My Action Research Project (ARP) is part of a larger project I am conducting with the overall aim to develop a framework for decolonising fashion design practice and advance a cultural sustainability agenda. Within this broader context, my ARP intends to answer the following research question:
In what ways can design lecturers create safe spaces that enable ethical cross-cultural connections between students and vulnerable people (such as refugees)?
Since my Action Research Project involves collecting data from human participants, I had to be mindful of the ethical implications of my research in order to protect the participants and their interests throughout the process (Flick, 2006). I had to ensure that a safe space was created, and safeguarding measures were in place at all times. I made the students aware that, if engaging with the traumatic stories of displacement of their refugee collaborators triggered unpleasant emotions, they could access counselling services and support available to them via UAL.
I followed the UAL Code of Practice for Educational Ethics, based on the guiding principles of care, respect for persons, social justice, and beneficence. I also referenced the UAL Ethics for Making website which provided me with an effective framework for embedding the values of consent, collaboration, freedom, representation and responsibility within my practice as a design educator. In drafting the Ethics forms for my project involving vulnerable people such as refugees, I also felt the need to adopt a framework of ethics of care (Gilligan, 1982), which challenges traditional moral theories as male-centric and problematic to the extent that they omit or downplay certain virtues and values (e.g. care and compassion) usually associated with women. Moreover, drawing on Lenette (2022), I was aware of the need for my ethical research to be culturally safe, by letting participants determine whether the research process values and privileges their uniques perspectives, as an essential effort towards decolonising the academy.
In the process of drafting the ethics forms, I considered the principle of consent, giving participants the option to opt in or out of the process, without feeling obliged to engage in my research project. I considered the settings of the data collection activities, and in the end I decided to collect data in the classroom to ensure the safety of the participants and also not to burden students and refugee collaborators having to travel elsewhere to engage in my Action Research Project.
At the first group tutorial, my tutor asked me how I was planning to recruit the refugee collaborators, and in the Ethical Enquiry Form I clarified that they are already participating in my on-going larger research project, and I would offer them the opportunity to also join my ARP as volunteers. I considered the option to record the sessions with the view of making them available on a digital platform afterwards, but I decided to only record the talks and not the seminars, in order not to compromise the genuine and open interactions between students and refugee collaborators in these workshops. Drawing on my previous experience with the UAL Data Protection Team, I decided to reframe the Consent Form as ‘Participation Agreement’. This is because of a problem identified in the ethics process for which data can be collected with a person’s consent but often undermining legal ‘consent’ as a basis. On the other hand, I didn’t want to ask participants (especially refugees whose first language is not English) to sign legal contracts, as this would be not sensible or viable.
Below, you can find the Ethical Enquiry Form signed by my tutor, the Participant Information Sheet, and the Participation Agreement which I used for my ARP.
Throughout my action research project, I followed a cycle of planning, action and reflection (as per Bradbury, 2015) to influence an aspect of teaching and learning which was the focus of my project. In this process, I used the following methods to collect qualitative data:
In this project, I adopted an ethnographic approach, and conducted participant observations to holistically investigate several aspects of the intervention for an extended period of time. As per Mattelmäki (2006), this was an exploratory, rather than evaluative, method which took place in natural settings (i.e. the classrooms), and was open to refinements throughout the process as new learning shaped future observations. I considered whether I should hire a research assistant or collaborator to help me with the data collection, and to allow participants to be more open and honest in sharing their feedback. However, this was not possible given the limited resources available (I didn’t have budget to pay someone else, and I didn’t want to ask people to volunteer and do the work for free) but also with the view of avoiding having external people join the masterclasses as observers, as it could feel intrusive for the participants (especially for vulnerable people such as the refugee collaborators).
I had initially considered asking participants to fill in two questionnaires, one at the beginning and one at the end of the project, but finally – as discussed also in the group tutorials – I decided to use only one questionnaire at the end of the project. This choice was due to the time limitations of the project, and the complexity of handling large amounts of data, but also to avoid overwhelming participants with filling in too many forms at the start of the research (when their first impression of the project is built), considering they already had to fill in the Ethics Forms. In the design of the questionnaire, I included a mix of multiple choice questions (to be quick and easy to answer, to break the ice) and semi-structured questions to allow participants to openly share their insights on their change in skills and knowledge, their main take-away from their project, their feedback on what worked well and what could be improved. I was very keen for the questionnaire to be no longer than 2 pages, to make it easier and not overwhelming for people to complete, especially considering that refugees are often asked to fill in many forms. Moreover, I decided for the questionnaires to be anonymous to allow participants to more honestly share their feedback.
I started drafting the questionnaires during the PgCert workshops and iterated them thanks to feedback from my peers. I created one questionnaire for students and one for refugees, with slightly different wording, to gather insights on how the project contributed (or not) to fostering a safe space for interactions and changing their perspectives of their collaborators. After getting feedback from my tutor and peers at the group tutorial, I printed the final version of the questionnaires (see files below), and used them at the final session of the Collaborative Challenge on 6th December. I handed in the questionnaires in the middle of the session, to give people more time to fill them in without rushing, and to avoid the risk that they would leave the room without returning the questionnaires to me. In the end, I collected data from 26 students and 6 refugee collaborators, which I think was substantial, considering the scope of the ARP.
Drawing on Morgan (1988), I had initially considered also conducting a focus group with 3 students and 3 refugee collaborators to gain more in-depth data and compensate the limitations of a written questionnaire. I had also considered whether the focus group should be conducted online or in person; while in person would likely be more engaging, I decided that the online delivery would contribute to overcoming financial barriers for refugees to travel to the venue of the focus group; moreover, delivering the session online, I could automatically transcribe it, saving me time for the data analysis process. I had planned this session to be delivered the week after the students’ project presentations, allowing myself one week of time for reflection and planning before the next cycle of data collection. I am aware that a focus group would have opened up more interesting issues, but I had already collected enough data through the above-mentioned methods, and this extra step was not deemed needed considering also the time limitations of this ARP, and to avoid over-asking of participants, who had already shared with me lots of insights throughout the ARP and my on-going larger research project.
I then thematically analysed the data (as per Kara, 2015), following a manual, iterative process that encompassed data reduction, display and conclusion drawing. Drawing from Miles and Huberman (1994), the process of data reduction entailed selecting, synthesising, and transforming data. I produced data displays in the form of tables to represent coded data (with category names attributed to meaningful segments of the transcriptions) and facilitate the recognition and comparison of themes, identified as patterns cutting across the data. Finally, I drew conclusions from the data by identifying themes and sub-themes, and outlining relationships between them.