Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education - Volume 18, Issue 1, 2019

This article attempts to characterize the maturation of the field of research embodied in this journal. This field of research is described as pedagogic in character, and related to the disciplines of art, design and media, within the higher education research context. The article describes the original context for the development of the field, related to the parallel, more mature development of the field of higher education research. It goes on to describe key influences on the development of the field of research, including research assessment exercises in the national and international context, development of higher education systems and research into the student experience and predominant themes in the development of the field of enquiry. Themes identified include research development and situated practices in learning and teaching. The article draws comparisons with the development of a field of enquiry, by referring to review studies in the fields of higher education research and design research. The article concludes that there is much evidence of a mature field of enquiry and argues for further demonstration through synthesis and application of established higher education research methods and frameworks.

This article reports on an art project carried out by undergraduates in a core course entitled ‘Art and Innovation’ offered at Koc University in Istanbul, based on traditional handmade carpets in Turkey. The project enables 23 undergraduates from various disciplines to become acquainted with material culture and art as they reflect on the carpets’ declining presence in contemporary culture. The goals of the project are first to acquaint the students with the art history and symbolism of carpets from Turkey, then to invite students to investigate contemporary artworks created in relation to carpets and finally to move into sketching and discussions later to have the students conceptualize an artwork that reflects the changing status of handmade carpets and the weaving tradition as an indicator of transformations in society.

In this article we investigate the student experience of risk-taking in an open-ended design project that appeared to be ideally suited to encourage risk-taking. The article is informed by a phenomenological case study documenting student experience of risk-taking during a concentrated, week-long design project. The data revealed multiple instances where students had taken risks and how they had experienced risk-taking. Three significant aspects of risk-taking in design education were identified in the data and explored. The first aspect considers how the students’ experience correlated with a theoretical educational approach that encourages risk-taking. The second provides a broad overview of the students’ experience of risk-taking during the project. The third draws out common student experiences that highlight that risk-taking is often prompted by the undefined and unexpected elements of a project and gaps in student knowledge, experience and skills.

The article is developed from a paper presented at the European Society for Research on the Education of Adults (ESREA) Access, Learning Careers and Identity Network Conference 2017: Exploring Learning Contexts: Implications for Access, Learning Careers and Identities. It explores how the recontextualization of creative practice and communal living as part of a pedagogic device reveals the ideology behind what constitutes a professional artist and a successful art student. This is achieved through the application of Bernstein’s theories of horizontal and vertical discourse in conjunction with his theory of the pedagogic device to a case study based on a residency at ‘The Artists’ House’, based in Canale Di Tenno in Italy. It was found that the participating students were able to perform those successful creative practitioner identities that were regulated by official art and design pedagogic discourse. However, the Artists’ House residency also reproduced disadvantage. Those students who did not take part were in danger of being positioned as unsuccessful creative practitioners because they could be seen by tutors, their peers and themselves as not being gregarious, risk-taking or globally orientated.

Creativity is essential in the engineering design process to achieve innovative results. However, research has consistently shown that among the many factors that foster creativity in engineering education, one of the most central requirements is risk-taking, which is not widely covered in engineering design education. This article attempts to understand the risk-taking approach in an engineering design education environment both from the students’ and the instructors’ perspective by conducting a qualitative comparative study in an Australian University. Overall, the study finds that instructors’ teaching method has an influence on students’ approach towards risk-taking. The evidence shows that engineering instructors are risk adverse and hesitate to adopt new approaches in education. However, fostering creativity in education requires a creative approach, which is possible through risk-taking. Encouraging engineering students to adopt a risk-taking approach during the design process is not possible until the engineering instructors and engineering faculties are willing to take risks in their own teaching methods.

As learning experiences in higher education become more blended, new ways of working in digital spaces are explored. One approach can be the integration of social media. This article unpacks how social media integration confronts the public performance of pre-service teachers (PSTs) in the higher education context, and their understanding of arts making and art education. In integrating Twitter into the learning experience, explorations into pedagogies that support risk taking are brought to the forefront. Identification of five different types of adopters is presented. Each of these classifications is connected to behaviours that embody risk taking in relation to both social media use and exploration of teaching art, which demonstrates a participatory culture within the space of Twitter. Revealed is the complexity of risktaking behaviours that embrace the varying approaches to use, confidence, familiarity and transferability supported by pedagogical design underpinned by teacher presence.

Current design practice is as much about understanding behaviour and culture as it is about material intelligence. Relevant, effective design is about working with people rather than for people. As we acknowledge this paradigm, we also recognize the need to better understand our individual selves to better understand others. This article details the affective pedagogy behind the Transforming Mindsets studio, which directly addresses explicit teaching of intrapersonal skills in learning to design with others in authentic inquiry-based assessment. This empirical educational study utilized observational data, self-reporting tools, interviews and a six-month followup interview with students to observe how risk plays a role in shifting learning mindsets. Students reported that the experimental studio changed their relationship with learning, strengthened their willingness to take risks and improved the quality of their collaborations. However, post-studio interviews revealed the challenge of integrating intrapersonal skills and practices into future learning contexts. This article proposes the importance of design education considering not just how the designer creates but also how the designer acts and becomes in the world.

Risk in education in the creative field of communication design is usually seen in connection with creativity as subjective expression and innovation as desired impact. This article positions risk in relation to the political in design education. It puts forward the argument that a particular type of risk-taking in education can work towards shifting design from a position of a service-providing activity towards a more emancipated practice, which would not comply with the pressures of neoliberal capitalism. To counter the current state of compliance this article suggests a three-level model of extradisciplinary risk-taking as institutional critique. The case of Memefest and Design Futures is discussed. Theoretical analysis is combined with (auto) ethnography and qualitative research.