Category: Fun

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Drawing as a mediating artefact to support Responsible Research and Innovation with fun

by Alexandra Okada

In the context of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), drawing when combined with other methods can be considered a useful instrument for explorations of participants’ views. RRI aims to examine the priorities, views and values of all participants; so that scientific development is aligned with the expectation and needs of societal actors including youth (EC, 2020).

A research study in Ireland developed by Tatlow-Golden (2011) investigated the views of young people about “Who am I?” through the activities and types of relationships they valued most. This was explored through drawings and other graphic means such as ‘Identity Pies’, as well as interviews. Drawing combined with conversation and writing was important to identify what the young people thought was important and why.

“When young people talked, drew and wrote about what was important to them, and why, they foregrounded many relationships beyond peer popularity (friendship, and relationships with parents, siblings, extended family and even pets) and activities beyond sports and school (very many creative and active pastimes)…

Young people almost never mentioned school or curricular learning — unless it was to discuss relationships or activities in the school context, or the obligation to ‘get an education’. ” (Tatlow-Golden & Montgomery, 2020:13)

This study was selected for the RUMPUS – we explore fun – blog to highlight the importance of selecting enjoyable instruments and procedures that help participants to express themselves in a more pleasant way.  Drawing combined with dialogue can promote the involvement of youth to respond to questions with more freedom than articulating words. It also supports researchers by creating opportunities for a more spontaneous conversation and reflection which can generate more meaningful data when participants are enjoying the experience.

The methodology of this study is also useful for CONNECT and OLAF researchers who are interested in fun participatory approaches to explore learning and engagement.  Drawing can be an engaging and helpful artefact to externalise views and values where words may be more difficult than visual representation. Artefacts that are enjoyable for participants are helpful to obtain more expressive and authentic views; so that the values, expectations and priorities of young people can be unveiled in the research. Although Tatlow-Golden found that participants aged up to 13 years readily engaged with these tasks, an important feature of using drawing in research is that some participants lack confidence in their own drawing ability, so it is crucial to create an atmosphere in the research encounter of exploration and play, rather than setting an expectation that participants will make a ‘good’ drawing.

The work of Tatlow-Golden (Tatlow-Golden & Guerin, 2010, 2017; Tatlow-Golden, 2011) is considered original and relevant because it examined the voices of youth about their lived   experiences through qualitative instruments (conversation, drawing and writing) to question the validity of quantitative self-concept scales that are widely used in psychological and educational research. This body of work found that conventional self-concept research scales are limited as they omit domains of self that young people value.

Tatlow – Golden and Montgomery (2020) highlight that “it is impossible to  imagine  how  psychological  measures  that  do  not incorporate children’s perspectives can yield accurate, meaningful psychological findings about young people’s selves.

Without such insights, psychologists are unlikely to achieve their ultimate goal of supporting children and young people to develop and fulfil their potential, and so this is another area in which Childhood Studies perspectives and methods have the potential to enrich psychological research”.

The methodological approach that combines drawing and dialogue to for participants to express themselves is congruent with RRI which highlights the importance of incorporating participants’ perspectives – their thoughts, views and voices during the process of research and innovation.

Figure 1: An example of a child drawing (1) basketball after school, (2) breaktime, and (3) videogames at home   from Tatlow ‐ Golden & Guerin

Figure 2:  Procedures to combine drawing, dialogue and writing from Tatlow ‐ Golden & Guerin (2011)

Figure 3:  Visual Analogue Scale to check participants’ self-rated importance of aspects of self featured in their drawing   from Tatlow ‐ Golden (2011), see also Tatlow-Golden & Guerin (2017)

Figure 4:  Identity pie from Tatlow ‐ Golden (2011)

Other studies that use drawing as part of the research methodology also highlight that drawing needs to be integrated with other instruments. Sondergaard and Reventlow (2019) examined drawing as a facilitating approach when conducting research among children. Their findings revealed that children expressed feelings, emotions and, experiences through drawing. The authors suggest that visual representation helps children to express themselves more easily than through words. However, two requirements are vital, including other fieldwork data to support the interpretation of drawings and above all having a solid contextual understanding of the field.

Blog Video Interview   

Mimi, could you please let us know what inspire you to use drawing in your research? What were the challenges and benefits?

What are your recommendations for researchers who are looking for research instruments that are fun (children will enjoy it) to explore fun in learning ?

Glossary

Identity Pie

 

 is a   graphical method  for representing the relative importance of my self-concept domains used to describe who I am.
Self-concept
(Who am I?)
me-self		 Is a self-description about what I am;
it  includes self-representation, for example,
about my values, roles, activities, goals in my life.
It is closely related to self-esteem
Self-esteem how much I appreciate and like myself, what I am.

References

Søndergaard, E., & Reventlow, S. (2019). Drawing as a facilitating approach when conducting research among children. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 18, 1609406918822558.

Tatlow-Golden, Mimi and Montgomery, Heather (2020). Childhood Studies and child psychology: Disciplines in dialogue? Children & Society (Early access).

Guerin, Suzanne and Tatlow-Golden, Mimi (2019). How Valid Are Measures of Children’s Self-Concept/ Self-Esteem? Factors and Content Validity in Three Widely Used Scales. Child Indicators Research, 12(5) pp. 1507–1528.

Tatlow-Golden, Mimi (2011) Who I Am: Exploring the Nature, Salience and Meaning of Children’s Active and Social Selves. PhD Thesis. University College Dublin.

Tatlow-Golden, Mimi and Guerin, Suzanne (2010).   ‘My favourite things to do’ and ‘my favourite people’: Exploring salient aspects of children’s self-concept. Childhood, 17(4) pp. 545–562

Questions suggested by Mimi for researchers and readers to establish a conversation about drawing in research: 

1. What are the challenges of using drawing in research?

2. What are the recommendations for analysing drawings?

3. How about reliability and rigour? Is drawing reliable as a projective method?

You are very welcome to leave your comments on our blog … We will be glad to interact with you!

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“I like to climb and pick coconuts”

Moving Towards A Child-Guided Agentic Participatory Research Methodology: 7 To 11 Years Children’s Experiences Of Physical Activity.

Plowright-Pepper, Linda Caroline (2020). “I like to climb and pick coconuts”. Moving Towards A Child-Guided Agentic Participatory Research Methodology: 7 To 11 Years Children’s Experiences Of Physical Activity. PhD thesis The Open University.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21954/ou.ro.000121bd

Abstract

In 2018 only 18% of children met the UK Chief Medical Officers’ recommended physical activity levels in England (Public Health England, 2018). Despite emerging evidence suggesting that declines in physical activity may originate from 7 years old, little research has been undertaken with middle childhood children. This study addresses gaps in research which gives children an opportunity to express their lived experiences of physical activity.

The aim of this thesis was to evaluate the extent to which a new child-guided approach to researching lived experiences of middle childhood physical activity provided insights into children’s activity choices and familial influences. Informed by social constructivism this study assumed that children were agentic social actors capable not only of contributing to research but capable of guiding research into matters which affected them. Participatory and existential phenomenological methodologies were brought together in a new model of agentic child-guided (AChiG) participatory research. Physical activity was conceptualised as an embodied experience and framed as an individually socioecologically contextualised phenomenon (e.g. Merleau-Ponty 1962).

I enabled coresearchers to identify fresh conceptualisations of physical activity through the use of the AChiG model. Coresearchers conceptualised physical activity for instance as ‘conquering creative challenges’ and ‘playing at’ structured activities.

High levels of imagination and creativity together with a strong motivation to connect with close family members underpinned fun and enjoyment which drove physical activity. Coresearchers also contextualised physical activity within a broad range of physically active and inactive free-choice pursuits. These competed for coresearchers time in fluid, layered and spontaneous ways. These insights and lessons learnt from the new child-guided approach provide potentially fruitful strands to inform further research.

“Sources of fun and enjoyment were multi-stranded and interconnecting. For instance, perceived competence and a sense of mastery(Mccarthy and Jones, 2007b)could be underpinned by a sense of autonomy and agency in the decision to participate,(Mackintosh et al., 2011). Fun was found both in the activity itself but also in having a friend with whom to share the activity (Agbuga, Xiang and McBride, 2012)”

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In celebration of sensory methods and movement

By Sarah Huxley

Can you understand what an ice cream is without eating it, but by only looking at it and describing it? Without experiencing its texture, taste, coldness, flavour, smell, and examining the multi-faceted and layered sensory experience that is all part of the process of eating an ice cream. This process is in its own way a celebration of sensory experience, movement and being. The process of eating an ice cream is a blog post in itself, but I won’t digress.

Source: Unsplash @Foodism360

For my research on exploring fun and learning, I understand ‘fun’ to be an ice cream of sorts. This may also be partly because I am writing this blog in 32-degree heat, but the metaphor stands.

Fun is an ambiguous concept, which has different connotations in different cultures and deserves to be better understood alongside learning processes.  This is the premise upon which my thesis is based. I am looking at what fun is, does and why it may be important with a sport for social change organisation called Coaches Across Continents (CAC) https://coachesacrosscontinents.org/.

Source: Coaches Across Continents (CAC)

For the purposes of this post, I want to acknowledge and focus on the work of the anthropologist Tim Ingold, in particular, his joyful book “Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description” (2011). Here he sets the case for his beliefs that “it is by moving that we know… a being that moves, knows and describes must be observant…[and] is being alive to the world” (Ingold, 2011: xii). Ingold does not like binaries: the mind is not a separate entity to the body (drawing from Merleu Ponty), nor is the world we inhabit a separate entity to humanity. For him ‘wayfaring’ is the rhythmic patterning of how people contribute alongside “through their movements to its [the worlds] ongoing formation” (p.44).

Ingold (2011) reminds sensory researchers of the bias of “head over heels”, and that the sense of touch, especially via feet and its wayfaring with the ground, especially in Western research practices is often ignored. Actually, there is much to be learnt as a researcher from his call to focus on the movement of intransitive and haptic experiences: not from the “accumulation of knowledge through successive points of rest”, but rather to consider that “for the most part we do not perceive things from a single vantage point, but rather by walking around them” (p.45).

As I am starting to build and prepare my methods using sensory ethnography, and this will mean participating and observing the ‘on-pitch’ games that CAC develop and use with their partners and children across the globe. Ingold’s work, therefore, reminds me to not lose grounding with my feet and embodied experiences, and to not simply focus on what I see at certain points. Rather examine if and how my sense of touch and movement throughout can communicate a reality about how fun and learning are understood through the play-based games of CAC.

Source: Ramesh Iyer

By the way, my favourite ice cream is pistachio: it’s not just about the vivid colour, or the visual audacity of it – I love the crunchiness of the nuts alongside the creamy texture, and it’s almost almond taste. It reminds me to be grateful for being alive.

To learn more about my PhD research or discuss your ice cream preferences you can follow me here: @AidHoover or write to me at: [email protected]

 

 

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Fun learning with Problem-based Learning

Rebecca Ferguson, innovator of pedagogy and watcher of Buffy joined Pedagodzzila podcast

Source: Pedagodzilla Podcast 

Can we figure out the classroom conundrum of problem-based learning, and the metacognitive monster of computational thinking?

Source: Anna Thetical

She suggested the Innovating Pedagogy report   Innovating Pedagogy Blog (access here),

 

 

Download Innovating Pedagogy 2020

Please add your comments on the report and the innovations on this blog, or comment on social media using the hashtag #IP2020report,

and try something a little different in the shownotes by the way, here’s a cheeky cheat sheet  by @pedagodzilla.

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Complexities of responding to children and their rights

The interactive workshop “complexities of responding to children and their rights” was organised by PhD and EdD students  in WELS- ECYS on the 19th of November 2019

The event was held at the Children’s Research Centre of Open University UK.

Linda Plowright presented her work about “Moving towards an agent child-guided research methodology”; and introduced core research-choice methods

Lucy Rodriguez Leon introduced her work about “Exploring children’s understanding of text through mediated dialogue”; and described ethnographic methods.

Petra Vackova  discussed  her research study about  “Felt, lively, embodied explorations of social inclusion around early-years art making in the Czech Republic”; and  explained response-able methods

The event was very engaging, fun and interactive with discussion, brainstorming, post-its mind-maps including activities in groups and also with the plenary.

The event received participants from WELS and other faculties including supervisors, early carrier researchers, lecturers, senior fellows, professors and new PhD students.

An important report was also launched,  celebrating the OU’s 50 anniversary.

Chamberlain, L., Afroze, J., Cooper, V. & Collins, T. (2019) Representing children’s rights from discussion through to illustration and interpretation, Milton Keynes, The Open University Children’s Research Centre and Amnesty UK International

download: https://wels.open.ac.uk/sites/wels.open.ac.uk/files/files/Rep_childrens_rights_Res_Report_Nov_2019.pdf

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RUMPUS wins the Open Education Consortium 2019 – Open App Award for excellence!

by Alexandra Okada

The Board of Directors and Awards Committee of the Open Education Consortium has just announced that the OU Rumpus Centre received the Open App Award for VR classroom

Milano, November 26th, 2019, Politecnico Bovisar Open Education Global Conference 2019 #OEGlobal19 www.oeconsortium.orgr  photo by Matteo Bergamini, CC

The Open App Award for Excellence is presented to an exceptional instrument proven to be an essential tool for professionals, trainers and teachers for building, and delivering open education.

This award is selected by the OE Awards Committee to recognize truly exceptional work in Open Education.

UK 2019, Open University female PhD students cocreating the Open APP photo by Dr Alexandra Okada , CC BY SA

The OU’s new interdisciplinary RUMPUS research group is based in the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education, and Language Studies but has members from across the university and outside it. We examine the role of fun in learning and life, for both children and adults, and from both children’s and adults’ perspectives. 

BR Feb  22th, 2019, UNISUL photo by Sangar Zucchi , CC

The Open App project is an initiative of Rumpus Centre led by Dr. Alexandra Okada with a group of partners in the UK (David Wortley) and Brazil (Sangar Zucchi, Simone Fuchtler and  Ana Karine Rocha – PhD at the OU supervised by Dr Okada). It focuses on Open Educational Resources (OER) to be designed by youth based on ‘open schooling’ approach to foster skills for Responsible Research and Innovation. It is funded by Brazil government and supported by 360 in 360 Immersive Experiences (2018-2019). These OER for mobile devices about topical socio-scientific issues can be used, openly and freely, in formal and non-formal settings to enhance students and citizens’ immersive learning with fun and engagement. Our studies suggest that Virtual Reality (VR) can transform the way educational content is delivered making it easy to immerse learners in time and space with real-life settings relevant for society.

BR Mar  05th, 2019, UNISUL photo by Sangar Zucchi , CC

The Open App project team will be applauded for their dedication to openness, access, high quality and innovation at the Open Education Global Conference in Milan, Italy on November 26th.  In this event, Dr. Okada was invited to present the Open App project and talk about her work focused on exploring “fun” with immersive learning.

References:

OEC Global Photos

Okada, Alexandra., Rocha, A. K. L. T., Fuchter, S. K., Zucchi, S., & Wortley, D. (2018, December) Formative assessment of inquiry skills for responsible research and innovation using 3D virtual reality glasses and face recognition. Technology Enhanced Assessment (pp. 91-101). Springer, Cham

Sheehy, Kieron; Garcia Carrizosa, Helena; Rix, Jonathan; Seale, Jane and Hayhoe, Simon (2019). Inclusive museums and augmented reality. Affordances, participation, ethics and fun.The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum (In Press).  http://oro.open.ac.uk/view/person/ks47.html