the surface similarities
between sentences like “x is good” and “x is from Devon”. Although the grammar of such
statements appears similar on the surface, the qualitative differences in their claims can
remain hidden. If “x is from Devon” is a descriptive sentence about an object, then its claim
can be deduced as being true or false based on whether x is, in fact, from a place called
Devon. This is an example of an empirical statement – it is a sentence asserting a contingent
state of affairs in the world, which can be shown to be either true or false. Its truth or falsity
is based on our agreement in language and the associations we make between subjects and
their predicates.
The statement “x is good”, however, has a deceptive surface grammar. A sentence like “x is
good” looks as though it functions as an ordinary descriptive sentence. Therefore, “good”, like
“from Devon”, “amber” or “liquid” looks as though it is a feature or property of the subject
in question. Operating on this kind of assumption, it will seem tempting to go searching for
this feature in the subject (i.e. what is it in the subject about which I am calling “good”?).
“Goodness” will then be cashed out in virtue of one of more properties of the subject –
i.e. when I said “good” I was referring to its tastiness, its being amber-coloured, or its being
from Devon.
45
The first thing we need to do is realise that ethical statements, unlike empirical statements,
do not function in the way described above. They are not asserting a truth or falsity about
a subject in the same way that an empirical statement is asserting truth or falsity about a
subject. With empirical statements, our concern is whether or not the claim being put forward
is true or false objectively in an empirical sense (e.g. the statement “the temperature in this
room is 20°C” is, if it is actually 20°C, going to be true independently of whether or not I think
it feels 20°C, and the independent verifier will be of an empirical nature). It might seem, then,
that ethical statements are going to operate on the same kind of objectivity that empirical
statements do. But what ‘objectivity’ means here cannot be transferred into a different
language game without altering its meaning, and this is where confusion can enter in.
When someone asserts a moral statement of the kind “one ought to do x” the agent
forwarding the claim does so with a view that this statement is morally correct for all agents,
not just him or herself. The force of the assertion, as it were, comes from the demand that one
way of behaviour is correct independently of how one feels or whether or not others agree
with us. Insomuch, ethical statements reveal themselves as being objectively true, not in an
empirical sense but in an ethical one. There can be, as Hilary Putnam argues, an “objectivity
without objects” in the same way that mathematical statements can have objectivity and yet
no objects correspond to mathematics [2].
So the content of the statement (what the sentence is about) refers to a reality, a way of
seeing, that the agent conceives as being ‘true’ for everyone. If it were not so, the ethical
statement would cease being an ethical statement and instead be construed as an expression
of preference, a logical error or an emotive pro-attitude toward a factual statement. But these
alternatives only gain traction if we accept the metaphysical claims on which they rely (in this
case, physicalism) which are deeply unattractive and unnecessary. The problem is that if we
treat objectivity in ethics the same way we treat objectivity in e.g. science we can be tempted
to explain away the nature of ethical discourse that makes it what it is.
The temptation to supply ultimate grounds for ethical statements is compounded by the
scientistic age in which we live. The march of technology and the advancement of the
scientific method have arguably been successful in so many areas of life that we come to
expect that everything can be answered scientifically, either in future or in principle. The
problem for ethics is that this scientistic thrust “can influence both the content of our accounts
and the kinds of account we find acceptable” [3].
The idea of bedrock can be practically reviewed by asking why it is we did one thing rather than
another thing. The answer to “why this and not that?” will be supported by justifications. For
instance, to the question “why did you choose to bring mead to a research conference?” I might
say “to use as an example”. Why use mead rather than something else? Because it seemed like
fun – I think mead is fun. Why do you think mead is fun? Because it just seems fun to me. What
Wittgenstein would say here is that I should reply: “This is how it strikes me” [4].
It would make little sense for someone to press me further for reasons, in order to get to
some deeper, more perspicuous explanation. What would such an explanation even look like?
Let us say that I attempted to support my reason for bringing mead to a research conference
by reference to a neurological brain state of some kind. I might say, “the expression ‘mead
seems fun to me’ is the result of a complicated process in the brain, itself influenced by causal
events which are the initial input leading – by some psycho-physical link – to the output of my
expression”. What has happened here is not the establishment of a new, fuller explanation
of my reason but a change in the architecture of what it is that I said. What looks like an
explanation is really, as Wittgenstein says, “a sham corbel that supports nothing” [5].
46
Essentially, the move here made by the supposedly causal account is a grammatical one.
We have changed what we are accepting here as an explanation, and potentially influencing
the content of what we think of as a reason. The philosopher makes a linguistic manoeuvre
by borrowing terminology from a qualitatively different sphere in an effort to merge it with
a language game associated with giving reasons for action. This is where the idea, for
instance, of a psycho-physical link comes in. We are supposed to favour one description (the
neurological one) over the description “mead just seems fun to me”. What is lacking, however,
are authoritative grounds on which to accept this grammatical move as representing a
genuine explanation.
It might be objected here, however: how am I meant to understand that as a reason? That
is, how I am I meant to accept that “mead just seems fun to me” is an explanation for why
someone would bring a bottle to a research conference? Compare this with an ethical reason:
suppose I said that my reason for not supporting a state-sponsored death penalty is because
I hold out hope for the redemption of all mankind. I hope, in effect, that a criminal might come
to see the error of his actions and eventually undergo a transformation of character.
If asked why I hold out such hope, perhaps even in spite of strong evidence, I could perhaps
say that I am optimistic about the nature of human beings. Or otherwise I could say, “I am
not particularly optimistic about human beings but I am optimistic that God could make a
difference in the criminal’s life”. Or even “I am always hopeful when I drink mead and I just
had a glass before I told you”. These and other reasons are all examples of hitting bedrock.
Yet our question was: why should they be accepted as genuine reasons? The reality is, some
people would recognise them as reasons, but to others they would be simply unintelligible.
Certainly for some, the invocation of God into any ethical debate seems strange or irrelevant.
Yet what is lacking here in terms of understanding is not that we have yet to explicate the
real reason for someone’s ethical decisions, but that we have not come to share in the other
person’s perspective. That is, what we are not accepting as an explanation, we do not accept
in virtue of its being, as it were, of an alien architecture to us.
The difficulty for philosophers, of course, is stopping here and not pressing further for a
foundational justification which might serve to conclusively underpin certain moral decisions
or values as being correct. But theorising from here reveals the futility of achieving the aims
to which such theories aspire. The problem with ethical theories is that they actually obscure,
rather than clarify, the nature of ethics by providing an explanation which is neither necessary
nor sufficient.
Ultimately, what needs to be learnt is to resist an explanation here. An explanation is not what
is needed, however much we are tempted to think so. Ethical awareness is part of our reaction
to the world around us, but that does not mean that it is able to cashed out in virtue of instinct,
preferences or attitudes.
Not only is an explanation for ethics unnecessary, but it would also leave out what it is that
makes ethics distinctively significant for us. The reasons we give for our moral decisions will
be an expression of what it is we find significant and valuable, of what we believe is right
or wrong, and yet “there is no definition of an ethical attitude” [6]. This is where we reach
bedrock, and attempting to supply any further grounds below this is misguided.
47
REFERENCES
[1]
Wittgenstein, L. Philosophical Investigations, 2009 (Blackwell Publishing Ltd,
Chichester) p.217
[2]
Putnam, H. Ethics Without Ontology, 2005 (Harvard University Press, London) p.77-78
[3]
Johnston, P. Wittgenstein and Moral Philosophy, 1989 (T. J. Press Ltd, Padstow) p.15
[4]
Wittgenstein, L. Philosophical Investigations, 2009 (Blackwell Publishing Ltd,
Chichester) p.219
[5]
Wittgenstein, L. Philosophical Investigations, 2009 (Blackwell Publishing Ltd,
Chichester) p.217
[6]
Rhees, R. Moral Questions, 1999 (MacMillan Press Ltd, Basingstoke) p.10
48
CAN FURTHER EDUCATION
ESTABLISHMENT DELIVERING HIGHER
EDUCATION LEARN ANY LESSONS
FROM DESTINATION MARKETING?
By Maureen Wincott1
Lecturer in Marketing & Business
University Centre Yeovil, 91 Preston Road, Yeovil, Somerset,
BA20 2DN [email protected]
1
ABSTRACT
In today’s increasingly competitive environment, consumers have more choice, delivered
through more mediums than ever before. This has changed buyer behaviour. Confused and
overwhelmed consumers now seek solutions rather than products and services. This evolution
has been fully embraced by many sectors, in particular destination marketing which is aware
that they need to promote a solution rather than a product or selection of products. This
paper seeks to evaluate if there are any lessons that can be transferred from the principles
of destination marketing to the promotion of HE in the FE sector, a sector which has yet to
develop strong brand personalities and competitive positioning strategies and concludes that
indeed there are many lessons including the role of location, the importance of word of mouth
and the packaging of solutions.
INTRODUCTION
This paper seeks to explore whether there are any lessons to be learnt from marketing
strategies employed by other industries such as destination marketing when addressing
students who are looking to study higher education in the FE context.
Today destination marketing uses sophisticated marketing techniques towards its target
audience [1]. Shopping destinations, heritage sites, and even entire countries now market
solutions rather than focusing on independent features [2]. The evolution of marketing
has followed closely the changes in consumer behaviour. The post-modernist consumer
seeks choice, immediate responses lives chaotic, confused lives and seeks to have a diatic
relationships with organisations [3], thus marketers have responded by giving consumers
choice, by interacting with consumers using the mass array of mediums available today and
increasingly offering tailored solutions to consumers who are overcome by choice. Monologue
has given way to dialogue [4]. However, in some cases this has created a juxtaposition of
opposites with consumers even more confused [5].
Even as late as the 1980’s organisations focused on selling features i.e. the colour, the quality,
the size etc. of the product or service [6]. However increases in competition, globalisation and
consumers who were becoming more discerning and knowledgeable meant that marketers
had to convert these features to benefits, and thus segmenting and targeting of customers
and their needs became the backbone of relationship marketing [7]. The digital age has given
the consumer an over exposure now of opportunities and possibilities, but this has left them
confused and cynical [8].
49
DESTINATION MARKETING
Destination marketing has been at the vanguard of change realising that they now have to offer
consumers solutions rather than features or even benefits. Westfield in London [9] promotes
itself as a special day out to its target audience, focusing not just on an array of shops but
the overall holistic experience including champagne bars, personal shoppers and the like to
position Westfield as an exclusive shopping experience. Afternoon tea at Claridge’s [10] is no
longer about the sandwiches rather offers an attractive special venue to celebrate something
special focusing on the overall experience. Warwick Castle [11] no longer focuses on the castle
but positions itself as a destination for a family day out promoting ease of getting there, the
entertainment and the food venues. This shift from marketing features and benefits to marketing
solutions has begun to filter into other segments and industries [12]. Even organisations such as
AgustaWestland [13] no longer focuses not just the manufacture of helicopters, but provide the
service and repair, supply of spares and importantly even the training. Thus it can be suggested
that they provide a solution to a rotary aircraft requirement. However in order to offer a solution
the organisation has to understand what the motivation is [14].
THE HIGHER EDUCATION ENVIRONMENT
It is against this background that today’s students are now looking to further their education
into higher education. Traditionally the Russell group of universities have focused their
marketing on their heritage and prestige and the specialism that they offer [15]. Newer
universities have tended to focus on their specialisms and facilities. However the landscape
of higher education has changed dramatically with more opportunities for higher education
to be delivered within further education establishments, thus widening participation. As
William, Osei and Omar (2012 p.1) point out ‘As Higher Education Institutions (HEI) become
more marketised and increasingly promotionalised, brand building gains in intensity and names
become increasingly important’ [16]. It is against this context that HEI’s and Further Education
establishment must create clear differentiation through branding [17].
Of course the other dramatic change has been the introduction and now the rapid increase
of tuition fees. Students, parents and sponsoring employers are beginning to change their
criteria when choosing education and are looking at the overall holistic experience including
not just the course, but the venue, the facilities and importantly the location. This as Lowrie
in 2007 purports means HEI branding must pay attention to the intangibility and inseparability
aspects of HE services [18]. The higher the fees the higher the risk to the consumer and thus
the greater the uncertainty [19], these have to be explored and addressed in order to provide
the solutions. The delivery of higher education in an FE context has two potential challenges,
convincing local students that higher education is still a viable option and attracting students
from further afield by suggesting that the college has the solution to their needs.
The focus on the overall solution including place offers colleges a potential competitive
advantage. Truro College offers a degree in archaeology it promotes this with a silhouette of a
tin mine and a cairn stone. The course itself focuses on archaeology in the West Country; the
course is promoted in national magazines such as the History Magazine [20] and Archaeology
Today magazine. It offers a solution to those interested in archaeology ‘why not study in
an area renowned for its historical artefacts?’ Kingston Maurwood is known for animal and
agricultural related courses, their website focuses heavily on the countryside surrounding
it [21]. The argument may be made that these colleges have natural attributes however the
place does not have to be limited to the usual campus; Yeovil College ran a Heritage Gardening
course at Hestercombe Gardens [22] attracting students from far afield. The venue was very
much as a part of the offering.
50
YEOVIL COLLEGE
So what about a college in a small town, such as Yeovil College? Yeovil unfortunately is not
well known apart from being the home of a helicopter manufacturer and near to a local naval
base. Collaboration with the town of Yeovil in terms of its marketing might be useful, currently
its strapline, ‘Heart of the country, mind of a city’ [23], suggests that whilst positioned in a
rural idyll it has the capacity of hosting dynamic businesses such as AgustaWestland and
venues such as the Innovation Centre. The idea of studying in the heart of rural Somerset with
good links would be appealing to a certain target. The small, friendly town is replicated then in
a small friendly campus which will appeal to the student that wants something other than the
large cosmopolitan campus set in a metropolitan area.
Promotion is one part of the solution and marketers are familiar with the other components
of the marketing mix which need to present if a solution to a student’s need is to be met
[24]. The product or course would need to be considered to reflect the solution, for example
a History and English degree could reflect local authors, and links with local history. Art
courses could exploit the wonderful scenery and local artists and engineering courses could
ensure that local needs were met, whilst benefiting from strong association with world class
organisations. Music and performing arts could tap in to the rich environment of local artists,
actors and of course the proximity of the Glastonbury Festival. Collaboration with local groups,
specialist organisations, and the use of guest speakers will all help build a solution package.
The ‘place’ aspect of the marketing mix [25] is an important component; a Further education
establishment such as Yeovil offering Higher Education courses can never compete in terms
of facilities with the likes of larger establishments however, Yeovil is in a beautiful part of the
world, a few miles from the largest hill fort in Europe, and in the shadow of the supposed
Camelot. It is surrounded by small towns favoured by famous artisans such Bruton, Sherborne
and Castle Cary. The ‘place’ aspect should be an integral part of the package and needs to
be promoted as such, avoiding the 17% of students who were reported in the Understanding
education in further education institutions in 2012 who said that they thought they had
applied to a university and were unaware that they would be studying at a college [26]. Of
course ‘Place’ as a marketing tool to create solution needs to work in collaboration with the
other parts of the marketing mix such as processes such as an alumni, blended learning [27],
work based learning opportunities, links with local employers who recruit from the college
and dual award opportunities, so that students gain not just a degree but other professional
qualification, relevant experience and possibly even job opportunities. Finally ‘people’, whilst
colleges are unlikely to be able to offer the level of support that universities can, they can
provide a much closer support, with smaller classes and a range of support staff.
CONCLUSION
In attempt to try to find a solution to their needs, consumers cut through the morass of
messages by relying more and more on recommendations from friends and colleagues [28].
Therefore the marketing of solutions to potential higher education students is only part of the
answer. Ensuring that a college’s proposition is talked about and hopefully recommended will
increasingly become key. Therefore blogging, YouTube videos, twitter feeds, Facebook should
become prime mediums to deliver the solution message just as destination marketing has
developed [29]. The power of word of mouth is recognised by destination marketing and used
to good effect, often requesting visitors to rate their experiences on tripadvisor and the like [30].
The marketing of higher education especially within a further educational environment can
indeed learn from destination marketing in particular learning how to propose solutions, which
incorporates within that the important asset of ‘place’. Finally it must learn how to use social
media and the changes in consumer behaviour to promote these solutions and encourage
word of mouth. After all, the perceived risk and uncertainty of committing to higher education
is set to increase and is far greater than then that of destination marketing and thus the
adoption of these techniques could be even more critical to successful marketing.
51
REFERENCES
[1] Ren C & Stilli Blichfeldt B, ‘One Clear Image? Challenging Simplicity in Place Branding’,
Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism, Vol 11 Issue 4, 2011
[2] Trembath R, Romanuik J and Lockshin L,’ Building the destination Brand: An empirical
comparison of Two Approaches’, Journal of Travel and Tourism, Vol 28, issue 8, 2011
[3] Evans M, Jamal A, and Foxall G, Consumer Behaviour, (Chichester John Wiley & Sons,
2009)
[4] Solis B, Engage p1, (New York John Wiley & Sons, 2011)
[5] Stalnaker S, Hub Culture, the Next Wave of Urban Consumers, (Singapore, John Wiley
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