Team Research as an Alternative Model.

Abstract

This presentation represents some reflections on a research experience in England while on an exchange professorship during the 1972-1973 academic year. It was during this tenure that the opportunity to explore the concept of team-research in art education was presented to me, and although we were unable to develop an in-depth study, (since the total involvement was only for two terms), some judgments regarding the usefulness and advantages of this approach to research can, perhaps, be reasonably made. The Setting. Some notion of the milieu will be required to provide perspective and so I will briefly discuss the setting in which I found myself in England. In the English system the university proper does not directly involve itself with professional training as such even though a college of education exists on its campus. All of the arts are within the polytechnic structure thus a school of art and design and the school of music, for example, are not a part of the university proper. The School of Art Education, physically and structurally separate from the University of Birmingham, is essentially a graduate program in that a four year diploma is typical for entrance. The fifth year is thus required for certification to teach at the secondary level. This program is referred to as the Advanced Teacher Diploma (ATD) course. In addition to this course, the School of Art Education offers two others, one called the Supplementary Course, services teachers who not only have completed an ATD course but have taught long enough to be eligible for a kind of sabbatical or secondment from duty. It often has students from areas outside the arts, e.g., elementary teachers. la guage or science teachers. Such a course may well be viewed as a possible direction for the current thrust toward the arts in basic education in the United States. The third course, and the one involved in the research described here, is the advanced course of study in the school: the Diploma in Art Education (DAE), comprised of experienced teachers in art education, some of whom teach in colleges but most of whom teach in public (secondary) schools. This course is divided into three modes, or tracks: philosophical, art therapy and art studies mode. It was the latter mode with which the team approach was developed and used. Birmingham is the center of the English Midlands, representing the industrial region of the country from the carpet industries, through the jewelry and pottery industries, to Sheffield Steel. Its history in the development of many industries and crafts makes it an ideal location for certain kinds of research and thus it was possible to select a problem suitable to the task we set for ourselves. Birmingham was the mother of the Industrial Revolution itself and continues its industrial place of prominence today. There were ten adult students in the DAE mode under the direct supervision of Mr. Eddie Price. During the course of one year these students were to study the literature, identify a problem and research it a very big job considering that our students at The Pennsylvania State University often spend three years to do the same thing. The shorter time in England hinders, in my opinion, development toward meaningful research. It becomes primarily a kind of